SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 359 



some meat, and greatly restoring ; so as our men were now 

 well filled, and highly contented both with the fare, and near- 

 ness of the land of Guiana, which appeared in sight. In the 

 morning there came down, according to promise, the lord of 

 that border called Toparimaca, with some thirty or forty fol- 

 lowers, and brought us divers sorts of fruits, and of his wine> 

 bread, fish, and flesh, whom we also feasted as we could ; at 

 least he drank good Spanish wine, (whereof we had a small 

 quantity in bottles) which above all things they love. 



** I conferred with this Toparimaca of the next way to Gui- 

 ana, who conducted our galley and boats to his own port, and 

 carried us from thence some mile and a half to his town, 

 where some of our captains caroused of his wine till they were 

 reasonably pleasant, for it is very strong with pepper, and the 

 juice of divers herbs and fruits digested and purged. They 

 keep it in great earthen pots of ten or twelve gallons, very 

 clean and sweet, and are themselves at their meetings and 

 feasts the greatest carousers and drunkards of the world. 

 When we came to this town we found two cassiques, whereof 

 one of them was a stranger that had been up the river in trade, 

 and his boats, people, and wife, encamped at the port where 

 we anchored, and the other was of that country, a follower of 

 Toparimaca. They lay each of them in a cotton hammock, 

 which we call brasil-beds, and two women attending them 

 with _six cups and a little ladle to fill them, out of an earthen 



