y came
to the hands of the Spanish king, to whom he had sent them by his
camp-master, they would appear very admirable, especially being wrought
by such a nation as had no iron instruments at all, nor any of those
helps which our goldsmiths have to work withal. The particular name of
the people in Amapaia which gave him these pieces, are called Anebas,
and the river of Orenoque at that place is about twelve English miles
broad, which may be from his outfall into the sea 700 or 800 miles.

This province of Amapaia is a very low and a marish ground near the
river; and by reason of the red water which issueth out in small
branches through the fenny and boggy ground, there breed divers
poisonful worms and serpents. And the Spaniards not suspecting, nor in
any sort foreknowing the danger, were infected with a grievous kind of
flux by drinking thereof, and even the very horses poisoned therewith;
insomuch as at the end of the six months that they abode there, of all
their troops there were not left above 120 soldiers, and neither horse
nor cattle. For Berreo hoped to have found Guiana be 1,000 miles nearer
than it fell out to be in the end; by means whereof they sustained much
want, and much hunger, oppressed with grievous diseases, and all the
miseries that could be imagined. I demanded of those in Guiana that had
travelled Amapaia, how they lived with that tawny or red water when
they travelled thither; and they told me that after the sun was near the
middle of the sky, they used to fill their pots and pitchers with that
water, but either before that time or towards the setting of the sun
it was dangerous to drink of, and in the night strong poison. I learned
also of divers other rivers of that nature among them, which were
also, while the sun was in the meridian, very safe to drink, and in the
morning, evening, and night, wonderful dangerous and infective. From
this province Berreo hasted away as soon as the spring and beginning of
summer appeared, and sought his entrance on the borders of Orenoque
on the south side; but there ran a ledge of so high and impassable
mountains, as he was not able by any means to march over them,
continuing from the east sea into which Orenoque falleth, even to Quito
in Peru. Neither had he means to carry victual or munition over those
craggy, high, and fast hills, being all woody, and those so thick and
spiny, and so full or prickles, thorns, and briars, as it is impossible
to creep through t