A.D. 

 1595. 



Pedro 



He?'nandez 

 de Serpa. 



Don Gonzales 

 Ximenes de 

 Casada. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



armie defeated, onely seven escaped, and of those but 

 two returned. 



After him came Pedro Hernandez de Serpa, and landed 

 at Cumana In the West Indies, taking his journey by land 

 towards Orenoque, which may be some 120 leagues: but 

 yer he came to the borders of the sayd river, hee was 

 set upon by a nation of the Indians called Wikiri, and 

 overthrowen in such sort, that of 300 souldiers, horsemen, 

 many Indians, and Negros, there returned but 18. Others 

 affirme, that he was defeated in the very entrance of 

 Guiana, at the first civill towne of the empire called 

 Macureguarai. Captaine Preston in taking S. lago de 

 Leon (which was by him and his companies very reso- 

 lutely performed, being a great towne, and farre within 

 the land) held a gentleman prisoner, who died in his 

 ship, that was one of the company of Hernandez de 

 Serpa, and saved among those that escaped, who wit- 

 nessed what opinion is held among the Spanyards 

 thereabouts of the great riches of Guiana, and El 

 Dorado the city of Inga. Another Spanyard was 

 brought aboord me by captaine Preston, who told me 

 in the hearing of himselfe and divers other gentlemen, 

 that he met with Berreos campe-master at Caracas, 

 when he came from the borders of Guiana, and that 

 he saw with him forty of most pure plates of golde 

 curiously wrought, and swords of Guiana decked and 

 inlayed with gold, feathers garnished with golde, and 

 divers rarities which he caried to the Spanish king. 



After Hernandez de Serpa, it was undertaken by the 

 Adelantado, Don Gonzales Ximenes de Casada, who was 

 one of the chiefest in the conquest of Nuevo reino, whose 

 daughter and heire Don Antonio de Berreo maried. 

 Gonzales sought the passage also by the river called 

 Papamene, which riseth by Quito in Peru, & runneth 

 Southeast 100 leagues, and then falleth into Amazones, 

 but he also failing the entrance, returned with the losse 

 of much labour and cost. I tooke one captaine George 

 a Spanyard that followed Gonzales in this enterprise. 



364 



