position
meaning "on") robbed him and his Guianians of all the treasure (the
borderers being at that time at wars, which Inga had not conquered) save
only of two great bottles of gourds, which were filled with beads of
gold curiously wrought, which those Orenoqueponi thought had been
no other thing than his drink or meat, or grain for food, with which
Martinez had liberty to pass. And so in canoas he fell down from the
river of Orenoque to Trinidad, and from thence to Margarita, and so to
St. Juan del Puerto Rico; where, remaining a long time for passage into
Spain, he died. In the time of his extreme sickness, and when he was
without hope of life, receiving the sacrament at the hands of his
confessor, he delivered these things, with the relation of his travels,
and also called for his calabazas or gourds of the gold beads, which he
gave to the church and friars, to be prayed for.

This Martinez was he that christened the city of Manoa by the name of El
Dorado, and, as Berreo informed me, upon this occasion, those Guianians,
and also the borderers, and all other in that tract which I have seen,
are marvellous great drunkards; in which vice I think no nation can
compare with them; and at the times of their solemn feasts, when the
emperor carouseth with his captains, tributaries, and governors, the
manner is thus. All those that pledge him are first stripped naked and
their bodies anointed all over with a kind of white balsamum (by them
called curca), of which there is great plenty, and yet very dear amongst
them, and it is of all other the most precious, whereof we have had good
experience. When they are anointed all over, certain servants of the
emperor, having prepared gold made into fine powder, blow it through
hollow canes upon their naked bodies, until they be all shining from
the foot to the head; and in this sort they sit drinking by twenties
and hundreds, and continue in drunkenness sometimes six or seven days
together. The same is also confirmed by a letter written into Spain
which was intercepted, which Master Robert Dudley told me he had seen.
Upon this sight, and for the abundance of gold which he saw in the city,
the images of gold in their temples, the plates, armours, and shields of
gold which they use in the wars, he called it El Dorado.

After the death of Ordas and Martinez, and after Orellana, who was
employed by Gonzalo Pizarro, one Pedro de Orsua, a knight of Navarre,
attempted Guiana, taking his wa