call La grand Copal, which they thinke
to bee very rich and exceeding great and haue bene within the sight of it,
some of them.
They haue offered in generall to the King to take no wages at all of him,
if he will giue them leaue to discouer this citie, and the rich
mountaines, and the passage to a sea or mighty Lake which they heare to be
within foure and twenty dayes trauel from Saint Helena, which is in 32.
degrees of latitude: and is that riuer which the French called Port-royal.
He saith also that he hath seene a rich Diamond which was brought from the
mountaines that lye vp in the countrey Westward from S. Helena. These hils
seeme wholy to be the mountaines of Apalatci, whereof the Sauages
aduertised Laudonniere; and it may bee they are the hils of Chaunis
Temoatam, which Master Lane had aduertisement of.
XXXVII. The relation of Nicholas Burgoignon, alias Holy, whom sir Francis
Drake brought from Saint Augustine also in Florida, where he had remayned
sixe yeeres, in mine and Master Heriots hearing.
This Nicholas Burgoignon sayth, that betweene S. Augustine and S. Helen
there is a Casique whose name is Casicola, which is lord of ten thousand
Indians, and another casique whose name is Dicasca, and another called
Touppekyn toward the North, and a fourth named Potanou toward the South,
and another called Moscita toward the South likewise. Besides these he
acknowledgth Oristou, Ahoia, Ahoiaue, Isamacon, alledged by the Spaniard.
He further affirmeth, that there is a citie Northwestward from S. Helenes
in the mountaines, which the Spaniards call La grand Copal, and is very
great and rich, and that in these mountains there is great store of
Christal, golde, and Rubies, and Diamonds: And that a Spaniard brought
from thence a Diamond which was worth fiue thousand crownes, which Pedro
Melendes the marques nephew to olde Pedro Melendes that slew Ribault, and
is now gouerner of Florida, weareth. He saith also, that to make passage
vnto these mountaines, it is needefull to haue store of Hatchets to giue
vnto the Indians, and store of Pickaxes to breake the mountaines, which
shine so bright in the day in some places, that they cannot behold them,
and therefore they trauell vnto them by night. Also corslets of Cotton,
which the Spanyards call Zecopitz, are necessary to bee had against the
arrowes of the Sauages.(123)
He say farther, that a Tunne of the sassafras of Florida is solde in
Spaine for sixtie ducates:
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