January, February, and March, and then the ships may depart thence in
April, and so return again into England in June. So as they shall never
be subject to winter weather, either coming, going, or staying there:
which, for my part, I take to be one of the greatest comforts and
encouragements that can be thought on, having, as I have done, tasted
in this voyage by the West Indies so many calms, so much heat, such
outrageous gusts, such weather, and contrary winds.

To conclude, Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never
sacked, turned, nor wrought; the face of the earth hath not been torn,
nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent by manurance. The graves have
not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor their
images pulled down out of their temples. It hath never been entered by
any army of strength, and never conquered or possessed by any Christian
prince. It is besides so defensible, that if two forts be builded in
one of the provinces which I have seen, the flood setteth in so near the
bank, where the channel also lieth, that no ship can pass up but within
a pike's length of the artillery, first of the one, and afterwards of
the other. Which two forts will be a sufficient guard both to the empire
of Inga, and to an hundred other several kingdoms, lying within the said
river, even to the city of Quito in Peru.

There is therefore great difference between the easiness of the conquest
of Guiana, and the defence of it being conquered, and the West or East
Indies. Guiana hath but one entrance by the sea, if it hath that, for
any vessels of burden. So as whosoever shall first possess it, it shall
be found unaccessible for any enemy, except he come in wherries, barges,
or canoas, or else in flat-bottomed boats; and if he do offer to enter
it in that manner, the woods are so thick 200 miles together upon the
rivers of such entrance, as a mouse cannot sit in a boat unhit from
the bank. By land it is more impossible to approach; for it hath the
strongest situation of any region under the sun, and it is so environed
with impassable mountains on every side, as it is impossible to victual
any company in the passage. Which hath been well proved by the Spanish
nation, who since the conquest of Peru have never left five years free
from attempting this empire, or discovering some way into it; and yet
of three-and-twenty several gentlemen, knights, and noblemen, there was
never any that knew which wa