w as
flattering a conclusion.

[Sidenote: _Keymis's Gold Mine._]

From Aromaia a cacique Putijma accompanied him towards Mount Iconuri,
which contained a gold mine. 'Being a very ill footman,' he soon gave
in. He sent Keymis on, arranging that they should meet at the Cumaca.
Putijma conducted Keymis to the mine. On his own route Ralegh passed
many rocks like gold ore, a round mountain of mineral stone, and a
mountain of crystal. The crystal mountain he did not find crowned with
the diamond, which, according to Berreo, blazed afar. Its true diadem
was a mighty river, rushing down with a noise as of a thousand enormous
jangling bells. Near Mount Roraima the natives were solemnizing a
festival, 'all as drunk as beggars.' They pressed upon the strangers
abundance of delicate pine-apple wine. On the Cumaca Keymis rejoined
Ralegh. They bade adieu to sorrowing Putijma. They were themselves
downcast. 'Their hearts were cold to behold the great rage and increase
of Orinoko,' 'the sea without a shore,' as Humboldt has termed its
mouth. The Cano Manamo too, by which they had entered Guiana, was now
violently in flood. They had to follow the Capuri branch. At its mouth a
fierce gale was blowing, and the galley was near sinking. Ralegh,
embarking in his barge with Gifford, Caulfield, and his cousin,
Grenville, thrust into the sea at midnight. The galley he left to come
by day. 'Thus, faintly cheering one another in show of courage, it
pleased God about nine o'clock the next morning we descried the Isle of
Trinidad.' The ships were riding at anchor at Curiapan on the south-west
of the island. 'Never was there to us a more joyful sight.' Only one man
had perished, a very proper young negro, who, leaping into the river of
Lagartos to swim, was instantly devoured before them all by a crocodile.
The rest, in spite of wet, heat, want of sleep, clean clothes, and
shelter, and a diet of rotting fruit, crocodile, sea-cow, tapir, and
armadillo, all survived. They had suffered from no pestilence.
Schomburgk thinks Ralegh coloured too highly the mineral riches of
Guiana. He attests the veracity of the praises both of its prodigious
vegetable and animal fruitfulness, and of its healthiness away from the
malaria of the coast. His opinion was formed on an experience of eight
years of exploration.

[Sidenote: _Voyage Homewards._]

Ralegh had intended to sail to Virginia, and endeavour to relieve his
settlers. Extremity of weather forced him to