THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA ad. 



1595. 

 stones, and that they put it to a part of copper, otherwise 

 they could not worke it, and that they used a great 

 earthern pot with holes round about it, and when they 

 had mingled the gold and copper together, they fastened 

 canes to the holes, and so with the breath of men they 

 increased the fire till the metall ran, & then they cast 

 it into moulds of stone and clay, and so make those 

 plates and images. I have sent your Honors of two 

 sortes such as I could by chance recover, more to 

 shewe the maner of them, then for the value : For I 

 did not in any sort make my desire of gold knowen, 

 because I had neither time, nor power to have a greater 

 quantity. I gave among them manie more peeces ot 

 gold, then I received, of the new money of 20 shillings 

 with her Majesties picture to weare, with promise that 

 they would become her servants thencefoorth. 



I have also sent your Honours of the ore, whereof Most rich 

 I know some is as rich as the earth yeeldeth any, of S^''^ '^^^' 

 which I know there is sufficient, if nothing else were 

 to bee hoped for. But besides that we were not able 

 to tarrie and search the hils, so we had neither pioners, 

 barres, ledges, nor wedges of yron to breake the ground, 

 without which there is no working in mines : but wee 

 saw all the hilles with stones of the colour of gold and 

 silver, and we tried them to be no Marquesite, and there- 

 fore such as the Spaniards call El madre del oro, or, 

 The mother of gold, which is an undoubted assurance 

 of the generall abundance : and my selfe saw the out- 

 side of many mines of the Sparre, which I know to 

 be the same that all covet in this world, and of those, 

 more then I will speake of. 



Having learned what I could in Canuri and Aromaia, 

 and received a faithfull promise of the principallest of 

 those provinces to become servants to her Majestic, 

 and to resist the Spaniards, if they made any attempt 

 in our absence, and that they would draw in the nations 

 about the lake of Cassipa, and those Iwarawaqueri, I The lake of 

 then parted from olde Topiawari, and received his sonne ^^^^^P^- 



415 



