AND THE ADJACENT COUNTRY. 169 
the channel whereby the ships might enter in; to 
whom it seemed that the ships might sail up higher 
(although with great travail and danger). And in this 
sort I and he began to follow our way which they had 
taken, and within a short while after we found our- 
selves fast on the sands, with all our three ships, in 
such sort that one could not help another; neither 
could the boats succor us, because the current was so . 
ereat that it was impossible for one of us to come unto 
another. Whereupon we were in such great jeopardy 
that the deck of the Admiral was oftentimes under 
water; and if a great surge of the sea had not come 
and driven our ship right up, and gave her leave, as it 
were, to breathe a while, we had there been drowned. 
_ And likewise the other two ships found themselves in 
very great hazard; yet because they were lesser, and 
drew less water, their danger was not so great as ours. 
Now, it pleased God, upon the return of the flood, that 
the ships came on float [floated], and so we went 
forward. And although the company would have 
returned back, yet for all this I determined to go 
forward, and to pursue our attempted voyage ; and we 
passed forward with much ado, turning our stems now 
this way, now that way, to seek to find the channel. 
And it pleased God that after this sort we came to the 
very bottom of the bay; where we found a very 
mighty river, which ran with so great a fury of stream 
that we could hardly sail against it. In this sort I 
determined, as well as I could, to go up this river. And 
with two boats, leaving the third with the ships, and 
twenty men, myself being in one of them, with Rode- 
rigo Maldonado, treasurer of this fleet, and Gaspar de 
