Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/120

 renowmed Dorado. They suffered themselues to be caryed from aloft, being throwne downe headlong with the furie of the riuer, and sitting fast in their Canoas or boats in which they sayled, although they were ouer-turned in the fal, and they and their Canoas suncke downe to the bottome, yet they rose vp againe aboue the water, and at length with their hands and force gat out of the whirlepooles. The whole army in a maner escaped, sauing a very fewe which were drowned: and which I most maruel at, they handled the matter so well, that they lost not their victuals and powder which they caryed with them. In their returne (for after great trauels and dangers they returned that way againe) they clymed vp ouer one of those aforesaide exceeding high mountaines, creeping vp vpon their hands and feete.

Captaine Pedro de Orsua made another enterance by the selfe same riuer, and after hee was slaine by a mutinie of his people, other captaines followed the discouerie, by the arme that falleth into the North Sea. One of our companie told me (who while he was a secular man was in al that expedition) that they entred vp the Riuer almost an hundred leagues with the tydes, and that when the fresh water and the salt meeteth, which is either almost vnder or very neere the Equinoctial line, the riuer is 70 leagues broad, a thing incredible, and which exceedeth the bredth of the Mediterran sea. Howbeit other in their descriptions make it not past 25 or 30 leagues broad at the mouth.

The Third Testimonie out of Iosephus de Acosta, lib. 3. cap. 25.

In that part of America, whereof the coasts be thoroughly known, the greater part of the Inland is not knowen, which is that which falleth betweene Piru and Brasil, and there are diuers opinions of some, which say, that it is all sunken land full of lakes and bogges, and of others, which affirme that there are great and florishing kingdomes there, and there they place the Countrey of Paytity, and Dorado, and great Emperours, and say, that there are wonderfull things there. I heard of one of our companie my selfe, a man of credite, that hee had seene great townes, and high wayes as broad and as much beaten, as the wayes betweene Salamanca and Validolid: and this was when the great entrance or discouerie was made by the great riuer of the Amazones or Marannon by Pedro de Orsua, and afterwardes by others that