to report this
worthless; but Westwood, a refiner of Wood Street, and Dulmar Dimoke,
and Palmer, Controllers of the Mint, pronounced it very rich.
Calumniators, taking up a different position, alleged that the whole had
been imported from Barbary into Guiana. Ralegh himself wrote to Cecil on
November 21, 1595: 'What becomes of Guiana I much desire to hear,
whether it pass for a history or a fable.' He had to take pen in hand,
and defend himself from slanders by his _Discovery of the large, rich,
and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the great and golden
city of Manoa_. The volume was published in 1596, with a grateful
dedication to his friends in adversity, his kinsman, the Lord Admiral,
and Cecil. Hume characterizes the account as 'full of the grossest and
most palpable lies.' The sole apparent ground for the accusation is that
Ralegh quoted Indian tales of strange creatures, giving the Indian
narrators as his authorities. It is not necessary to deny that he may
have been prone to believe in them too. The legend of a nation of
Amazons is of venerable antiquity. His was an age of faith in portents,
in witches, and wizards. If he did not sternly refuse credence even to
the shoulder-eyed Ewaipanomas, it must be remembered that a world of
'stranger things than are to be seen between London and Staines,' as he
has said, was being opened up to wondering Europe. Ralegh's personal
evidence, as I have mentioned, Schomburgk has tested; and he certifies
that it is not open to Hume's condemnation. Humboldt concurs. In
particular, the geographical knowledge exhibited in Ralegh's narrative
has been proved to be, for the period, curiously wide and accurate. His
observations on the natural phenomena of the region are equally faithful
and sagacious. The trust he reposed in its metallic riches is being now
demonstrated to have been more solidly founded than even Sir Robert
Schomburgk thought it. International disputes have recently arisen out
of the discovery of gold in the country still known as Guiana. Of the
gold field in Venezuela, which was comprised in Ralegh's Guiana, a
Government Inspector of Mines stated in 1889 that he believed we had in
it Sir Walter's el Dorado itself.

Contemporaries were captivated by the charm of the narrative. It
suffered from no dearth of readers at home. Abroad it was admired almost
more warmly. Four German editions appeared between 1599 and 1602, the
first three being published at Nuremb