A.D. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1595- 



againe that night neere the bankes of another yland, 



The yle of of bignesse much like the other, which they call Puta- 



Putapayma. payma, over against which yland, on the maine lande, 



was a very high mountaine called Oecope : we coveted 



to ancker rather by these ylands in the River, then 



by the maine, because of the Tortugas egges, which 



our people found on them in great abundance, and also 



because the ground served better for us to cast our 



nets for fish, the maine bankes being for the most part 



stonie and high, and the rocks of a blew metalline 



Steele-ore. colour, like unto the best steele-ore, which I assuredly 



take it to be : of the same blew stone are also divers 



great mountaines, which border this river in many 



places. 



The next morning towards nine of the clocke, wee 

 weighed ancker, and the brize increasing, we sailed 

 alwayes West up the river, and after a while opening 

 the land on the right side, the countrey appeared to bee 

 champaine, and the bankes shewed very perfect red. I 

 therefore sent two of the little barges with Captaine 

 Gifford, and with him Captaine Thyn, Captaine Calfield, 

 my cosen Greenvile, my nephew John Gilbert, Captaine 

 Eynus, Master Edward Porter, and my cosen Butshead 

 Gorges, with some fewe souldiers, to march over the 

 bankes of that red land, and to discover what maner of 

 countrey it was on the other side, who at their returne 

 found it all a plaine levell, as farre as they went or could 

 discerne, from the highest tree they could get upon : And 

 my old Pilot, a man of great travell, brother to the 

 Casique Toparimica tolde mee, that those were called 

 The plaine s of x}^Q plaines of the Sayma, and that the same levell 

 Sayma stretch- j-^ached to Cumana, and Caracas in the West Indies, 

 mana and the which are a hundreth and twcntie leagues to the North, 

 Caracas. and that there inhabited foure principall nations. The 



first were the Sayma, the next Assawai, the thirde and 

 greatest the Wikiri, by whom Pedro Hernandez de 

 Serpa before mentioned was overthrowen, as hee passed 

 with three hundred horse from Cumana towards Oren- 



396 



