The Discovery of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh
page 72 of 97 (74%)
page 72 of 97 (74%)
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doubt. Such a nation was written of by Mandeville, whose reports
were holden for fables many years; and yet since the East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretofore were held incredible (Mandeville, or the author who assumed this name, placed his headless men in the East Indian Archipelago, the fable is borrowed from older writers, Herodotus &c). Whether it be true or no, the matter is not great, neither can there be any profit in the imagination; for mine own part I saw them not, but I am resolved that so many people did not all combine or forethink to make the report. When I came to Cumana in the West Indies afterwards by chance I spake with a Spaniard dwelling not far from thence, a man of great travel. And after he knew that I had been in Guiana, and so far directly west as Caroli, the first question he asked me was, whether I had seen any of the Ewaipanoma, which are those without heads. Who being esteemed a most honest man of his word, and in all things else, told me that he had seen many of them; I may not name him, because it may be for his disadvantage, but he is well known to Monsieur Moucheron's son of London, and to Peter Moucheron, merchant, of the Flemish ship that was there in trade; who also heard, what he avowed to be true, of those people. The fourth river to the west of Caroli is Casnero: which falleth into the Orenoque on this side of Amapaia. And that river is greater than Danubius, or any of Europe: it riseth on the south of Guiana from the mountains which divide Guiana from Amazons, and I think it to be navigable many hundred miles. But we had no time, means, nor season of the year, to search those rivers, for the causes aforesaid, the winter being come upon us; although the winter and summer as touching cold and heat differ not, neither do the trees ever sensibly lose their leaves, |
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