THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA(发现圭亚那)

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THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

THE DISCOVERY OF

GUIANA

By Sir Walter Raleigh

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Sir Walter Raleigh may be taken as the great typical figure of the age

of Elizabeth. Courtier and statesman, soldier and sailor, scientist and man

of letters, he engaged in almost all the main lines of public activity in his

time, and was distinguished in them all.

His father was a Devonshire gentleman of property, connected with

many of the distinguished families of the south of England. Walter was

born about 1552 and was educated at Oxford. He first saw military service

in the Huguenot army in France in 1569, and in 1578 engaged, with his

half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in the first of his expeditions against

the Spaniards. After some service in Ireland, he attracted the attention of

the Queen, and rapidly rose to the perilous position of her chief favorite.

With her approval, he fitted out two expeditions for the colonization of

Virginia, neither of which did his royal mistress permit him to lead in

person, and neither of which succeeded in establishing a permanent

settlement.

After about six years of high favor, Raleigh found his position at court

endangered by the rivalry of Essex, and in 1592, on returning from

convoying a squadron he had fitted out against the Spanish, he was thrown

into the Tower by the orders of the Queen, who had discovered an intrigue

between him and one of her ladies whom he subsequently married. He was

ultimately released, engaged in various naval exploits, and in 1594 sailed

for South America on the voyage described in the following narrative.

On the death of Elizabeth, Raleigh's misfortunes increased. He was

accused of treason against James I, condemned, reprieved, and imprisoned

for twelve years, during which he wrote his "History of the World," and

engaged in scientific researches. In 1616 he was liberated, to make another

attempt to find the gold mine in Venezuela; but the expedition was

disastrous, and, on his return, Raleigh was executed on the old charge in

1618. In his vices as in his virtues, Raleigh is a thorough representative of

the great adventurers who laid the foundations of the British Empire.

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

RALEIGH'S DISCOVERY OF

GUIANA

The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful EMPIRE Of GUIANA;

with a Relation of the great and golden CITY of MANOA, which the

Spaniards call EL DORADO, and the PROVINCES of EMERIA,

AROMAIA, AMAPAIA, and other Countries, with their rivers, adjoining.

Performed in the year 1595 by Sir WALTER RALEIGH, KNIGHT,

CAPTAIN of her Majesty's GUARD, Lord Warden of the STANNARIES,

and her Highness' LIEUTENANT-GENERAL of the COUNTY of

CORNWALL.

To the Right Honourable my singular good Lord and kinsman

CHARLES HOWARD, Knight of the Garter, Baron, and Councillor, and

of the Admirals of England the most renowned; and to the Right

Honourable SIR ROBERT CECIL, KNIGHT, Councillor in her Highness'

Privy Councils.

For your Honours' many honourable and friendly parts, I have hitherto

only returned promises; and now, for answer of both your adventures, I

have sent you a bundle of papers, which I have divided between your

Lordship and Sir Robert Cecil, in these two respects chiefly; first, for that

it is reason that wasteful factors, when they have consumed such stocks as

they had in trust, do yield some colour for the same in their account;

secondly, for that I am assured that whatsoever shall be done, or written,

by me, shall need a double protection and defence. The trial that I had of

both your loves, when I was left of all, but of malice and revenge, makes

me still presume that you will be pleased (knowing what little power I had

to perform aught, and the great advantage of forewarned enemies) to

answer that out of knowledge, which others shall but object out of malice.

In my more happy times as I did especially honour you both, so I found

that your loves sought me out in the darkest shadow of adversity, and the

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

same affection which accompanied my better fortune soared not away

from me in my many miseries; all which though I cannot requite, yet I

shall ever acknowledge; and the great debt which I have no power to pay, I

can do no more for a time but confess to be due. It is true that as my errors

were great, so they have yielded very grievous effects; and if aught might

have been deserved in former times, to have counterpoised any part of

offences, the fruit thereof, as it seemeth, was long before fallen from the

tree, and the dead stock only remained. I did therefore, even in the winter

of my life, undertake these travails, fitter for bodies less blasted with

misfortunes, for men of greater ability, and for minds of better

encouragement, that thereby, if it were possible, I might recover but the

moderation of excess, and the least taste of the greatest plenty formerly

possessed. If I had known other way to win, if I had imagined how greater

adventures might have regained, if I could conceive what farther means I

might yet use but even to appease so powerful displeasure, I would not

doubt but for one year more to hold fast my soul in my teeth till it were

performed. Of that little remain I had, I have wasted in effect all herein. I

have undergone many constructions; I have been accompanied with many

sorrows, with labour, hunger, heat, sickness, and peril; it appeareth,

notwithstanding, that I made no other bravado of going to the sea, than

was meant, and that I was never hidden in Cornwall, or elsewhere, as was

supposed. They have grossly belied me that forejudged that I would rather

become a servant to the Spanish king than return; and the rest were much

mistaken, who would have persuaded that I was too easeful and sensual to

undertake a journey of so great travail. But if what I have done receive the

gracious construction of a painful pilgrimage, and purchase the least

remission, I shall think all too little, and that there were wanting to the rest

many miseries. But if both the times past, the present, and what may be in

the future, do all by one grain of gall continue in eternal distaste, I do not

then know whether I should bewail myself, either for my too much travail

and expense, or condemn myself for doing less than that which can

deserve nothing. From myself I have deserved no thanks, for I am returned

a beggar, and withered; but that I might have bettered my poor estate, it

shall appear from the following discourse, if I had not only respected her

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

Majesty's future honour and riches.

It became not the former fortune, in which I once lived, to go journeys

of picory (marauding); it had sorted ill with the offices of honour, which

by her Majesty's grace I hold this day in England, to run from cape to cape

and from place to place, for the pillage of ordinary prizes. Many years

since I had knowledge, by relation, of that mighty, rich, and beautiful

empire of Guiana, and of that great and golden city, which the Spaniards

call El Dorado, and the naturals Manoa, which city was conquered, re-

edified, and enlarged by a younger son of Guayna-capac, Emperor of Peru,

at such time as Francisco Pizarro and others conquered the said empire

from his two elder brethren, Guascar and Atabalipa, both then contending

for the same, the one being favoured by the orejones of Cuzco, the other

by the people of Caxamalca. I sent my servant Jacob Whiddon, the year

before, to get knowledge of the passages, and I had some light from

Captain Parker, sometime my servant, and now attending on your

Lordship, that such a place there was to the southward of the great bay of

Charuas, or Guanipa: but I found that it was 600 miles farther off than

they supposed, and many impediments to them unknown and unheard.

After I had displanted Don Antonio de Berreo, who was upon the same

enterprise, leaving my ships at Trinidad, at the port called Curiapan, I

wandered 400 miles into the said country by land and river; the particulars

I will leave to the following discourse.

The country hath more quantity of gold, by manifold, than the best

parts of the Indies, or Peru. All the most of the kings of the borders are

already become her Majesty's vassals, and seem to desire nothing more

than her Majesty's protection and the return of the English nation. It hath

another ground and assurance of riches and glory than the voyages of the

West Indies; an easier way to invade the best parts thereof than by the

common course. The king of Spain is not so impoverished by taking three

or four port towns in America as we suppose; neither are the riches of Peru

or Nueva Espana so left by the sea side as it can be easily washed away

with a great flood, or spring tide, or left dry upon the sands on a low ebb.

The port towns are few and poor in respect of the rest within the land, and

are of little defence, and are only rich when the fleets are to receive the

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

treasure for Spain; and we might think the Spaniards very simple, having

so many horses and slaves, if they could not upon two days' warning carry

all the gold they have into the land, and far enough from the reach of our

footmen, especially the Indies being, as they are for the most part, so

mountainous, full of woods, rivers, and marishes. In the port towns of the

province of Venezuela, as Cumana, Coro, and St. Iago (whereof Coro and

St. Iago were taken by Captain Preston, and Cumana and St. Josepho by us)

we found not the value of one real of plate in either. But the cities of

Barquasimeta, Valencia, St. Sebastian, Cororo, St. Lucia, Laguna,

Maracaiba, and Truxillo, are not so easily invaded. Neither doth the

burning of those on the coast impoverish the king of Spain any one ducat;

and if we sack the River of Hacha, St. Martha, and Carthagena, which are

the ports of Nuevo Reyno and Popayan, there are besides within the land,

which are indeed rich and prosperous, the towns and cities of Merida,

Lagrita, St. Christophoro, the great cities of Pamplona, Santa Fe de Bogota,

Tunxa, and Mozo, where the emeralds are found, the towns and cities of

Marequita, Velez, la Villa de Leiva, Palma, Honda, Angostura, the great

city of Timana, Tocaima, St. Aguila, Pasto, [St.] Iago, the great city of

Popayan itself, Los Remedios, and the rest. If we take the ports and

villages within the bay of Uraba in the kingdom or rivers of Darien and

Caribana, the cities and towns of St. Juan de Rodas, of Cassaris, of

Antiochia, Caramanta, Cali, and Anserma have gold enough to pay the

king's part, and are not easily invaded by way of the ocean. Or if Nombre

de Dios and Panama be taken, in the province of Castilla del Oro, and the

villages upon the rivers of Cenu and Chagre; Peru hath, besides those, and

besides the magnificent cities of Quito and Lima, so many islands, ports,

cities, and mines as if I should name them with the rest it would seem

incredible to the reader. Of all which, because I have written a particular

treatise of the West Indies, I will omit the repetition at this time, seeing

that in the said treatise I have anatomized the rest of the sea towns as well

of Nicaragua, Yucatan, Nueva Espana, and the islands, as those of the

inland, and by what means they may be best invaded, as far as any mean

judgment may comprehend.

But I hope it shall appear that there is a way found to answer every

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

man's longing; a better Indies for her Majesty than the king of Spain hath

any; which if it shall please her Highness to undertake, I shall most

willingly end the rest of my days in following the same. If it be left to the

spoil and sackage of common persons, if the love and service of so many

nations be despised, so great riches and so mighty an empire refused; I

hope her Majesty will yet take my humble desire and my labour therein in

gracious part, which, if it had not been in respect of her Highness' future

honour and riches, could have laid hands on and ransomed many of the

kings and caciqui of the country, and have had a reasonable proportion of

gold for their redemption. But I have chosen rather to bear the burden of

poverty than reproach; and rather to endure a second travail, and the

chances thereof, than to have defaced an enterprise of so great assurance,

until I knew whether it pleased God to put a disposition in her princely and

royal heart either to follow or forslow (neglect, decline, lose through sloth)

the same. I will therefore leave it to His ordinance that hath only power in

all things; and do humbly pray that your honours will excuse such errors

as, without the defence of art, overrun in every part the following

discourse, in which I have neither studied phrase, form, nor fashion; that

you will be pleased to esteem me as your own, though over dearly bought,

and I shall ever remain ready to do you all honour and service.

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

TO THE READER

Because there have been divers opinions conceived of the gold ore

brought from Guiana, and for that an alderman of London and an officer

of her Majesty's mint hath given out that the same is of no price, I have

thought good by the addition of these lines to give answer as well to the

said malicious slander as to other objections. It is true that while we abode

at the island of Trinidad I was informed by an Indian that not far from the

port where we anchored there were found certain mineral stones which

they esteemed to be gold, and were thereunto persuaded the rather for that

they had seen both English and Frenchmen gather and embark some

quantities thereof. Upon this likelihood I sent forty men, and gave order

that each one should bring a stone of that mine, to make trial of the

goodness; which being performed, I assured them at their return that the

same was marcasite, and of no riches or value. Notwithstanding, divers,

trusting more to their own sense than to my opinion, kept of the said

marcasite, and have tried thereof since my return, in divers places. In

Guiana itself I never saw marcasite; but all the rocks, mountains, all stones

in the plains, woods, and by the rivers' sides, are in effect thorough-

shining, and appear marvellous rich; which, being tried to be no marcasite,

are the true signs of rich minerals, but are no other than El madre del oro,

as the Spaniards term them, which is the mother of gold, or, as it is said by

others, the scum of gold. Of divers sorts of these many of my company

brought also into England, every one taking the fairest for the best, which

is not general. For mine own part, I did not countermand any man's desire

or opinion, and I could have afforded them little if I should have denied

them the pleasing of their own fancies therein; but I was resolved that gold

must be found either in grains, separate from the stone, as it is in most of

the rivers in Guiana, or else in a kind of hard stone, which we call the

white spar, of which I saw divers hills, and in sundry places, but had

neither time nor men, nor instruments fit for labour. Near unto one of the

rivers I found of the said white spar or flint a very great ledge or bank,

which I endeavoured to break by all the means I could, because there

appeared on the outside some small grains of gold; but finding no mean to

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

work the same upon the upper part, seeking the sides and circuit of the

said rock, I found a clift in the same, from whence with daggers, and with

the head of an axe, we got out some small quantity thereof; of which kind

of white stone, wherein gold is engendered, we saw divers hills and rocks

in every part of Guiana wherein we travelled. Of this there have been

made many trials; and in London it was first assayed by Master Westwood,

a refiner dwelling in Wood Street, and it held after the rate of twelve or

thirteen thousand pounds a ton. Another sort was afterward tried by Master

Bulmar, and Master Dimock, assay-master; and it held after the rate of

three and twenty thousand pounds a ton. There was some of it again tried

by Master Palmer, Comptroller of the Mint, and Master Dimock in

Goldsmith's Hall, and it held after six and twenty thousand and nine

hundred pounds a ton. There was also at the same time, and by the same

persons, a trial made of the dust of the said mine; which held eight pounds

and six ounces weight of gold in the hundred. There was likewise at the

same time a trial of an image of copper made in Guiana, which held a third

part of gold, besides divers trials made in the country, and by others in

London. But because there came ill with the good, and belike the said

alderman was not presented with the best, it hath pleased him therefore to

scandal all the rest, and to deface the enterprise as much as in him lieth. It

hath also been concluded by divers that if there had been any such ore in

Guiana, and the same discovered, that I would have brought home a

greater quantity thereof. First, I was not bound to satisfy any man of the

quantity, but only such as adventured, if any store had been returned

thereof; but it is very true that had all their mountains been of massy gold

it was impossible for us to have made any longer stay to have wrought the

same; and whosoever hath seen with what strength of stone the best gold

ore is environed, he will not think it easy to be had out in heaps, and

especially by us, who had neither men, instruments, nor time, as it is said

before, to perform the same.

There were on this discovery no less than an hundred persons, who can

all witness that when we passed any branch of the river to view the land

within, and stayed from our boats but six hours, we were driven to wade to

the eyes at our return; and if we attempted the same the day following, it

THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA

was impossible either to ford it, or to swim it, both by reason of the

swiftness, and also for that the borders were so pestered with fast woods,

as neither boat nor man could find place either to land or to embark; for in

June, July, August, and September it is impossible to navigate any of those

rivers; for such is the fury of the current, and there are so many trees and

woods overflown, as if any boat but touch upon any tree or stake it is

impossible to save any one person therein. And ere we departed the land it

ran with such swiftness as we drave down, most commonly against the

wind, little less than an hundred miles a day. Besides, our vessels were no

other than wherries, one little barge, a small cock-boat, and a bad galiota

which we framed in haste for that purpose at Trinidad; and those little

boats had nine or ten men apiece, with all their victuals and arms. It is

further true that we were about four hundred miles from our ships, and had

been a month from them, which also we left weakly manned in an open

road, and had promised our return in fifteen days.

Others have devised that the same ore was had from Barbary, and that

we carried it with us into Guiana. Surely the singularity of that device I do

not well comprehend. For mine own part, I am not so much in love with

these long voyages as to devise thereby to cozen myself, to lie hard, to fare

worse, to be subjected to perils, to diseases, to ill savours, to be parched

and withered, and withal to sustain the care and labour of such an

enterprise, except the same had more comfort than the fetching of

marcasite in Guiana, or buying of gold ore in Barbary. But I hope the

better sort will judge me by themselves, and that the way of deceit is not

the way of honour or good opinion. I have herein consumed much time,

and many crowns; and I had no other respect or desire than to serve her

Majesty and my country thereby. If the Spanish nation had been of like

belief to these detractors we should little have feared or doubted their

attempts, wherewith we now are daily threatened. But if we now consider

of the actions both of Charles the Fifth, who had the maidenhead of Peru

and the abundant treasures of Atabalipa, together with the affairs of the

Spanish king now living, what territories he hath purchased, what he hath

added to the acts of his predecessors, how many kingdoms he hath

endangered, how many armies, garrisons, and navies he hath, and doth

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THEDISCOVERYOFGUIANA1THEDISCOVERYOFGUIANABySirWalterRaleighTHEDISCOVERYOFGUIANA2INTRODUCTORYNOTESirWalterRaleighmaybetakenasthegreattypicalfigureoftheageofElizabeth.Courtierandstatesman,soldierandsailor,scientistandmanofletters,heengagedinalmostallthemainlinesofpublicactivityinhistime,andwasdistingu...

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