53 TlMEHRl. 



hardly be considered fortunate. So far from that 

 valiant sailor-soldier having affirmed that, " in his time, 

 " the Spaniards possessed the Orinoco and its surround- 

 ings^'' he seems to have felt very grave doubts as 

 to their possession of even the Orinoco ; as will be 

 gathered from the following extraft from a letter written 

 by him to Lord Carew : — 



" The Oronoko itself had long ere this had 5,000 

 " English in it, I assure myself, had not my employment 

 " at Cales the next year after my return from Guiana, 

 " and after that our journey to the islands hindered me 

 " for those two years. After which Tyrone's rebellion 

 " made Her Majesty unwilling that any great number of 

 " ships or men should be taken out of England till 

 " that rebellion were ended. And lastly Her Majesty's 

 " death, and my long imprisonment, gave time to the 

 " Spaniards to set up a town of sticks, covered by 

 " leaves of trees, upon the bank of Oronoko, which they 

 " call San Thome."* 



The Orinoco itself was renamed as the Raleana, in 

 1596, by Keymis, in honour of Sir WALTER. The poets 

 of his time looked upon Sir Walter Raleigh's Dis- 

 covery of Guiana, as opening the way to the founding of 

 a new Britain in the New World. CHAPMAN, the trans- 



* Between the San Thome of 1618 and the San Thomd of 172J, 

 there was not much to choose. According to a Spaaish account, San 

 Thome consisted of 20 or 25 cabins, occupied by as many persons, 

 destitute, indeed. Surrounded by thick forest, the place was unhealthy 

 and fever-stricken. The inhabitants " never went any distance from 

 " the place on account of the great risk of falling into the hands of the 

 " Caribs, who occupied and wandered over all those territories," See 

 p, 109 of the British Blue Book. 



