i 



EXPEDITION OF DON M. CENTURION. " ' 



Spaniards overthrew the throne of Cuzco, an ffncteht* * \ 9 

 prophecy was found, which predicted that the dynasty of 

 the lucas would one day owe its restoration to Great 

 Britain;" he advises, that, "on pretext of defending the 

 territory against external enemies, garrisons of three or four 

 thousand English should be placed in the towns of the Inca, 

 obliging this prince to pay a contribution annually to Queen 

 Elizabeth of three hundred thousand pounds sterling;" 

 finally, he adds, like a man who foresees the future, that " all 

 the vast countries of South America will one day belong to 

 the English nation."* 



The four voyages of Raleigh to the Lower Orinoco suc- 

 ceeded each other from 1595 to 1617. After all these 

 useless attempts, the ardour of research after El Dorado 

 has greatly diminished. No expeditions have since been 

 formed by a numerous band of colonists ; but some solitary 

 enterprises have been encouraged by the governors of the 

 provinces. The notions spread by the journeys of Father 

 Acuuha in 1688, and Father Fritz in 1637, to the auriferous 

 land of the Manoas of Jurubesh, and to the Laguna de Oro, 

 contributed to renew the ideas of El Dorado in the Portu- 

 guese and Spanish colonies north and south of the equator. 

 At Cuenza, in the kingdom of Quito, I met with some men, 

 who were employed by the bishop Marfil to seek at the east 

 of the Cordilleras, in the plains of Macas, the ruins of the 

 town of Logrono, which was believed to be situate in a 

 country rich in gold. We learn by the journal of Horts- 

 mann, which I have often quoted, that it was supposed, in 

 1740, El Dorado might be reached from Dutch Guiana by 

 going up the Rio Essequibo. Don Manuel Centurion, the 



* " I showed them her Majesty's picture, which the Casigui so ad- 

 mired and honoured, as it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous 

 thereof. And I further remember that Berreo confessed to me and 

 others (which I protest before the majesty of God to be true), that there 

 was found among prophecies at Peru (at such a time as the empire was 

 reduced to the Spanish obedience) in their chiefest temple, among divers 

 others which foreshowed the losse of the said empyre, that from Inglaticrra 

 those Ingas should be again in time to come restored. The Inga would 

 yield to her Majesty by composition many hundred thousand pounds 

 yearely as to defend him against all enemies abroad and defray the ex- 

 penses of a garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers. It seemeth to me that 

 this Empyre of Guiana u reserved for the English nation." (Raltiuk, 

 p. 7, 17, 51, 100.; 



