Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/238

 newes and riches, determined not to returne vnto his Captaine Pizarro which sent him, but tooke his way from thence to the king of Spaine, and presented him with the golde that he had brought out of the riuer: whereupon the king sent him with a fleete of shippes and sixe hundred men to inhabite the sayd riuer: but because of the great current and sholdes that are therein, hee left the most part of his men and shippes, and with those that remained he went vnto certaine Ilands hard by the riuer, and built him Pinnesses; but the countrey being very vnhealthfull, himselfe and many of his men dyed, and the residue went euery man which way pleased him best.

The fame of this riuer was straightway spread through Spaine and Portugal, insomuch that a Gentleman of Portugall called Lewis de Melo asked license of Don Iuan the third, then king of Portugall to goe and conquere the sayd riuer: for from the mouth of this riuer to the month of the riuer of Plate, is that part of America which the kings of Portugall (according to the partition made betweene them and the kings of Spaine) doe holde: so that the king of Portugall hauing this riuer in his part gaue it to the saide Lewis de Melo to conquere: who taking tenne ships and eight hundred men (among which many were gentlemen) and comming to the mouth of this riuer, lost all the said ship sauing two, in one of the which was Lewis de Melo himselfe: also the most of the men that were in the ships cast away were saued and got to the shore, and so went by lande to the Iland of Magarita from whence they were dispersed throughout all the Indies.

Thus these two fleetes of ships being so vnfortunately cast away, neuer durst any Captaine afterward attempt by sea to conquer the sayde riuer.

Howbeit from the kingdome of Nueua Granada before mentioned there haue gone two or three Captaines by land to discouer it, for a rumour went ouer all the countrey of the great riches contained in this riuer; whereupon the Spaniards named it El Dorado, that is to say, The golden riuer. It is thought that God will not haue this riuer to be knowen, for that one Captaine by lande had most of his people slaine by those of the countrey, and others for want of victuals returned.

So that none of all these came to any plaine discouery, till a few yeeres past a Captaine of the countrey of Nauarre called Pedro de Orzua, who went from Peru almost the same way that Gonsalo Pizarro had before discouered, and was accompanied with about