sent with John Douglas an old cacique of Trinidad for a pilot, who
told us that we could not return again by the bay or gulf, but that
he knew a by-branch which ran within the land to the eastward, and he
thought by it we might fall into Capuri, and so return in four days.
John Douglas searched those rivers, and found four goodly entrances,
whereof the least was as big as the Thames at Woolwich, but in the
bay thitherward it was shoal and but six foot water; so as we were now
without hope of any ship or bark to pass over, and therefore resolved to
go on with the boats, and the bottom of the galego, in which we thrust
60 men. In the Lion's Whelp's boat and wherry we carried twenty, Captain
Caulfield in his wherry carried ten more, and in my barge other ten,
which made up a hundred; we had no other means but to carry victual for
a month in the same, and also to lodge therein as we could, and to boil
and dress our meat. Captain Gifford had with him Master Edward Porter,
Captain Eynos, and eight more in his wherry, with all their victual,
weapons, and provisions. Captain Caulfield had with him my cousin
Butshead Gorges, and eight more. In the galley, of gentlemen and
officers myself had Captain Thyn, my cousin John Greenvile, my nephew
John Gilbert, Captain Whiddon, Captain Keymis, Edward Hancock, Captain
Clarke, Lieutenant Hughes, Thomas Upton, Captain Facy, Jerome Ferrar,
Anthony Wells, William Connock, and above fifty more. We could not learn
of Berreo any other way to enter but in branches so far to windward as
it was impossible for us to recover; for we had as much sea to cross
over in our wherries, as between Dover and Calice, and in a great
hollow, the wind and current being both very strong. So as we were
driven to go in those small boats directly before the wind into the
bottom of the Bay of Guanipa, and from thence to enter the mouth of some
one of those rivers which John Douglas had last discovered; and had
with us for pilot an Indian of Barema, a river to the south of Orenoque,
between that and Amazons, whose canoas we had formerly taken as he
was going from the said Barema, laden with cassavi bread to sell at
Margarita. This Arwacan promised to bring me into the great river of
Orenoque; but indeed of that which he entered he was utterly ignorant,
for he had not seen it in twelve years before, at which time he was very
young, and of no judgment. And if God had not sent us another help, we
might have wandered a who