I could by chance recover, more to shew the manner of them than
for the value. For I did not in any sort make my desire of gold known,
because I had neither time nor power to have a great quantity. I gave
among them many more pieces of gold than I received, of the new money of
twenty shillings with her Majesty's picture, to wear, with promise that
they would become her servants thenceforth.

I have also sent your honours of the ore, whereof I know some is as
rich as the earth yieldeth any, of which I know there is sufficient, if
nothing else were to be hoped for. But besides that we were not able to
tarry and search the hills, so we had neither pioneers, bars, sledges,
nor wedges of iron to break the ground, without which there is no
working in mines. But we saw all the hills with stones of the colour
of gold and silver, and we tried them to be no marcasite, and therefore
such as the Spaniards call El madre del oro or "the mother of gold,"
which is an undoubted assurance of the general abundance; and myself saw
the outside of many mines of the spar, which I know to be the same that
all covet in this world, and of those more than I will speak of.

Having learned what I could in Canuri and Aromaia, and received a
faithful promise of the principallest of those provinces to become
servants to her Majesty, and to resist the Spaniards if they made any
attempt in our absence, and that they would draw in the nations about
the lake of Cassipa and those of Iwarawaqueri, I then parted from old
Topiawari, and received his son for a pledge between us, and left with
him two of ours as aforesaid. To Francis Sparrow I gave instructions
to travel to Macureguarai with such merchandises as I left with them,
thereby to learn the place, and if it were possible, to go on to the
great city of Manoa. Which being done, we weighed anchor and coasted the
river on Guiana side, because we came upon the north side, by the lawns
of the Saima and Wikiri.

There came with us from Aromaia a cacique called Putijma, that commanded
the province of Warapana, which Putijma slew the nine Spaniards upon
Caroli before spoken of; who desired us to rest in the port of his
country, promising to bring us unto a mountain adjoining to his town
that had stones of the colour of gold, which he performed. And after we
had rested there one night I went myself in the morning with most of the
gentlemen of my company over-land towards the said mountain, marching
by a rive