their own
provinces."

Among the perils that beset the road to El Dorado was a terrible nation
of men with no heads upon their shoulders. Raleigh did not happen to
encounter them during his voyage up the Orinoco, but nevertheless he
took pains to set down in his narrative, "which though it may be
thought a mere fable, yet for mine part I am resolved it is true,
because every child in the provinces of Arromaia and Canuri affirm the
same. They are called Ewaipanoma; they are reported to have their eyes
in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts and
that a long train of hair groweth backward between their shoulders.[7]
The son of Topiawari, which I brought with me into England told me that
they are the most mighty men of all the land, and use bows, arrows, and
clubs thrice as big as any of Guiana, or of the Orinoco, and that one
of the Iwarawakeri took a prisoner of them the year before our arrival
there, and brought him into the borders of Aromaia, his father's
country. And farther when I seemed to doubt of it, he told me that it
was no wonder among them, but that they were as great a nation, and as
common as any other in all the provinces, and had of late years slain
many hundreds of his father's people: but it was not my chance to hear
of them until I was come away, and if I had but spoken but one word of
it while I was there, I might have brought one of them with me to put
the matter out of doubt. Such a nation was written of by Mandeville[8]
whose reports were holden for fables many years, and yet since the East
Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of all things as
heretofore were held incredible. Whether it be true or no, the matter
is not great, neither can there be any profit in the imagination. For
my own part, I saw them not, but I am resolved that so many people did
not all combine or forethink to make the report.

"When I came to Cumana in the West Indies, afterwards by chance I spake
with a Spaniard dwelling not far from thence, a man of great travel,
and after he knew that I had been in Guiana, and so far directly west
as Caroli, the first question he asked me was, whether I had seen any
of the Ewaipanoma, which are those without heads: who being esteemed a
most honest man of his word, and in all things else, told me he had
seen many of them."

That Sir Walter Raleigh, the finest flower of manhood that blossomed in
his age, should have believed these and other w