of fowl, and
of many sorts; we saw in it divers sorts of strange fishes, and of
marvellous bigness; but for lagartos (alligators and caymans) it
exceeded, for there were thousands of those ugly serpents; and the
people call it, for the abundance of them, the River of Lagartos, in
their language. I had a negro, a very proper young fellow, who leaping
out of the galley to swim in the mouth of this river, was in all our
sights taken and devoured with one of those lagartos. In the meanwhile
our companies in the galley thought we had been all lost, for we
promised to return before night; and sent the Lion's Whelp's ship's boat
with Captain Whiddon to follow us up the river. But the next day, after
we had rowed up and down some fourscore miles, we returned, and went on
our way up the great river; and when we were even at the last cast for
want of victuals, Captain Gifford being before the galley and the rest
of the boats, seeking out some place to land upon the banks to make
fire, espied four canoas coming down the river; and with no small joy
caused his men to try the uttermost of their strengths, and after a
while two of the four gave over and ran themselves ashore, every man
betaking himself to the fastness of the woods. The two other lesser
got away, while he landed to lay hold on these; and so turned into some
by-creek, we knew not whither. Those canoas that were taken were loaded
with bread, and were bound for Margarita in the West Indies, which those
Indians, called Arwacas, proposed to carry thither for exchange; but in
the lesser there were three Spaniards, who having heard of the defeat of
their Governor in Trinidad, and that we purposed to enter Guiana, came
away in those canoas; one of them was a cavallero, as the captain of the
Arwacas after told us, another a soldier and the third a refiner.

In the meantime, nothing on the earth could have been more welcome to
us, next unto gold, than the great store of very excellent bread which
we found in these canoas; for now our men cried, "Let us go on, we care
not how far." After that Captain Gifford had brought the two canoas to
the galley, I took my barge and went to the bank's side with a dozen
shot, where the canoas first ran themselves ashore, and landed there,
sending out Captain Gifford and Captain Thyn on one hand and Captain
Caulfield on the other, to follow those that were fled into the woods.
And as I was creeping through the bushes, I saw an Indian basket hidd