GUIANA.
The vast tract in the north-east of the southern continent of America
which is now divided between Venezuela and three European powers, was
known in the sixteenth century by the name of Guiana. Of this district
the three territories now styled English, Dutch, and French Guiana
respectively form but an insignificant coast-line, actually lying
outside the vague eastern limit of the traditional empire of Guiana. As
early as 1539 a brother of the great Pizarro had returned to Peru with a
legend of a prince of Guiana whose body was smeared with turpentine and
then blown upon with gold dust, so that he strode naked among his people
like a majestic golden statue. This prince was El Dorado, the Gilded
One. But as time went on this title was transferred from the monarch to
his kingdom, or rather to a central lake hemmed in by golden mountains
in the heart of Guiana. Spanish and German adventurers made effort after
effort to reach this _laguna_, starting now from Peru, now from Quito,
now from Trinidad, but they never found it: little advance was made in
knowledge or authority, nor did Spain raise any definite pretensions to
Guiana, although her provinces hemmed it in upon three sides.
There is no doubt that Raleigh, who followed with the closest attention
the nascent geographical literature of his time, read the successive
accounts which the Spaniards and Germans gave of their explorations in
South America. But it was not until 1594 that he seems to have been
specially attracted to Guiana. At every part of his career it was
'hatred of the tyrannous prosperity' of Spain which excited him to
action. Early in 1594 Captain George Popham, sailing apparently in one
of Raleigh's vessels, captured at sea and brought to the latter certain
letters sent home to the King of Spain announcing that on April 23,
1593, at a place called Warismero, on the Orinoco, Antonio de Berreo,
the Governor of Trinidad, had annexed Guiana to the dominions of his
Catholic Majesty, under the name of El Nuevo Dorado. In these same
letters various reports of the country and its inhabitants were
repeated, that the chiefs danced with their naked bodies gleaming with
gold dust, and with golden eagles dangling from their breasts and great
pearls from their ears, that there were rich mines of diamonds and of
gold, that the innocent people were longing to exchange their jewels for
jews-harps. Raleigh was aroused at once, less by the splendours of the
description than by the fact that this unknown country, with its
mysterious possibilities, had been impudently added to the plunder of
Spain. He immediately fitted out a ship, and sent Captain Jacob Whiddon,
an old servant of his, to act as a pioneer, and get what knowledge he
could of Guiana. Whiddon went to Trinidad, saw Berreo, was put off by
him with various treacherous excuses, and returned to England in the
winter of 1594 with but a scanty stock of fresh information. It was
enough, however, to encourage Raleigh to start for Guiana without delay.
On December 26 he writes: 'This wind breaks my heart. That which should
carry me hence now stays me here, and holds seven ships in the river of
Thames. As soon as God sends them hither I will not lose one hour of
time.' On January 2, 1595, he is still at Sherborne, 'only gazing for a
wind to carry me to my destiny.' At last, on February 6 he sailed away
from Plymouth, not with seven, but with five ships, together with small
craft for ascending rivers. What the number of his crew was, he nowhere
states. The section of them which he took up to the Orinoco he describes
as 'a handful of men, being in all about a hundred gentlemen; soldiers,
rowers, boat-keepers, boys, and all sorts.' Sir Robert Cecil was to have
adventured his own ship, the 'Lion's Whelp,' and for her Raleigh waited
seven or eight days among the Canaries, but she did not arrive. On the
17th they captured at Fuerteventura two ships, Spanish and Flemish, and
stocked their own vessels with wine from the latter.
They then sailed on into the west, and on March 22 arrived on the south
side of Trinidad, casting anchor on the north shore of the Serpent's
Mouth. Raleigh personally explored the southern and western coasts of
the island in a small boat, while the ships kept to the channel. He was
amazed to find oysters in the brackish creeks hanging to the branches of
the mangrove trees at low water, and he examined also the now famous
liquid pitch of Trinidad. Twenty years afterwards, in writing _The
History of the World_, we find his memory still dwelling on these
natural wonders. At the first settlement the English fleet came to,
Port of Spain, they traded with the Spanish colonists, and Raleigh
endeavoured to find out what he could, which was but little, about
Guiana. He pretended that he was asking merely out of curiosity, and was
on his way to his own colony of Virginia.
While Raleigh was anchored off Port of Spain, he found that Berreo, the
Governor, had privately sent for reinforcements to Marguerita and
Cumana, meaning to attack him suddenly. At the same time the Indians
came secretly aboard the English ships with terrible complaints of
Spanish cruelty. Berreo was keeping the ancient chiefs of the island in
prison, and had the singular foible of amusing himself at intervals by
basting their bare limbs with broiling bacon. These considerations
determined Raleigh to take the initiative. That same evening he marched
his men up the country to the new capital of the island, St. Joseph,
which they easily stormed, and in it they captured Berreo. Raleigh found
five poor roasted chieftains hanging in irons at the point of death, and
at their instance he set St. Joseph on fire. That very day two more
English ships, the 'Lion's Whelp' and the 'Galleys,' arrived at Port of
Spain, and Raleigh was easily master of the situation.
Berreo seems to have submitted with considerable tact. He insinuated
himself into Raleigh's confidence, and, like the familiar poet in
Shakespeare's sonnet, 'nightly gulled him with intelligence.' His
original idea probably was that by inflaming Raleigh's imagination with
the wonders of Guiana, he would be the more likely to plunge to his own
destruction into the fatal swamps of the Orinoco. It is curious to find
even Raleigh, who was eminently humane in his own dealings with the
Indians, speaking in these terms of such a cruel scoundrel as Berreo, 'a
gentleman well descended, very valiant and liberal, and a gentleman of
great assuredness, and of a great heart: I used him according to his
estate and worth in all things I could, according to the small means I
had.' Berreo showed him a copy he held of a journal kept by a certain
Juan Martinez, who professed to have penetrated as far as Manoa, the
capital of Guiana. This narrative was very shortly afterwards exposed as
'an invention of the fat friars of Puerto Rico,' but Raleigh believed
it, and it greatly encouraged him. When Berreo realised that he
certainly meant to attempt the expedition, his tone altered, and he 'was
stricken into a great melancholy and sadness, using all the arguments he
could to dissuade me, and also assuring the gentlemen of my company that
it would be labour lost,' but all in vain.
The first thing to be done was to cross the Serpent's Mouth, and to
ascend one of the streams of the great delta. Raleigh sent Captain
Whiddon to explore the southern coast, and determined from his report to
take the Capuri, or, as it is now called, the Macareo branch, which lies
directly under the western extremity of Trinidad. After an unsuccessful
effort here, he started farther west, on the Cano Manamo, which he calls
the River of the Red Cross. He found it exceedingly difficult to enter,
owing to the sudden rise and fall of the flood in the river, and the
violence of the current. At last they started, passing up the river on
the tide, and anchoring in the ebb, and in this way went slowly onward.
The vessels which carried them were little fitted for such a task.
Raleigh had had an old galley furnished with benches to row upon, and so
far cut down that she drew but five feet of water; he had also a barge,
two wherries, and a ship's boat, and in this miserable fleet, leaving
his large vessels behind him in the Gulf of Paria, he accomplished his
perilous and painful voyage to the Orinoco and back, with one hundred
persons and their provisions. Of the misery of these four hundred miles
he gives a graphic account:
We were all driven to lie in the rain and weather, in the open
air, in the burning sun, and upon the hard boards, and to dress
our meat, and to carry all manner of furniture, wherewith [the
boats] were so pestered and unsavoury, that what with victuals
being most fish, with the wet clothes of so many men thrust
together, and the heat of the sun, I will undertake there was
never any prison in England that could be found more unsavoury
and loathsome, especially to myself, who had for many years
before been dieted and cared for in a sort far different.
On the third day, as they were ascending the river, the galley stuck so
fast that they thought their expedition would have ended there; but
after casting out all her ballast, and after much tugging and hauling to
and fro, they got off in twelve hours. When they had ascended beyond the
limit of the tide, the violence of the current became a very serious
difficulty, and at the end of the seventh day the crews began to
despair, the temperature being extremely hot, and the thick foliage of
the Ita-palms on either side of the river excluding every breath of air.
Day by day the Indian pilots assured them that the next night should be
the last. Raleigh had to harangue his men to prevent mutiny, for now
their provisions also were exhausted. He told them that if they returned
through that deadly swamp they must die of starvation, and that the
world would laugh their memory to scorn.
[Illustration: GUIANA.]
Presently things grew a little better. They found wholesome fruits on
the banks, and now that the streams were purer they caught fish. Not
knowing what they saw, they marvelled at the 'birds of all colours, some
carnation, orange tawny,' which was Raleigh's own colour, 'purple,
green, watchet and of all other sorts both simple and mixed, as it was
unto us a great good passing of the time to behold them, besides the
relief we found by killing some store of them with our fowling pieces.'
These savannahs are full of birds, and the brilliant macaws which
excited Raleigh's admiration make an excellent stew, with the flavour,
according to Sir Robert Schomburgk, of hare soup. Their pilot now
persuaded them to anchor the galley in the main river, and come with him
up a creek, on the right hand, which would bring them to a town. On this
wild-goose chase they ascended the side-stream for forty miles; it was
probably the Cucuina, which was simply winding back with them towards
the Gulf of Paria. They felt that the Indian was tricking them, but
about midnight, while they were talking of hanging him, they saw a light
and heard the baying of dogs. They had found an Indian village, and here
they rested well, and had plenty of food and drink. Upon this new river
they were charmed to see the deer come feeding down to the water's
brink, and Raleigh describes the scene as though it reminded him of his
own park at Sherborne. They were alarmed at the crowds of alligators,
and one handsome young negro, who leaped into the river from the galley,
was instantly devoured in Raleigh's sight.
Next day they regained the great river, and their anxious comrades in
the 'Lion's Whelp.' They passed on together, and were fortunate enough
to meet with four Indian canoes laden with excellent bread. The Indians
ran away and left their possessions, and Raleigh's dreams of mineral
wealth were excited by the discovery of what he took to be a 'refiner's
basket, for I found in it his quicksilver, saltpetre, and divers things
for the trial of metals, and also the dust of such ore as he had
refined.' He was minded to stay here and dig for gold, but was prevented
by a phenomenon which he mentions incidentally, but which has done much
to prove the reality of his narrative. He says that all the little
creeks which ran towards the Orinoco 'were raised with such speed, as if
we waded them over the shoes in the morning outward, we were covered to
the shoulders homeward the very same day.' Sir R. Schomburgk found
exactly the same to be the case when he explored Guiana in 1843.
They pushed on therefore along the dreary river, and on the fifteenth
day had the joy of seeing straight before them far away the peaks of
Peluca and Paisapa, the summits of the Imataca mountains which divide
the Orinoco from the Essequibo. The same evening, favoured by a strong
northerly wind, they came in sight of the great Orinoco itself, and
anchored in it a little to the east of the present settlement of San
Rafael de Barrancas. Their spirits were high again. They feasted on the
eggs of the freshwater turtles which they found in thousands on the
sandy islands, and they gazed with rapture on the mountains to the south
of them which rose out of the very heart of Guiana. A friendly chieftain
carried them off to his village, where, to preserve the delightful
spelling of the age, 'some of our captaines garoused of his wine till
they were reasonable pleasant,' this wine being probably the cassivi or
fermented juice of the sweet potato. It redounds to Raleigh's especial
credit that in an age when great license was customary in dealing with
savages, he strictly prohibited his men, under threat of punishment by
death, from insulting the Indian women. His just admiration of the fair
Caribs, however, was quite enthusiastic:
The casique that was a stranger had his wife staying at the port
where we anchored, and in all my life I have seldom seen a
better-favoured woman. She was of good stature, with black eyes,
fat of body, of an excellent countenance, and taking great pride
therein. I have seen a lady in England so like her, as but for
the difference of colour I would have sworn might have been the
same.
They started to ascend the Orinoco, having so little just understanding
of the geography of South America that they thought if they could only
sail far enough up the river they would come out on the other side of
the continent at Quito. It has been noticed that Raleigh passed close to
the Spanish settlement of Guayana Vieja, which Berreo had founded four
years before. Perhaps it was by this time deserted, and Raleigh may
really have gone by it without seeing it. More probably, however, its
existence interfered with his theory that all this territory was
untouched by Europeans, and therefore open to be annexed in the name of
her English Majesty. Passing up the Orinoco, he came at last to what he
calls 'the port of Morequito,' where he made some stay, and enjoyed the
luxury of pine-apples, which he styles 'the princess of fruits.' He was
also introduced to that pleasing beast the armadillo, whose powers and
functions he a little misunderstood, for he says of it, 'it seemeth to
be all barred over with small plates like to a rhinoceros, with a white
horn growing in his hinder parts, like unto a hunting horn, which they
use to wind instead of a trumpet.' What Raleigh mistook for a
hunting-horn was the stiff tail of the armadillo. Raleigh warned the
peaceful and friendly inhabitants of Morequito against the villanies of
Spain, and recommended England to them as a safe protector. He then
pursued his westerly course to an island which he calls Caiama, and
which is now named Fajardo, which was the farthest point he reached upon
the Orinoco. This island lies at the mouth of the Caroni, the great
southern artery of the watershed, and Raleigh's final expedition was
made up this stream. He reached the foot of the great cataract, now
named Salto Caroni, and his description of this noble natural wonder may
be quoted as a favourable instance of his style, and as the crown of his
geographical enterprise:
When we ran to the tops of the first hills of the plains
adjoining to the river, we behold that wonderful breach of
waters, which ran down Caroli [Caroni]; and might from that
mountain see the river how it ran in three parts, above 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. For mine own part, I was
well persuaded from thence to have returned, being a very ill
footman, but the rest were all so desirous to go near the said
strange thunder of waters, that they drew me on by little and
little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better
discern the same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more
lively prospects, hills so raised here and there over the
valleys, the river winding into divers branches, the plains
adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the
ground of hard sand easy to march on either for horse or foot,
the deer crossing in every path, the birds towards the evening
singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, cranes and
herons of white, crimson, and carnation perching on the river's
side, the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind, and every stone
that we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by his
complexion.
The last touch spoils an exquisite picture. It is at once dispiriting to
find so intrepid a geographer and so acute a merchant befooled by the
madness of gold, and pathetic to know that his hopes in this direction
were absolutely unfounded. The white quartz of Guiana, the 'hard white
spar' which Raleigh describes, confessedly contains gold, although, as
far as is at present known, in quantities so small as not to reward
working. Humboldt says that his examination of Guiana gold led him to
believe that, 'like tin, it is sometimes disseminated in an almost
imperceptible manner in the mass of granite rocks itself, without our
being able to admit that there is a ramification and an interlacing of
small veins.' It is plain that Raleigh got hold of unusually rich
specimens of the sparse auriferous quartz. He was accused on his return
of having brought his specimens from Africa, but no one suggested that
they did not contain gold. No doubt much of the sparkling dust he saw in
the rocks was simply iron pyrites, or some other of the minerals which
to this day are known to the wise in California as 'fool's gold.' His
expedition had come to America unprovided with tools of any kind, and
Raleigh confesses that such specimens of ore as they did not buy from
the Indians, they had to tear out with their daggers or with their
fingers.
It has been customary of late, in reaction against the defamation of
Raleigh in the eighteenth century, to protest that gold was not his
chief aim in the Guiana enterprise, but that his main wish, under cover
of the search for gold, was to form a South American colony for England,
and to open out the west to general commerce. With every wish to hold
this view, I am unable to do so in the face of the existing evidence.
More humane, more intelligent than any of the adventurers who had
preceded him, it yet does not seem that Raleigh was less insanely bitten
with the gold fever than any of them. He saw the fleets of Spain return
to Europe year after year laden with precious metals from Mexico, and he
exaggerated, as all men of his age did, the power of this tide of gold.
He conceived that no one would stem the dangerous influence of Spain
until the stream of wealth was diverted or divided. He says in the most
direct language that it is not the trade of Spain, her exports of wines
and Seville oranges and other legitimate produce, that threatens
shipwreck to us all; 'it is his Indian gold that endangereth and
disturbeth all the nations of Europe; it purchased intelligence,
creepeth into councils, and setteth bound loyalty at liberty in the
greatest monarchies of Europe.' In Raleigh's exploration of Guiana, his
steadfast hope, the hope which led him patiently through so many
hardships, was that he might secure for Elizabeth a vast auriferous
colony, the proceeds of which might rival the revenues of Mexico and
Peru. But we must not make the mistake of supposing him to have been so
wise before his time as to perceive that the real wealth which might
paralyse a selfish power like that of Spain would consist in the cereals
and other products which such a colony might learn to export.
Resting among the friendly Indians in the heart of the strange country
to which he had penetrated, Raleigh became in many ways the victim of
his ignorance and his pardonable credulity. Not only was he gulled with
diamonds and sapphires that were really rock-crystals, but he was made
to believe that there existed west of the Orinoco a tribe of Indians
whose eyes were in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of
their breasts. He does not pretend that he saw such folks, however, or
that he enjoyed the advantage of conversing with any of the Ewaipanoma,
or men without heads, or of that other tribe, 'who have eminent heads
like dogs, and live all the day-time in the sea, and speak the Carib
language.' Of all these he speaks from modest hearsay, and less
confidently than Othello did to Desdemona. It is true that he relates
marvellous and fabulous things, but it is no less than just to
distinguish very carefully between what he repeats and what he reports.
For the former we have to take the evidence of his interpreters, who but
dimly understood what the Indians told them, and Raleigh cannot be held
personally responsible; for the latter, the testimony of all later
explorers, especially Humboldt and Schomburgk, is that Raleigh's
narrative, where he does not fall into obvious and easily intelligible
error, is remarkably clear and simple, and full of internal evidence of
its genuineness.
They had now been absent from their ships for nearly a month, and
Raleigh began to give up all hope of being able on this occasion to
reach the city of Manoa. The fury of the Orinoco began to alarm them;
they did not know what might happen in a country subject to such sudden
and phenomenal floods. Tropical rains fell with terrific violence, and
the men would get wetted to the skin ten times a day. It was cold, it
was windy, and to push on farther seemed perfectly hopeless. Raleigh
therefore determined to return, and they glided down the vast river at a
rapid pace, without need of sail or oar. At Morequito, Raleigh sent for
the old Indian chief, Topiawari, who had been so friendly to him before,
and had a solemn interview with him. He took him into his tent, and
shutting out all other persons but the interpreter, he told him that
Spain was the enemy of Guiana, and urged him to become the ally of
England. He promised to aid him against the Epuremi, a native race which
had oppressed him, if Topiawari would in his turn act in Guiana for the
Queen of England. To this the old man and his followers warmly assented,
urging Raleigh to push on, if not for Manoa, at least for Macureguarai,
a rich city full of statues of gold, that was but four days' journey
farther on. This, Raleigh, in consideration of the sufferings of his
followers, declined to do, but he consented to an odd exchange of
hostages, and promised the following year to make a better equipped
expedition to Manoa. He carried off with him the son of Topiawari, and
he left behind at Morequito a boy called Hugh Goodwin. To keep this boy
company, a young man named Francis Sparrey volunteered to stay also; he
was a person of some education, who had served with Captain Gifford.
Goodwin had a fancy for learning the Indian language, and when Raleigh
found him at Caliana twenty-two years later, he had almost forgotten his
English. He was at last devoured by a jaguar. Sparrey, who 'could
describe a country with his pen,' was captured by the Spaniards, taken
to Spain, and after long sufferings escaped to England, where he
published an account of Guiana in 1602. Sparrey is chiefly remembered by
his own account of how he purchased eight young women, the eldest but
eighteen years of age, for a red-hafted knife, which in England had cost
him but a halfpenny. This was not the sort of trade which Raleigh left
him behind to encourage.
As they passed down the Orinoco, they visited a lake where Raleigh saw
that extraordinary creature the manatee, half cow, half whale; and a
little lower they saw the column of white spray, rising like the tower
of a church, over the huge cascades of the crystal mountains of Roraima.
At the village of a chieftain within earshot of those thundering waters,
they witnessed one of the wild drinking feasts of the Indians, who were
'all as drunk as beggars, the pots walking from one to another without
rest.' Next day, the contingent led by Captain Keymis found them, and to
celebrate the meeting of friends, they passed over to the island of
Assapana, now called Yayo, in the middle of the Orinoco, and they
enjoyed a feast of the flesh of armadillos. On the following day,
increased cold and violent thunderstorms reminded them that the autumn
was far spent, and they determined to return as quickly as possible to
the sea. Their pilots told them, however, that it was out of the
question to try to descend the River of the Red Cross, which they had
ascended, as the current would baffle them; and therefore they attempted
what is now called the Macareo channel, farther east. Raleigh names this
stream the Capuri.
They had no further adventures until they reached the sea; but as they
emerged into the Serpent's Mouth, a great storm attacked them. They ran
before night close under shore with their small boats, and brought the
galley as near as they could. The latter, however, very nearly sank, and
Raleigh was puzzled what to do. A bar of sand ran across the mouth of
the river, covered by only six feet of water, and the galley drew five.
The longer he hesitated, the worse the weather grew, and therefore he
finally took Captain Gifford into his own barge, and thrust out to sea,
leaving the galley anchored by the shore. 'So being all very sober and
melancholy, one faintly cheering another to show courage, it pleased God
that the next day, about nine of the clock, we descried the island of
Trinidad, and steering for the nearest part of it, we kept the shore
till we came to Curiapan, where we found our ships at anchor, than which
there was never to us a more joyful sight.'
In spite of the hardships of the journey, the constant wettings, the bad
water and insufficient food, the lodging in the open air every night,
he had only lost a single man, the young negro who was snapped up by the
alligator at the mouth of the Cucuina. At the coast there are dangerous
miasmata which often prove fatal to Europeans, but the interior of this
part of South America is reported by later travellers to be no less
wholesome than Raleigh found it.
During Raleigh's absence his fleet had not lain idle at Trinidad.
Captain Amyas Preston, whom he had left in charge, determined to take
the initiative against the Spanish forces which Berreo had summoned to
his help. With four ships Preston began to harry the coast of Venezuela.
On May 21 he appeared before the important town of Cumana, but was
persuaded to spare it from sack upon payment of a large sum by the
inhabitants. Captain Preston landed part of his crew here, and they
crossed the country westward to Caracas, which they plundered and
burned. The fleet proceeded to Coro, in New Granada, which they treated
in the same way. When they returned is uncertain, but Raleigh found them
at Curiapan when he came back to Trinidad, and with them he coasted once
more the northern shore of South America. He burned Cumana, but was
disappointed in his hopes of plunder, for he says, 'In the port towns of
the province of Vensuello [Venezuela] we found not the value of one real
of plate.' The fact was that the repeated voyages of the English
captains--and Drake was immediately to follow in Raleigh's steps--had
made the inhabitants of these northern cities exceedingly wary. The
precious products were either stored in the hills, or shipped off to
Spain without loss of time.
Raleigh's return to England was performed without any publicity. He
stole home so quietly that some people declared that he had been all the
time snug in some Cornish haven. His biographers, including Mr. Edwards,
have dated his return in August, being led away by a statement of
Davis's, manifestly inaccurately dated, that Raleigh and Preston were
sailing off the coast of Cuba in July. This is incompatible with
Raleigh's fear of the rapid approach of winter while he was still in
Guiana. It would also be difficult to account for the entire absence of
reference to him in England before the winter. It is more likely that he
found his way back into Falmouth or Dartmouth towards the end of October
1595. On November 10, he wrote to Cecil, plainly smarting under the
neglect which he had received. He thought that coming from the west,
with an empire in his hand as a gift for Elizabeth, the Queen would take
him into favour again, but he was mistaken. He writes to Cecil nominally
to offer his services against a rumoured fleet of Spain, but really to
feel the ground about Guiana, and the interest which the Government
might take in it. 'What becomes of Guiana I much desire to hear, whether
it pass for a history or a fable. I hear Mr. Dudley [Sir Robert Dudley]
and others are sending thither; if it be so, farewell all good from
thence. For although myself, like a cockscomb, did rather prefer the
future in respect of others, and rather sought to win the kings to her
Majesty's service than to sack them, I know what others will do when
those kings shall come singly into their hands.'
Meanwhile he had been writing an account of his travels, and on November
13, 1595, he sent a copy of this in manuscript to Cecil, no doubt in
hope that it might be shown to Elizabeth. In the interesting letter
which accompanied this manuscript he inclosed a map of Guiana, long
supposed to have been lost, which was found by Mr. St. John in the
archives of Simancas, signed with Raleigh's name, and in perfect
condition. It is evident that Raleigh could hardly endure the
disappointment of repulse. He says, 'I know the like fortune was never
offered to any Christian prince,' and losing his balance altogether in
his extravagant pertinacity, he declares to Cecil that the city of Manoa
contains stores of golden statues, not one of which can be worth less
than 100,000_l._ If the English Government will not prosecute the
enterprise that he has sketched out, Spain and France will shortly do
so, and Raleigh, in the face of such apathy, 'concludes that we are
cursed of God.' Amid all this excitement, it is pleasant to find him
remembering to be humane, and begging Cecil to impress the Queen with
the need of 'not soiling this enterprise' with cruelty; nor permitting
any to proceed to Guiana whose object shall only be to plunder the
Indians. He sends Cecil an amethyst 'with a strange blush of carnation,'
and another stone, which 'if it be no diamond, yet exceeds any diamond
in beauty.'
Raleigh now determined to appeal to the public at large, and towards
Christmas 1595 he published his famous volume, which bears the date
1596, and is entitled, after the leisurely fashion of the age, _The
Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a
Relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call
El Dorado, and the Provinces of Emeria, Arromaia, Amapaia, and other
Countries, with their Rivers, adjoining_. Of this volume two editions
appeared in 1596, it was presently translated into Latin and published
in Germany, and in short gained a reputation throughout Europe. There
can be no doubt that Raleigh's outspoken hatred of Spain, expressed in
this printed form, from which there could be no escape on the ground of
mere hearsay, was the final word of his challenge to that Power. From
this time forth Raleigh was an enemy which Spain could not even pretend
to ignore.
The _Discovery of Guiana_ was dedicated to the Lord Admiral Howard and
to Sir Robert Cecil, with a reference to the support which the author
had found in their love 'in the darkest shadow of adversity.' There was
probably some courtly exaggeration, mingled with self-interest, in the
gratitude expressed to Cecil. Already the relation of this cold-blooded
statesman to the impulsive Raleigh becomes a crux to the biographers of
the latter. Cecil's letters to his father from Devonshire on the matter
of the Indian carracks in 1592 are incompatible with Raleigh's outspoken
thanks to Cecil for the trial of his love when Raleigh was bereft of all
but malice and revenge, unless we suppose that these letters represented
what Burghley would like to hear rather than what Robert Cecil actually
felt. In 1596 Burghley, in extreme old age, was a factor no longer to be
taken into much consideration. Moreover, Lady Raleigh had some hold of
relationship or old friendship on Cecil, the exact nature of which it is
not easy to understand. At all events, as long as Raleigh could hold the
favour of Cecil, the ear of her Majesty was not absolutely closed to
him.
The _Discovery_ possesses a value which is neither biographical nor
geographical. It holds a very prominent place in the prose literature of
the age. During the five years which had elapsed since Raleigh's last
publication, English literature had been undergoing a marvellous
development, and he who read everything and sympathised with every
intellectual movement could not but be influenced by what had been
written. During those five years, Marlowe's wonderful career had been
wound up like a melodrama. Shakespeare had come forward as a poet. A new
epoch in sound English prose had been inaugurated by Hooker's
_Ecclesiastical Polity_. Bacon was circulating the earliest of his
_Essays_. What these giants of our language were doing for their own
departments of prose and verse, Raleigh did for the literature of
travel. Among the volumes of navigations, voyages, and discoveries,
which were poured out so freely in this part of the reign of Elizabeth,
most of them now only remembered because they were reprinted in the
collections of Hakluyt and Purchas, this book of Raleigh's takes easily
the foremost position. In comparison with the bluff and dull narratives
of the other discoverers, whose chief charm is their naivete, the
_Discovery of Guiana_ has all the grace and fullness of deliberate
composition, of fine literary art, and as it was the first excellent
piece of sustained travellers' prose, so it remained long without a
second in our literature. The brief examples which it has alone been
possible to give in this biography, may be enough to attract readers to
its harmonious and glowing pages.
Among the many allusions found to this book in contemporary records,
perhaps the most curious is an epic poem on Guiana, published almost
immediately by George Chapman, who gave his enthusiastic approval to
Raleigh's scheme. It is the misfortune of Chapman's style that in his
grotesque arrogance he disdained to be lucid, and this poem is full of
tantalising hints, which the biographer of Raleigh longs to use, but
dares not, from their obscurity. These stately verses are plain enough,
but show that Chapman was not familiar with the counsels of Elizabeth:
Then in the Thespiads' bright prophetic font,
Methinks I see our Liege rise from her throne,
Her ears and thoughts in steep amaze erect,
At the most rare endeavour of her power;
And now she blesses with her wonted graces
The industrious knight, the soul of this exploit,
Dismissing him to convoy of his stars:
Chapman was quite misinformed; and to what event he now proceeds to
refer, it would be hard to say:
And now for love and honour of his wrath,
Our twice-born nobles bring him, bridegroom like,
That is espoused for virtue to his love,
With feasts and music ravishing the air,
To his Argolian fleet; where round about
His bating colours English valour swarms
In haste, as if Guianian Orenoque
With his full waters fell upon our shore.
Early in 1596, Raleigh sent Captain Lawrence Keymis, who had been with
him the year before, on a second voyage to Guiana. He did not come home
rich, but he did the special thing he was enjoined to do--that is to
say, he explored the coast of South America from the mouth of the
Orinoco to that of the Amazon. About the same time Raleigh drew up the
very remarkable paper, not printed until 1843, entitled _Of the Voyage
for Guiana_. In this essay he first makes use of those copious
quotations from Scripture which later on became so characteristic of his
writing. His hopes of interesting the English Government in Guiana were
finally frustrated by the excitement of the Cadiz expedition, and by the
melancholy fate of Sir Francis Drake. It is said that during this winter
he lived in great magnificence at Durham House, but this statement seems
improbable. All the letters of Raleigh's now in existence, belonging to
this period, are dated from Sherborne.