THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA ad 



1595. 

 quesite with all, 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 tolde mee 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 weake policie in me, either to 

 betray my selfe, or my countrey with imaginations, neither 

 am I so farre in love with that lodging, watching, care, 

 perill, diseases, ill savours, bad fare, and many other mis- 

 chiefes that accompany these voyages, as to woo my selfe 

 againe into any of them, were I not assured that the 

 Sunne covereth not so much riches in any part of the 

 earth. Captaine Whiddon, and our Chirurgion Nicholas 

 Millechap brought mee a kinde of stones like Saphires, 

 what they may prove I know not. I shewed them to 

 some of the Orenoqueponi, and they promised to bring 

 mee to a mountaine, that had of them very large pieces 

 growing Diamond wise: whether it be Christall of the 

 mountaine, Bristol-Diamond, or Saphire I doe 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 neere. 



On the left hand of this river Caroli are seated those 

 nations which are called Iwarawakeri before remembred, 

 which are enemies to the Epuremei : and on the head of 

 it adjoyning to the great lake Cassipa, are situate those 

 other nations which also resist Inga, and the Epuremei, 

 called Cassepagotos, Eparegotos, and Arrawagotos. I 

 farther understood that this lake of Cassipa is so large, Cassipa a 

 as it is above one dayes journey for one of their Canoas g^'^^t l^ke. 

 to crosse, which may bee some fourtie miles, and that 

 thereinto fall divers rivers, and that great store of graines 

 of gold are found in the Summer time when the lake 

 falleth by the banckes, in those branches. 



There is also another goodly river beyond Caroli which The river of 

 is called Arui, which also runneth thorow the lake Cassipa, ^'*^^- 



405 



