he gentlemen
and captains, and was very pleasant, knowing her own comeliness, and
taking great pride therein. I have seen a lady in England so like to
her, as but for the difference of colour, I would have sworn might have
been the same.

The seat of this town of Toparimaca was very pleasant, standing on
a little hill, in an excellent prospect, with goodly gardens a mile
compass round about it, and two very fair and large ponds of excellent
fish adjoining. This town is called Arowocai; the people are of the
nation called Nepoios, and are followers of Carapana. In that place I
saw very aged people, that we might perceive all their sinews and veins
without any flesh, and but even as a case covered only with skin.
The lord of this place gave me an old man for pilot, who was of great
experience and travel, and knew the river most perfectly both by day
and night. And it shall be requisite for any man that passeth it to have
such a pilot; for it is four, five, and six miles over in many places,
and twenty miles in other places, with wonderful eddies and strong
currents, many great islands, and divers shoals, and many dangerous
rocks; and besides upon any increase of wind so great a billow, as we
were sometimes in great peril of drowning in the galley, for the small
boats durst not come from the shore but when it was very fair.

The next day we hasted thence, and having an easterly wind to help us,
we spared our arms from rowing; for after we entered Orenoque, the river
lieth for the most part east and west, even from the sea unto Quito, in
Peru. This river is navigable with barks little less than 1000 miles;
and from the place where we entered it may be sailed up in small
pinnaces to many of the best parts of Nuevo Reyno de Granada and of
Popayan. And from no place may the cities of these parts of the Indies
be so easily taken and invaded as from hence. All that day we sailed up
a branch of that river, having on the left hand a great island, which
they call Assapana, which may contain some five-and-twenty miles in
length, and six miles in breadth, the great body of the river running on
the other side of this island. Beyond that middle branch there is also
another island in the river, called Iwana, which is twice as big as the
Isle of Wight; and beyond it, and between it and the main of Guiana,
runneth a third branch of Orenoque, called Arraroopana. All three are
goodly branches, and all navigable for great ships. I judge the