Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life & Legend (19 page)

After 1592, following the catastrophe of his marriage and disgrace, and with declining prospects for Virginia, Ralegh's interest in the 'Empire of Guiana' burgeoned. Old friends and allies rallied in support of a new project. William Sanderson raised money from his friends in the City; Thomas Harriot instructed sea captains in the arts of navigation; Jacob Whiddon was despatched on a voyage of reconnaissance to Trinidad in 1594 and Lawrence Keymis, Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, enrolled as a captain, remaining Ralegh's right-hand man until his terrible end in 1618. Among leading politicians Lord Charles Howard and Robert Cecil became Ralegh's principal sponsors at Court.
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 The project was nearly pre-empted by two rivals, Robert Dudley, illegitimate son of the Earl of Leicester, and Captain George Popham, who had captured at sea some Spanish documents relating to the Orinoco.
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 Dudley reached Trinidad in January 1595, Popham a few weeks later. They discovered nothing of interest and left Trinidad in March.

The money for Ralegh's expedition, a huge sum of £60,000, was largely raised by the loyal Sanderson, who stood bond himself for £50,000 worth of loans and personally lent £1,600 or £1,700: of the total sum £30,000 was delivered to Ralegh. At Ralegh's insistence Sanderson provided evidence of all transactions made on the former's behalf - warrants for payments, notes of receipt and so on - which were incorporated into a'general acquittance', presumably relieving Sanderson of any obligation for the debts should Ralegh fail to return. This was handed to the financier. On the night of 5 February, probably in Plymouth, Ralegh asked him to fetch the document, which he did. Ralegh handed it to Harriot, telling him to keep it and only return it to Sanderson if he died on the voyage. At being deprived of the document, Sanderson 'brake out into great discontentmente, saying "what, Sir Walter, will you deal so violentlie and unkindlie with me?"' Presumably he realized that he now had no protection should suits for debt be brought against him. The dispute ended with the financier turning his back on his patron and leaving the room without saying farewell.
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Next day Ralegh's small fleet of three ships left England: there was his own ship, a 'small barke' belonging to Captain Robert Crosse and a 'gallego' under Lawrence Keymis, together with some barges and wherries. Ralegh's own ship and Crosse's reached Trinidad six and a half weeks later on 22 March. On the way across the Atlantic they had encountered and looted various foreign ships, from which they took wine and other provisions, but Ralegh makes no mention of these incidents in his own narrative of the crossing. The 'gallego', which had been delayed en route, and Lord Charles Howard's Lion's Whelp captained by George Gifford, which had sailed after the others, later joined them.
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 Ralegh at once set off in one of the barges to explore the island. In the course of his circumnavigation he met a native chief and trader named Cantyman, who had made the acquaintance of Captain Whiddon the year before and was able to tell Ralegh a good deal about the island and about the Spanish presence on it. Some Spaniards then came aboard and after being given a good supply of wine provided further information, Ralegh letting them believe that he came only to relieve the English colony in Virginia. He decided to prolong his stay on Trinidad for a time, partly to learn more about Guiana before going there, partly to avenge eight of Whiddon's men who had been killed by the Spanish the year before.

Ralegh gathered together the Indian chiefs of the island and heard their complaints about Berrío's conduct: he had divided the island among his soldiers and made its chiefs into slaves, dropping 'their naked bodies with burning bacon and such other torments'.
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 Sir Walter assured the chiefs through interpreters brought from England that he was the servant of a great Queen of the north who was the enemy of the Spanish and had freed other nations from their tyranny and oppression. She had now sent him to save Guiana from slavery and conquest. To illustrate his claim he showed them a portrait of Elizabeth, which evidently made a powerful impression on them. He made the same speech to the rest of the 'nations' in his travels, who called Elizabeth 'Ezra Beta Cassepuna Aquerewana', which he translates, in part, as 'great princesse or greatest commaunder'.
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Ralegh then took a decisive step. Believing that to leave a foreign garrison in his rear while he journeyed into the interior would 'have savoured very much of the Asse', he set upon the Spanish corps du guard without any warning one evening and put them to the sword, capturing Berrío. He then sent one of his captains forward to take and burn the new city of San Jose de Oruna. Ralegh tells this in a matter-of-fact tone, not surprising in a man who had been involved in the massacre at Smerwick fifteen years earlier.
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Ralegh and Berrío, now captor and prisoner, had much in common: both were military men, ambitious, adventurous and daring. Ralegh describes his prisoner as 'very valiant and liberall, and a Gent. of great assuredness, and of a great heart'. He had much to learn from Berrío, who was ready to talk to him about Guiana, partly at least in order to discourage Ralegh from his enterprise. Berrío confirmed that the distance to Guiana itself from the sea was 600 miles further than Ralegh had been told. Had his men known this they would never have followed him. Berrío did his best to dissuade Ralegh and his ships' companies from going any further into Guiana, insisting that the rivers of the delta were too shallow and sandy to allow any vessels, not even ships' boats, to pass along them, that the Indians would flee from them, that winter was at hand, that they would be unable to carry enough food and drink in small boats and that the distance was long. Much of this was, Ralegh admits, true. Even so, he was determined to go on, keeping some of Berrío's information, especially the estimate of the distance to be travelled, from his men. Having failed to find any rivers deep enough to carry his larger ships through the delta, Ralegh decided that they would either have to give up the whole enterprise or use the gallego, suitably adapted, together with some of the ships' wherries and small boats.
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 He chose the latter course, modified the gallego so as to take sixty men, and carried another forty men in two wherries, one barge and a ship's boat, together with arms and food for a month.
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The journey was hideously difficult. The boats were uncovered, so that they all had

to lie in the raine and wether, in the open aire, in the burning sunne, upon the hard bords, and to dress our meat...wherewith they were so pestred and unsavery, that what with victuals being most fish, with the weete clothes of so many men thrust close together and the heate of the sunne...there was never any prison in England, that could be founde more unsavoury and lothsome.

For Ralegh himself, who had 'for many years before beene dieted and cared for in a sort farre differing', it was still more unpleasant.
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The labyrinth of rivers in the delta was totally confusing, for the terrain was mostly heavy jungle:

all the earth doth not yeeld the like confluence of streames and branches, the one crossing the other so many times, and all so faire and large, and so like one to another, as no man can tell which to take.

If they tried to steer by the sun or compass,

we were also carried in a circle amongst multitudes of Hands, and every Hand so bordered with high trees, as no man could see any further than the bredth of the river, or length of the breach.

To make matters worse, their first pilot, Ferdinando, turned out to be almost useless, having last seen the Orinoco twelve years earlier when he was too young to remember much. Luckily, they captured another pilot, an old man from the Tivitiva tribe, which lived in the delta.
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As they moved upstream against the current, all Ralegh's powers of leadership were brought into play. The oarsmen became exhausted and the food started to run out. After four days in the delta they reached the 'great Amana' (now the Manamo), a larger river, but one with an even stronger current against them, now that the incoming tide from the sea was no longer helping them. They realized that they must either row against it or 'returne as wise as we went out'. Sir Walter ordered the gentlemen to row with the rest, taking turns and spelling 'one the other at the howers end'.
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 They grew ever weaker as food and drink began to fail. He managed to persuade the company that they had only one day's rowing before they reached a place where the Indians could supply whatever they required. The pilots were told to 'promise an end the next day'. Meanwhile, they lived off the country, shooting colourful birds and catching fish. Their new pilot, the old man of the Tivitiva tribe, told them that if they would only turn up a branch of the river they were on, they would soon reach an Arawac village and be back by nightfall. Ralegh went upriver with his barge and the two wherries. Three hours passed, then another three; night began to fall. The pilot told them that the village lay only another four reaches further; after they had rowed for eight, they were in the mood to hang him. But realizing that they would never find their way back in the dark they relented. At last, an hour after midnight they heard the village dogs barking and were taken to the house of the chief, where they feasted.

Shortly after this, they were reunited with the gallego and reached 'the most beautifull countrie that ever mine eies beheld'. Whereas before they had only seen bushes and thorns, now there were grassy plains stretching for twenty miles or more, with deer coming down to the river to drink. They were entering the huge Orinoco itself, now averaging six kilometres wide, sometimes rising to seventeen; and they were able to sail, resting their exhausted limbs. Here they met a new chief, Toparimaca, who provided them with another pilot, an old man very experienced in the difficult ways of the Orinoco.

On their fifth day of sailing on the Orinoco itself they reached the most important port of their journey, Morequito, at the junction of the Caroni and the Orinoco. This had been the port of chief Morequito, who had earlier been killed by Berrío. There they were visited by Morequito's uncle, Topiawari, now King of the region, and reputedly 110 years old. He had walked fourteen miles to reach them, bringing a generous supply of food, including pineapples, 'the princesse of fruites', and an armadillo. Ralegh started to talk to the old man through an interpreter in a specially erected tent. He began by saying that he had been sent by his Queen especially to defend the Indians against the oppression of the Spanish. He then shifted the conversation so as to learn more of the Indian tribes of the region and their alliances. Topiawari told him that his own people were called Orenoqueponi, and he remembered that when he was a young man the valley they then occupied had been invaded by 'a nation from so far off as the Sun slept', called Oreiones or Epuremei, who had already made themselves lords of all men. Ralegh supposed that these groups were remnants of the Inca Empire, driven east by the Spanish conquest, an improbable conjecture. More likely they were part of a separate group migrating from the south.

Whatever the truth, Indian society seems to have been highly mobile at that time and inter-tribal wars were common.
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 Topiawari's own eldest son had been killed in a battle with the invading Epuremei. Since then, however, the Indian peoples had united against the 'Christians' and were no longer at war with one another. At this point Topiawari said that he was tired and must return home. Ralegh commented that he marvelled 'to finde a man of that gravity and judgement, and of so good discourse' who had had no education.
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Next morning they left the port of Morequito to sail west to the mouth of the Caroni River, which flows into the Orinoco from the south. Ralegh hoped to find the golden city of Manoa near to its source and proposed to reach it by navigating upstream. This turned out to be hopeless, for although the Caroni was as wide as the Thames at Woolwich, the current was so strong that they could make no progress at all against it. They sent out some of the Orenoqueponi to make contact with the local Indians, whose chief, Wanuretona, brought provisions. Ralegh made his usual speech about the greatness of Queen Elizabeth and questioned Wanuretona about the peoples of Guiana. He was again told of the Epuremei and of three other tribes living around the golden city who were hostile to the Spanish and would join Ralegh against them.
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By this time the level of the Orinoco and the Caroni had risen four or five feet, so that it was impossible to go further by boat. Ralegh divided his force into three groups. The first, under Captains Henry Thynne and John Grenville, was to go with thirty soldiers upstream on the bank of the Caroni and aim for a town twenty miles up.
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 If they could get guides there they were to press on to another town near to the lands of the 'Inga Emperor'. The second group, led by Ralegh himself, with Captains Gifford and Calfield and half a dozen soldiers, was to go overland to view the falls of the Caroni and the plain adjoining it. The third, under Captain Whiddon, was to look for minerals along the bank.

From the top of a neighbouring hill Ralegh and his party could see ten or twelve falls, 'each as high over the other as a church tower', falling with such fury that they seemed to create a great shower of rain. At this point, Ralegh himself tells us, he would gladly have gone back, being 'a very ill footman', but he was persuaded by his companions to continue into the next valley, where he writes that 'I never saw a more beutifull Cuntrey, nor more livelie prospectes.' In a great set piece he talks of a land that is 'all faire green grass', the ground easy for marching on, deer crossing on every path, birds singing on every tree, white, crimson and carnation cranes and herons by the side of the river. Furthermore, 'every stone that we stooped to take up promised eyther golde or silver by his complextion'.
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The other two parties had less success. They picked up all sorts of stones but could not be persuaded by Ralegh that they were mostly worthless, the latter insisting that he is not one to betray his country or himself with 'imaginations'. Indeed, considering all the disagreeable features that accompany these journeys, he would only go on them if he were quite sure that 'the sunne covereth not so much riches in any part of the earth'. Captain Whiddon's party did, however, find stones like sapphires, which Ralegh thought might be genuine. Some of the Indians promised to show him a mountain where many large pieces were 'growing diamond wise', of which Ralegh was hopeful.
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