soldiers, and neither horse nor cattle.  For Berreo hoped to have found Guiana be 1,000 miles nearer than it fell out to be in the end; by means whereof they sustained much want, and much hunger, oppressed with grievous diseases, and all the miseries that could be imagined.  I demanded of those in Guiana that had travelled Amapaia, how they lived with that tawny or red water when they travelled thither; and they told me that after the sun was near the middle of the sky, they used to fill their pots and pitchers with that water, but either before that time or towards the setting of the sun it was dangerous to drink of, and in the night strong poison.  I learned also of divers other rivers of that nature among them, which were also, while the sun was in the meridian, very safe to drink, and in the morning, evening, and night, wonderful dangerous and infective.  From this province Berreo hasted away as soon as the spring and beginning of summer appeared, and sought his entrance on the borders of Orenoque on the south side; but there ran a ledge of so high and impassable mountains, as he was not able by any means to march over them, continuing from the east sea into which Orenoque falleth, even to Quito in Peru.  Neither had he means to carry victual or munition over those craggy, high, and fast hills, being all woody, and those so thick and spiny, and so full or prickles, thorns, and briars, as it is impossible to creep through them.  He had also neither friendship among the people, nor any interpreter to persuade or treat with them; and more, to his disadvantage, the caciques and kings of Amapaia had given knowledge of his purpose to the Guianians, and that he sought to sack and conquer the empire, for the hope of their so great abundance and quantities of gold.  He passed by the mouths of many great rivers which fell into Orenoque both from the north and south, which I forbear to name, for tediousness, and because they are more pleasing in describing than reading.

Berreo affirmed that there fell an hundred rivers into Orenoque from the north and south:  whereof the least was as big as Rio Grande (the Magdalena), that passed between Popayan and Nuevo Reyno de Granada, Rio Grande being esteemed one of the renowned rivers in all the West Indies, and numbered among the great rivers of the world.  But he knew not the names of any of these, but Caroli only; neither from what nations they descended, neither to what provinces they led, for he had no means to discourse with the inhabitants at any time; neither was he curious in these things, being utterly unlearned, and not knowing the east from the west.  But of all these I got some knowledge, and of many more, partly by mine own travel, and the rest by conference; of some one I learned one, of others the rest, having with me an Indian that spake many languages, and that of Guiana (the Carib) naturally.  I sought out all the aged men, and such as were greatest travellers.  And by the one and the other I came to understand the situations,