|
Part IV
Part IV
Those medicines which are vulgar, and serve for the ordinary poison, are
made of the juice of a root called tupara; the same also quencheth
marvellously the heat of burning fevers, and healeth inward wounds and broken
veins that bleed within the body. But I was more beholding to the Guianians
than any other; for Antonio de Berreo told me that he could never attain to
the knowledge thereof, and yet they taught me the best way of healing as well
thereof as of all other poisons. Some of the Spaniards have been cured in
ordinary wounds of the common poisoned arrows with the juice of garlic. But
this is a general rule for all men that shall hereafter travel the Indies
where poisoned arrows are used, that they must abstain from drink. For if
they take any liquor into their body, as they shall be marvellously provoked
thereunto by drought, I say, if they drink before the wound be dressed, or
soon upon it, there is no way with them but present death.
And so I will return again to our journey, which for this third day we
finished, and cast anchor again near the continent on the left hand between
two mountains, the one called Aroami and the other Aio. I made no stay here
but till midnight; for I feared hourly lest any rain should fall, and then
it had been impossible to have gone any further up, notwithstanding that there
is every day a very strong breeze and easterly wind. I deferred the search of
the country on Guiana side till my return down the river.
The next day we sailed by a great island in the middle of the river,
called Manoripano; and, as we walked awhile on the island, while the galley
got ahead of us, there came for us from the main a small canoa with seven
or eight Guianians, to invite us to anchor at their port, but I deferred till
my return. It was that cacique to whom those Nepoios went, which came with us
from the town of Toparimaca. And so the fifth day we reached as high up as
the province of Aromaia, the country of Morequito, whom Berreo executed, and
anchored to the west of an island called Murrecotima, ten miles long and five
broad. And that night the cacique Aramiary, to whose town we made our long
and hungry voyage out of the river of Amana, passed by us.
The next day we arrived at the port of Morequito, and anchored there,
sending away one of our pilots to seek the king of Aromaia, uncle to
Morequito, slain by Berreo as aforesaid. The next day following, before noon,
he came to us on foot from his house, which was fourteen English miles,
himself being a hundred and ten years old, and returned on foot the same day;
and with him many of the borderers, with many women and children, that came
to wonder at our nation and to bring us down victual, which they did in great
plenty, as venison, pork, hens, chickens, fowl, fish, with divers sorts of
excellent fruits and roots, and great abundance of pinas, the princess of
fruits that grow under the sun, especially those of Guiana. They brought us,
also, store of bread and of their wine, and a sort of paraquitos no bigger
than wrens, and of all other sorts both small and great. One of them gave me
a beast called by the Spaniards armadillo, which they call cassacam, which
seemeth to be all barred over with small plates somewhat like to a rhinoceros,
with a white horn growing in his hinder parts as big as a great hunting-horn,
which they use to wind instead of a trumpet. Monardus^44 writeth that a
little of the powder of that horn put into the ear cureth deafness.
[Footnote 44: Monardes, Historia Medicinal (1574; English Version, 1577).]
After this old king had rested awhile in a little tent that I caused to
be set up, I began by my interpreter to discourse with him of the death of
Morequito his predecessor, and afterward of the Spaniards; and yere I went
any farther I made him know the cause of my coming thither, whose servant I
was, and that the Queen`s pleasure was I should undertake the voyage for their
defence, and to deliver them from the tyranny of the Spaniards, dilating at
large, as I had done before to those of Trinidad, her Majesty`s greatness,
her justice, her charity to all oppressed nations, with as many of the rest of
her beauties and virtues as either I could express or they conceive. All which
being with great admiration attentively heard and marvellously admired, I
began to sound the old man as touching Guiana and the state thereof, what sort
of commonwealth it was, how governed, of what strength and policy, how far
it extended, and what nations were friends or enemies adjoining, and finally
of the distance, and way to enter the same. He told me that himself and his
people, with all those down the river towards the sea, as far as Emeria, the
province of Carapana, were of Guiana, but that they called themselves
Orenoqueponi, and that all the nations between the river and those mountains
in sight, called Wacarima, were of the same cast and appellation; and that
on the other side of those mountains of Wacarima there was a large plain
(which after I discovered in my return) called the valley of Amariocapana. In
all that valley the people were also of the ancient Guianians.
I asked what nations those were which inhabited on the further side of
those mountains, beyond the valley of Amariocapana. He answered with a great
sigh (as a man which had inward feeling of the loss of his country and
liberty, especially for that his eldest son was slain in a battle on that
side of the mountains, whom he most entirely loved) that he remembered in his
father`s lifetime, when he was very old and himself a young man, that there
came down into that large valley of Guiana a nation from so far off as the sun
slept (for such were his own words), with so great a multitude as they could
not be numbered nor resisted, and that they wore large coats, and hats of
crimson colour, which colour he expressed by shewing a piece of red wood
wherewith my tent was supported, and that they were called Orejones and
Epuremei; that those had slain and rooted out so many of the ancient people
as there were leaves in the wood upon all the trees, and had now made
themselves lords of all, even to that mountain foot called Curaa, saving only
of two nations, the one called Iwarawaqueri and the other Cassipagotos; and
that in the last battle fought between the Epuremei and the Iwarawaqueri his
eldest son was chosen to carry to the aid of the Iwarawaqueri a great troop
of the Orenoqueponi, and was there slain with all his people and friends, and
that he had now remaining but one son; and farther told me that those
Epuremei had built a great town called Macureguarai at the said mountain foot,
at the beginning of the great plains of Guiana, which have no end; and that
their houses have many rooms, one over the other, and that therein the great
king of the Orejones and Epuremei kept three thousand men to defend the
borders against them, and withal daily to invade and slay them; but that of
late years, since the Christians offered to invade his territories and those
frontiers, they were all at peace, and traded one with another, saving only
the Iwarawaqueri and those other nations upon the head of the river of Caroli
called Cassipagotos, which we afterwards discovered, each one holding the
Spaniard for a common enemy.
After he had answered thus far, he desired leave to depart, saying that
he had far to go, that he was old and weak, and was every day called for by
death, which was also his own phrase. I desired him to rest with us that
night, but I could not entreat him; but he told me that at my return from the
country above he would again come to us, and in the meantime provide for us
the best he could, of all that his country yielded. The same night he returned
to Orocotona, his own town; so as he went that day eight-and-twenty miles, the
weather being very hot, the country being situate between four and five
degrees of the equinoctial. This Topiawari is held for the proudest and wisest
of all the Orenoqueponi, and so he behaved himself towards me in all his
answers, at my return, as I marvelled to find a man of that gravity and
judgment and of so good discourse, that had no help of learning nor breed.
The next morning we also left the port, and sailed westward up to the
river, to view the famous river called Caroli, as well because it was
marvellous of itself, as also for that I understood it led to the strongest
nations of all the frontiers, that were enemies to the Epuremei, which are
subjects to Inga, emperor of Guiana and Manoa. And that night we anchored at
another island called Caiama, of some five or six miles in length; and the
next day arrived at the mouth of Caroli. When we were short of it as low or
further down as the port of Morequito, we heard the great roar and fall of
the river. But when we came to enter with our barge and wherries, thinking
to have gone up some forty miles to the nations of the Cassipagotos, we were
not able with a barge of eight oars to row one stone`s cast in an hour; and
yet the river is as broad as the Thames at Woolwich, and we tried both sides,
and the middle, and every part of the river. So as we encamped upon the banks
adjoining, and sent off our Orenoquepone which came with us from Morequito
to give knowledge to the nations upon the river of our being there, and that
we desired to see the lords of Canuria, which dwelt within the province upon
that river, making them know that we were enemies to the Spaniards; for it was
on this river side that Morequito slew the friar, and those nine Spaniards
which came from Manoa, the city of Inga, and took from them 14,000 pesos of
gold. So as the next day there came down a lord or cacique, called Wanuretona,
with many people with him, and brought all store of provisions to entertain
us, as the rest had done. And as I had before made my coming known to
Topiawari, so did I acquaint this cacique therewith, and how I was sent by
her Majesty for the purpose aforesaid, and gathered also what I could of him
touching the estate of Guiana. And I found that those also of Caroli were not
only enemies to the Spaniards, but most of all to the Epuremei, which abound
in gold. And by this Wanuretona I had knowledge that on the head of this
river were three mighty nations, which were seated on a great lake, from
whence this river descended, and were called Cassipagotos, Eparegotos, and
Arawagotos;^45 and that all those either against the Spaniards or the Epuremei
would join with us, and that if we entered the land over the mountains of
Curaa we should satisfy ourselves with gold and all other good things. He told
us farther of a nation called Iwarawaqueri, before spoken of, that held daily
war with the Epuremei that inhabited Macureguarai, and first civil town of
Guiana, of the subjects of Inga, the emperor.
[Footnote 45: The Purigotos and Arinagotos are still settled on the upper
tributaries of the Caroni river. No such lake as that mentioned is known to
exist.]
Upon this river one Captain George, that I took with Berreo, told me
that there was a great silver mine, and that it was near the banks of the
said river. But by this time as well Orenoque, Caroli, as all the rest of
the rivers were risen four or five feet in height, so as it was not possible
by the strength of any men, or with any boat whatsoever, to row into the
river against the stream. I therefore sent Captain Thyn, Captain Greenvile,
my nephew John Gilbert, my cousin Butshead Gorges, Captain Clarke, and some
thirty shot more to coast the river by land, and to go to a town some twenty
miles over the valley called Amnatapoi; and they found guides there to go
farther towards the mountain foot to another great town called Capurepana,
belonging to a cacique called Haharacoa, that was a nephew to old Topiawari,
king of Aromaia, our chiefest friend, because this town and province of
Capurepana adjoined to Macureguarai, which was a frontier town of the empire.
And the meanwhile myself with Captain Gifford, Captain Caulfield, Edward
Hancock, and some half-a-dozen shot marched overland to view the strange
overfalls of the river of Caroli, which roared so far off; and also to see
the plains adjoining, and the rest of the province of Canuri. I sent also
Captain Whiddon, William Connock, and some eight shot with them, to see if
they could find any mineral stone alongst the river`s side. When we were come
to the tops of the first hills of the plains adjoining to the river, we beheld
that wonderful breach of waters which ran down Caroli; and might from that
mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, above twenty miles off, and
there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every one as high over
the other as a church tower, which fell with that fury, that the rebound of
water made it seem as if it had been all covered over with a great shower of
rain; and in some places we took it at the first for a smoke that had risen
over some great town. For mine own part I was well persuaded from thence to
have returned, being a very ill footman; but the rest were all so desirous to
go near the said strange thunder of waters, as they drew me on by little and
little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better discern the
same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively prospects; hills
so raised here and there over the valley ; the river winding into divers
branches; the plains adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass;
the ground of hard sand, easy to march on, either for horse or foot; the deer
crossing in every path; the birds towards the evening singing on every tree
with a thousand several tunes; cranes and herons of white, crimson, and
carnation, perching in the river`s side; the air fresh with a gentle easterly
wind; and every stone that we stooped to take up promised either gold or
silver by his complexion. Your Lordship shall see of many sorts, and I hope
some of them cannot be bettered under the sun; and yet we had no means but
with our daggers and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being
most hard of that mineral spar aforesaid, which is like a flint, and is
altogether as hard or harder, and besides the veins lie a fathom or two deep
in the rocks. But we wanted all things requisite save only our desires and
good will to have performed more if it had pleased God. To be short, when both
our companies returned, each of them brought also several sorts of stones that
appeared very fair, but were such as they found loose on the ground, and were
for the most part but coloured, and had not any gold fixed in them. Yet such
as had no judgment or experience kept all that glistered, and would not be
persuaded but it was rich because of the lustre; and brought of those, and of
marcasite withal, from Trinidad, and have delivered of those stones to be
tried in many places, and have thereby bred an opinion that all the rest is
of the same. Yet some of these stones I shewed afterward to a Spaniard of
the Caracas, who told me that it was El Madre del Oro, that is, the mother
of gold, and that the mine was farther in the ground.
But it shall be found a weak policy in me, either to betray myself or my
country with imaginations; neither am I so far in love with that lodging,
watching, care, peril, diseases, ill savours, bad fare, and many other
mischiefs that accompany these voyages, as to woo myself again into any of
them, were I not assured that the sun covereth not so much riches in any part
of the earth. Captain Whiddon, and our chirurgeon, Nicholas Millechamp,
brought me a kind of stones like sapphires; what they may prove I know not. I
shewed them to some of the Orenoqueponi, and they promised to bring me to a
mountain that had of them very large pieces growing diamond-wise; whether it
be crystal of the mountain, Bristol diamond, or sapphire, I do not yet know,
but I hope the best; sure I am that the place is as likely as those from
whence all the rich stones are brought, and in the same height or very near.
On the left hand of this river Caroli are seated those nations which I
called Iwarawaqueri before remembered, which are enemies to the Epuremei; and
on the head of it, adjoining to the great lake Cassipa, are situated those
other nations which also resist Inga, and the Epuremei, called Cassipagotos,
Eparegotos, and Arawagotos. I farther understood that this lake of Cassipa is
so large, as it is above one day`s journey for one of their canoas, to cross,
which may be some forty miles; and that thereinto fall divers rivers, and that
great store of grains of gold are found in the summer time when the lake
falleth by the banks, in those branches.
There is also another goodly river beyond Caroli which is called Arui,
which also runneth thorough the lake Cassipa, and falleth into Orenoque
farther west, making all that land between Caroli and Arui an island; which
is likewise a most beautiful country. Next unto Arui there are two rivers
Atoica and Caura, and on that branch which is called Caura are a nation of
people whose heads appear not above their shoulders; which though it may be
thought a mere fable, yet for mine own part I am resolved it is true, because
every child in the provinces of Aromaia and Canuri affirm the same. They are
called Ewaipanoma; they are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders,
and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair
groweth backward between their shoulders. The son of Topiawari, which I
brought with me into England, told me that they were the most mighty men of
all the land, and use bows, arrows, and clubs thrice as big as any of Guiana,
or of the Orenoqueponi; and that one of the Iwarawaqueri took a prisoner of
them the year before our arrival there, and brought him into the borders of
Aromaia, his father`s country. And farther, when I seemed to doubt of it, he
told me that it was no wonder among them; but that they were as great a nation
and as common as any other in all the provinces, and had of late years slain
many hundreds of his father`s people, and of other nations their neighbours.
But it was not my chance to hear of them till I was come away; and if I had
but spoken one word of it while I was there I might have brought one of them
with me to put the matter out of doubt. Such a nation was written of by
Mandeville, whose reports were holden for fables many years; and yet since the
East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as
heretofore were held incredible.^46 Whether it be true or no, the matter is
not great, neither can there be any profit in the imagination; for mine own
part I saw them not, but I am resolved that so many people did not all combine
or forethink to make the report.
[Footnote 46: Mandeville, or the author who assumed this name, placed his
headless men in the East Indian Archipelago. The fable is borrowed from older
writers (Herodotus, iv. 191, &c.).]
When I came to Cumana in the West Indies afterwards by chance I spake
with a Spaniard dwelling not far from thence, a man of great travel. And after
he knew that I had been in Guiana, and so far directly west as Caroli, the
first question he asked me was, whether I had seen any of the Ewaipanoma,
which are those without heads. Who being esteemed a most honest man of his
word, and in all things else, told me that he had seen many of them; I may not
name him, because it may be for his disadvantage, but he is well known to
Monsieur Moucheron`s son of London, and to Peter Moucheron, merchant, of the
Flemish ship that was there in trade; who also heard, what he avowed to be
true, of those people.
The fourth river to the west of Caroli is Casnero: which falleth into the
Orenoque on this side of Amapaia. And that river is greater than Danubius, or
any of Europe: it riseth on the south of Guiana from the mountains which
divide Guiana from Amazons, and I think it to be navigable many hundred miles.
But we had no time, means, nor season of the year, to search those rivers, for
the causes aforesaid, the winter being come upon us; although the winter and
summer as touching cold and heat differ not, neither do the trees ever
sensibly lose their leaves, but have always fruit either ripe or green, and
most of them both blossoms, leaves, ripe fruit, and green, at one time: but
their winter only consisteth of terrible rains, and overflowing of the rivers,
with many great storms and gusts, thunder and lightnings, of which we had our
fill ere we returned.
On the north side, the first river that falleth into the Orenoque is
Cari. Beyond it, on the same side is the river of Limo. Between these two is
a great nation of Cannibals, and their chief town beareth the name of the
river, and is called Acamacari. At this town is a continual market of women
for three or four hatchets apiece; they are bought by the Arwacas, and by them
sold into the West Indies. To the west of Limo is the river Pao, beyond it
Caturi, beyond that Voari, and Capuri,^47 which falleth out of the great
river of Meta, by which Berreo descended from Nuevo Reyno de Granada. To the
westward of Capuri is the province of Amapaia, where Berreo wintered and had
so many of his people poisoned with the tawny water of the marshes of the
Anebas. Above Amapaia, toward Nuevo Reyno, fall in Meto, Pato and Cassanar.
To the west of those, towards the provinces of the Ashaguas and Catetios, are
the rivers of Beta, Dawney, and Ubarro; and toward the frontier of Peru are
the provinces of Thomebamba, and Caxamalca. Adjoining to Quito in the north
side of Peru are the rivers of Guiacar and Goauar; and on the other side of
the said mountains the river of Papamene which descendeth into Maranon or
Amazons, passing through the province Motilones, where Don Pedro de Orsua, who
was slain by the traitor Aguirre before rehearsed, built his brigandines,
when he sought Guiana by the way of Amazons.
[Footnote 47: The Apure river.]
Between Dawney and Beta lieth a famous island in Orenoque (now called
Baraquan, for above Meta it is not known by the name of Orenoque) which is
called Athule;^48 beyond which ships of burden cannot pass by reason of a most
forcible overfall, and current of water; but in the eddy all smaller vessels
may be drawn even to Peru itself. But to speak of more of these rivers without
the description were but tedious, and therefore I will leave the rest to the
description. This river of Orenoque is navigable for ships little less than
1,000 miles, and for lesser vessels near 2,000. By it, as aforesaid, Peru,
Nuevo Reyno and Popayan may be invaded: it also leadeth to the great empire of
Inga, and to the provinces of Amapaia and Anebas, which abound in gold. His
branches of Casnero, Manta, Caura descend from the middle land and valley
which lieth between the easter province of Peru and Guiana; and it falls into
the sea between Maranon and Trinidad in two degrees and a half. All of which
your honours shall better perceive in the general description of Guiana, Peru,
Nuevo Reyno, the kingdom of Popayan, and Rodas, with the province of
Venezuela, to the bay of Uraba, behind Cartagena, westward, and to Amazons
southward. While we lay at anchor on the coast of Canuri, and had taken
knowledge of all the nations upon the head and branches of this river, and had
found out so many several people, which were enemies to the Epuremei and the
new conquerors, I thought it time lost to linger any longer in that place,
especially for that the fury of Orenoque began daily to threaten us with
dangers in our return. For no half day passed but the river began to rage and
overflow very fearfully, and the rains came down in terrible showers, and
gusts in great abundance; and withal our men began to cry out for want of
shift, for no man had place to bestow any other apparel than that which he
ware on his back, and that was throughly washed on his body for the most part
ten times in one day; and we had now been well-near a month every day passing
to the westward farther and farther from our ships. We therefore turned
towards the east, and spent the rest of the time in discovering the river
towards the sea, which we had not viewed, and which was most material.
[Footnote 48: Cataract of Atures.]
The next day following we left the mouth of Caroli, and arrived again at
the port of Morequito where we were before; for passing down the stream we
went without labour, and against the wind, little less than a hundred miles a
day. As soon as I came to anchor, I sent away one for old Topiawari, with whom
I much desired to have further conference, and also to deal with him for some
one of his country to bring with us into England, as well to learn the
language, as to confer withal by the way, the time being now spent of any
longer stay there. Within three hours after my messenger came to him, he
arrived also, and with him such a rabble of all sorts of people, and every one
loaden with somewhat, as if it had been a great market or fair in England; and
our hungry companies clustered thick and threefold among their baskets, every
one laying hand on what he liked. After he had rested awhile in my tent, I
shut out all but ourselves and my interpreter, and told him that I knew that
both the Epuremei and the Spaniards were enemies to him, his country and
nations: that the one had conquered Guiana already, and the other sought to
regain the same from them both; and therefore I desired him to instruct me
what he could, both of the passage into the golden parts of Guiana, and to
the civil towns and apparelled people of Inga. He gave me an answer to this
effect: first, that he could not perceive that I meant to go onward towards
the city of Manoa, for neither the time of the year served, neither could he
perceive any sufficient numbers for such an enterprise. And if I did, I was
sure with all my company to be buried there, for the emperor was of that
strength, as that many times so many men more were too few. Besides, he gave
me this good counsel and advised me to hold it in mind (as for himself, he
knew he could not live till my return), that I should not offer by any means
hereafter to invade the strong parts of Guiana without the help of all those
nations which were also their enemies; for that it was impossible without
those, either to be conducted, to be victualled, or to have aught carried
with us, our people not being able to endure the march in so great heat and
travail, unless the borderers gave them help, to cart with them both their
meat and furniture. For he remembered that in the plains of Macureguarai
three hundred Spaniards were overthrown, who were tired out, and had none of
the borderers to their friends; but meeting their enemies as they passed the
frontier, were environed on all sides, and the people setting the long dry
grass on fire, smothered them, so as they had no breath to fight, nor could
discern their enemies for the great smoke. He told me further that four days`
journey from his town was Macureguarai, and that those were the next and
nearest of the subjects of Inga, and of the Epuremei, and the first town of
apparelled and rich people; and that all those plates of gold which were
scattered among the borderers and carried to other nations far and near, came
from the said Macureguarai and were there made, but that those of the land
within were far finer, and were fashioned after the images of men, beasts,
birds, and fishes. I asked him whether he thought that those companies that I
had there with me were sufficient to take that town or no; he told me that he
thought they were. I then asked him whether he would assist me with guides,
and some companies of his people to join with us; he answered that he would
go himself with all the borderers, if the rivers did remain fordable, upon
this condition, that I would leave with him till my return again fifty
soldiers, which he undertook to victual. I answered that I had not above
fifty good men in all there; the rest were labourers and rowers, and that I
had no provision to leave with them of powder, shot, apparel, or aught else,
and that without those things necessary for their defence, they should be in
danger of the Spaniards in my absence, who I knew would use the same measures
towards mine that I offered them at Trinidad. And although upon the motion
Captain Caulfield, Captain Greenvile, my nephew John Gilbert and divers
others were desirous to stay, yet I was resolved that they must needs have
perished. For Berreo expected daily a supply out of Spain, and looked also
hourly for his son to come down from Nuevo Reyno de Granada, with many horse
and foot, and had also in Valencia, in the Caracas, two hundred horse ready
to march; and I could not have spared above forty, and had not any store at
all of powder, lead, or match to have left with them, nor any other
provision, either spade, pickaxe, or aught else to have fortified withal.
When I had given him reason that I could not at this time leave him such
a company, he then desired me to forbear him and his country for that time;
for he assured me that I should be no sooner three days from the coast but
those Epuremei would invade him, and destroy all the remain of his people and
friends, if he should any way either guide us or assist us against them. He
further alleged that the Spaniards sought his death; and as they had already
murdered his nephew Morequito, lord of that province, so they had him
seventeen days in a chain before he was king of the country, and led him like
a dog from place to place until he had paid an hundred plates of gold and
divers chains of spleen-stones for his ransom.^49 And now, since he became
owner of that province, that they had many times laid wait to take him, and
that they would be now more vehement when they should understand of his
conference with the English. And because, said he, they would the better
displant me, if they cannot lay hands on me, they have gotten a nephew of
mine called Eparacano, whom they have christened Don Juan, and his son Don
Pedro, whom they have also apparelled and armed, by whom they seek to make
a party against me in mine own country. He also hath taken to wife one
Louiana, of a strong family, which are borderers and neighbours; and myself
now being old and in the hands of death am not able to travel nor to shift as
when I was of younger years. He therefore prayed us to defer it till the next
year, when he would undertake to draw in all the borderers to serve us, and
then, also, it would be more seasonable to travel; for at this time of the
year we should not be able to pass any river, the waters were and would be so
grown are our return.
[Footnote 49: See page 333.]
He farther told me that I could not desire so much to invade
Macureguarai and the rest of Guiana but that the borderers would be more
vehement than I. For he yielded for a chief cause that in the wars with the
Epuremei they were spoiled of their women, and that their wives and daughters
were taken from them; so as for their own parts they desired nothing of the
gold or treasure for their labours, but only to recover women from the
Epuremei. For he farther complained very sadly, as it had been a matter of
great consequence, that whereas they were wont to have ten or twelve wives,
they were now enforced to content themselves with three or four, and that the
lords of the Epuremei had fifty or a hundred. And in truth they war more for
women than either for gold or dominion. For the lords of countries desire many
children of their own bodies to increase their races and kindreds, for in
those consist their greatest trust and strength. Divers of his followers
afterwards desired me to make haste again, that they might sack the Epuremei,
and I asked them, of what? The answered, Of their women for us, and their gold
for you. For the hope of those many of women they more desire the war than
either for gold or for the recovery of their ancient territories. For what
between the subjects of Inga and the Spaniards, those frontiers are grown thin
of people; and also great numbers are fled to other nations farther off for
fear of the Spaniards.
After I received this answer of the old man, we fell into consideration
whether it had been of better advice to have entered Macureguarai, and to have
begun a war upon Inga at this time, yea, or no, if the time of the year and
all things else had sorted. For mine own part, as we were not able to march
it for the rivers, neither had any such strength as was requisite, and durst
not abide the coming of the winter, or to tarry any longer from our ships, I
thought it were evil counsel to have attempted it at that time, although
the desire for gold will answer many objections. But it would have been, in
mine opinion, an utter overthrow to the enterprise, if the same should be
hereafter by her Majesty attempted. For then, whereas now they have heard
we were enemies to the Spaniards and were sent by her Majesty to relieve
them, they would as good cheap have joined with the Spaniards at our return,
as to have yielded unto us, when they had proved that we came both for one
errand, and that both sought but to sack and spoil them. But as yet our desire
gold, or our purpose of invasion, is not known to them of the empire. And it
is likely that if her Majesty undertake the enterprise they will rather
submit themselves to her obedience than to the Spaniards, of whose cruelty
both themselves and the borderers have already tasted. And therefore, till I
had known her Majesty`s pleasure, I would rather have lost the sack of one or
two towns, although they might have been very profitable, than to have defaced
or endangered the future hope of so many millions, and the great good and
rich trade which England may be possessed of thereby. I am assured now that
they will all die, even to the last man, against the Spaniards in hope
of our succour and return. Whereas, otherwise, if I had either laid hands on
the borderers or ransomed the lords, as Berreo did, or invaded the subjects
of Inga, I know all had been lost for hereafter.
|
