our,
by spells, without ceasing, each company their half-hour glass: without
meeting any, till about three o'clock in the afternoon, by which time we
could get but five leagues ahead.

Then we espied a canoe, with two Indians fishing in the river; but we
spake not to them, lest so we might be descried: nor they to us, as
taking us to be Spaniards. But within an hour after, we espied certain
houses, on the other side of the river, whose channel is twenty-five
fathom deep, and its breadth so great, that a man can scantly be
discerned from side to side. Yet a Spaniard which kept those houses,
had espied our pinnaces; and thinking we had been his countrymen, made
a smoke, for a signal to turn that way, as being desirous to speak with
us. After that, we espying this smoke, had made with it, and were half
the river over, he wheaved [waved] to us, with his hat and his long
hanging sleeves, to come ashore.

But as we drew nearer to him, and he discerned that we were not those he
looked for: he took his heels, and fled from his houses, which we found
to be, five in number, all full of white rusk, dried bacon, that country
cheese (like Holland cheese in fashion, but far more delicate in
taste, of which they send into Spain as special presents) many sorts of
sweetmeats, and conserves; with great store of sugar: being provided to
serve the Fleet returning to Spain.

With this store of victuals, we loaded our pinnaces; by the shutting in
of the day, we were ready to depart; for that we hastened the rather,
by reason of an intelligence given us by certain Indian women which we
found in those houses: that the frigates (these are ordinarily thirty,
or upwards, which usually transport the merchandise, sent out of Spain
to Cartagena from thence to these houses, and so in great canoes up
hence into Nuevo Reyno, for which the river running many hundred of
leagues within the land serveth very fitly: and return in exchange, the
gold and treasure, silver, victuals, and commodities, which that kingdom
yields abundantly) were not yet returned from Cartagena, since the first
alarm they took of our being there.

As we were going aboard our pinnaces from these Storehouses (10th
September), the Indians of a great town called Villa del Rey, some two
miles distant from the water's side where we landed, were brought down
by the Spaniards into the bushes, and shot arrows; but we rowed down
the stream with the current (for that the wind was against