SIR WALTER RALEIGH SEARCHES FOR EL DORADO
It is pleasant to turn from the icy regions of North America to the
sunny South, and to follow the fortunes of that fine Elizabethan
gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, to "the large, rich, and beautiful
Empire of Guiana and the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the
Spaniards call El Dorado)." Ever since the conquest of Peru, sixty
years before, there had floated about rumours of a great kingdom
abounding in gold. The King of this Golden Land was sprinkled daily
with gold dust, till he shone as the sun, while Manoa was full of golden
houses and golden temples with golden furniture. The kingdom was
wealthier than Peru; it was richer than Mexico. Expedition after
expedition had left Spain in search of this El Dorado, but the region
was still plunged in romantic mists. Raleigh had just failed to
establish an English colony in Virginia. To gain a rich kingdom for
his Queen, to extend her power and enrich her treasury was now his
greatest object in life. What about El Dorado?
"Oh, unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it
seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and
but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires
of El Dorado."
February 1595 found him ready and leaving England with five ships and,
after a good passage of forty-six days, landing on the island of
Trinidad, and thence making his way to the mouth of the Orinoco. Here
Raleigh soon found that it was impossible to enter the Orinoco with
his English ships, but, nothing daunted, he took a hundred men and
provisions for a month in three little open boats, and started forward
to navigate this most difficult labyrinth of channels, out of which
they were guided by an old Indian pilot named Ferdinando. They had
much to observe. The natives, living along the river-banks, dwelt in
houses all the summer, but in the winter months they constructed small
huts to which they ascended by means of ladders.
These folk were cannibals, but cannibals of a refined sort, who "beat
the bones of their lords into powder" and mixed the powder with their
drinks. The stream was very strong and rapid, and the men rowed against
it in great discomfort, "the weather being extreme hot, the river
bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and the current
against us every day stronger than the other," until they became, as
Raleigh tells us, "wearied and scorched and doubtful."
The heat increased as they advanced, and the crews grew weaker as the
river "ran more violently against them." But Raleigh refused to return
yet, lest "the world would laugh us to scorn."
Fortunately delicious fruits hung over the banks of the Orinoco, and,
having no bread and for water only the thick and troubled water of
the river, they refreshed themselves gladly. So they rowed on up the
great river, through province after province of the Indians, but no
El Dorado appeared. Suddenly the scene changed as if by magic, the
high banks giving way to low-lying plains; green grass grew close to
the water's edge, and deer came down to feed.
"I never saw a more beautiful country," says Raleigh, "nor more lively
prospects, hills raised here and there over the valleys, the river
winding into different branches, plains without bush or stubble, all
fair green grass, deer crossing our path, the birds towards evening
singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, herons of white,
crimson, and carnation perching on the riverside, the air fresh with
a gentle wind, and every stone we stooped to pick up promised either
gold or silver." His account of the great cataract at the junction
of the tributary Caroni is very graphic. They had already heard the
roar, so they ran to the tops of some neighbouring hills, discovering
the wonderful "breach of waters" which ran down Caroli, and from that
"mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, about twenty miles
off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every
one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell with that
fury that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been all
covered over with a great shower of rain; and in some places we took
it at the first for a smoke that had risen over some great town."
[Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.]
The country was the province of Guiana, but it was not El Dorado, the
object of their quest. And though it was very beautiful, it was
inhabited by cannibals; moreover, winter was advancing, and they were
already some four hundred miles from their ships in little open boats
and in the heart of a strange country.
Suddenly, too, the river began to rise, to "rage and overflow very
fearfully," rain came down in torrents accompanied by great gusts of
wind, and the crews with no change of clothes got wet through, sometimes
ten times a day. "Whosoever had seen the fury of that river after it
began to rise would perchance have turned his back somewhat sooner
than we did if all the mountains had been gold or precious stones,"
remarked Raleigh, who indeed was no coward. So they turned the boats
for home, and at a tremendous rate they spun down the stream, sometimes
doing as much as one hundred miles a day, till after sundry adventures
they safely reached their ships at anchor off Trinidad. Raleigh had
not reached the golden city of Manoa, but he gave a very glowing account
of this country to his Queen.
"Guiana," he tells her, "is a country that hath yet her maidenhood.
The face of the earth hath not been torn, the graves have not been
opened for gold. It hath never been entered by any army of strength,
and never conquered by any Christian prince. Men shall find here more
rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with gold, than either
Cortes found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru, and the shining glory of
this conquest will eclipse all those of the Spanish nation."
But Raleigh had brought back no gold, and his schemes for a conquest
of Guiana were received coldly by the Queen. She could not share his
enthusiasm for the land--
"Where Orinoco, in his pride,
Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
But 'gainst broad Ocean wages far
A rival sea of roaring war;
While in ten thousand eddies driven
The billows fling their foam to heaven;
And the pale pilot seeks in vain
Where rolls the river, where the main."
But, besides the Orinoco in South America, there was the St. Lawrence
in North America, still very imperfectly known. Since Jacques Cartier
had penetrated the hitherto undisturbed regions lying about the "river
of Canada," little had been explored farther west, till Samuel
Champlain, one of the most remarkable men of his day, comes upon the
scene, and was still discovering land to the west when Raleigh was
making his second expedition to Guiana in the year 1617.
[Illustration: RALEIGH'S MAP OF GUINEA, EL DORADO, AND THE ORINOCO
COAST. From the original map, drawn by Raleigh, in the British Museum.
This map, like so many of the older charts, is drawn upside down, the
South being at the top and the East on the left, while the Panama Isthmus
is at the bottom on the right. The river above the "Lake of Manoa"
is the Amazon.]