CHAPTER IV.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
Walter Raleigh was born in the year 1552 in Devonshire, England, and received a good education, completed by a residence of two years at the University of Oxford. At the age of seventeen, he joined a volunteer corps of English to serve in France in aid of the Protestant cause. Afterwards he served five years in the Netherlands. In 1576, he accompanied his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on an expedition to colonize some part of North America; which expedition was unsuccessful. We next find him commanding a company of the royal troops in Ireland during the rebellion raised by the Earl of Desmond. In consequence of some serious differences which arose between him and his superior officer, he found it necessary to repair to court to justify himself. It was at this time that an incident occurred which recommended him to the notice of Queen Elizabeth, and was the foundation of his fortunes. Raleigh stood in the crowd one day where the queen passed on foot; and when she came to a spot of muddy ground, and hesitated for a moment where to step, he sprang forward, and, throwing from his shoulders his handsome cloak ("his clothes being then," says a quaint old writer, "a considerable part of his estate"), he spread it over the mud, so that the queen passed over dry-shod, doubtless giving an approving look to the handsome and quick-witted young officer. There is another story which is not less probable, because it is not less in character with both the parties. Finding some hopes of the queen's favor glancing on him, he wrote, on a window where it was likely to meet her eye, —
"Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."
And her majesty, espying it, wrote underneath, —
"If thy heart fail thee, wherefore climb at all?"
His progress in the queen's favor was enhanced by his demeanor when the matter in dispute between him and his superior officer was brought before the privy council, and each party was called upon to plead his own cause. "What advantage he had in the case in controversy," says a contemporary writer, "I know not; but he had much the better in the manner of telling his tale." The result was, that he became a man of "no slight mark;" "he had gotten the queen's ear in a trice;" "she took him for a kind of oracle," and "loved to hear his reasons to her demands," or, in more modern phrase, "his replies to her questions."
The reign of Queen Elizabeth has been called the heroic age of England. And, let us remember, the England of that day is ours as much as theirs who still bear the name of Englishmen. The men whose gallant deeds we now record were our ancestors, and their glory is our inheritance.
The Reformation in religion had awakened all the energies of the human mind. It had roused against England formidable enemies, among which Spain was the most powerful and the most intensely hostile. She fitted out the famous Armada to invade England; and England, on her part, sent various expeditions to annoy the Spaniards in their lately acquired possessions in South America. These expeditions were generally got up by private adventurers; the queen and her great nobles often taking a share in them. When there was nominal peace with Spain, such enterprises were professedly for discovery and colonization, though the adventurers could not always keep their hands off a rich prize of Spanish property that fell in their way; but, for the last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, there was open war between the two powers: and then these expeditions had for their first object the annoyance of Spain, and discovery and colonization for their second.
We find Raleigh, after fortune began to smile upon him, engaged in a second expedition, with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, for discovery and colonization in America. He furnished, from his own means, a ship called "The Raleigh," on board of which he embarked; but when a few days out, a contagious disease breaking out among the crew, he put back into port, and relinquished the expedition. Sir Humphrey, with the rest of the squadron, consisting of five vessels, reached Newfoundland without accident, took possession of the island, and left a colony there. He then set out exploring along the American coast to the south, he himself doing all the work in his little ten-ton cutter; the service being too dangerous for the larger vessels to venture on. He spent the summer in this labor till toward the end of August, when, in a violent storm, one of the larger vessels, "The Delight," was lost with all her crew. "The Golden Hind" and "Squirrel" were now left alone of the five ships. Their provisions were running short, and the season far advanced; and Sir Humphrey reluctantly concluded to lay his course for home. He still continued in the small vessel, though vehemently urged by his friends to remove to the larger one. "I will not forsake my little company, going homeward," said he, "with whom I have passed so many storms and perils." On the 9th of September, the weather was rough, and the cutter was with difficulty kept afloat, struggling with the violence of the waves. When the vessels came within hearing distance, Sir Humphrey cried out to his companions in "The Hind," "Be of good courage: we are as near to heaven by sea as by land." "That night, at about twelve o'clock," writes the historian of the voyage, who was himself one of the adventurers, "the cutter being ahead of us in 'The Golden Hind,' suddenly her lights were out, and the watch cried, 'The general is cast away!' which was too true." So perished a Christian hero. It was a fine end for a mortal man. Let us not call it sad or tragic, but heroic and sublime.
Raleigh, not discouraged by the ill success of this expedition, shortly after obtained letters-patent for another enterprise of the same kind, on the same terms as had been granted to Sir Humphrey. Two barks were sent to explore some undiscovered part of America north of Florida, and look out for a favorable situation for the proposed colony. This expedition landed on Roanoke Island, near the mouth of Albemarle Sound. Having taken formal possession of the country for the Queen of England and her servant Sir Walter Raleigh, they returned, and gave so favorable an account of the country, that her Majesty allowed it to be called Virginia, after herself, a virgin queen. The next year, Raleigh sent out a second expedition, and left a colony of a hundred men, which was the first colony planted by Englishmen on the continent of America. Soon after, Raleigh sent a third expedition with a hundred and fifty colonists; but having now expended forty thousand pounds upon these attempts, and being unable to persist further, or weary of waiting so long for profitable returns, he assigned over his patent to a company of merchants, and withdrew from further prosecution of the enterprise.
The years which followed were the busiest of Raleigh's adventurous life. He bore a distinguished part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada; and, in the triumphant procession to return thanks at St. Paul's for that great deliverance, he was conspicuous as commander of the queen's guard. He was a member of Parliament, yet engaged personally in two naval expeditions against the Spaniards, from which he reaped honor, but no profit; and was at the height of favor with the queen. But, during his absence at sea, the queen discovered that an intrigue existed between Raleigh and one of the maids of honor, which was an offence particularly displeasing to Elizabeth, who loved to fancy that all her handsome young courtiers were too much attached to herself to be capable of loving any other object. Raleigh, on his return, was committed a prisoner to the Tower, and, on being released after a short confinement, retired to his estate in Dorsetshire. It was during this retirement that he formed his scheme for the discovery and conquest of Eldorado. It had long been a subject of meditation to Raleigh, who declares in the dedication of his "History of Guiana," published after his return, that "many years since, he had knowledge, by relation, of that mighty, rich, and beautiful empire of Guiana, and of that great and golden city which the Spaniards call Eldorado, and the naturals Manoa." – "It is not possible," says one of the historians of these events, "that Raleigh could have believed the existence of such a kingdom. Credulity was not the vice of his nature; but, having formed the project of colonizing Guiana, he employed these fables as baits for vulgar cupidity." Other writers judge him more favorably. It is probably true that he believed in the existence of such a country as Eldorado; but we can hardly suppose that he put faith in all the marvellous details which accompanied the main fact in popular narration.
CHAPTER V.
RALEIGH'S FIRST EXPEDITION
As the attempts of Pizarro and Orellana were made by the route of the river of the Amazons, and that of Ribera by the river of Paraguay, Raleigh's approach was by the Orinoco, a river second in size only to the Amazons, and which flows in a course somewhat parallel to that, and some five or ten degrees farther to the north. The region of country where this river discharges itself into the Atlantic was nominally in possession of the Spaniards, though they had but one settlement in what was called the province of Guiana, – the town of St. Joseph, then recently founded; and another on the island of Trinidad, which lies nearly opposite the mouth of the river. Raleigh, arriving at Trinidad, stopped some days to procure such intelligence as the Spaniards resident there could afford him respecting Guiana. He then proceeded to the main land, destroyed the town which the Spaniards had lately built there, and took the governor, Berrio, on board his own ship. He used his prisoner well, and "gathered from him," he says, "as much of Guiana as he knew." Berrio seems to have conversed willingly upon his own adventures in exploring the country, having no suspicion of Raleigh's views. He discouraged Raleigh's attempts to penetrate into the country, telling him that he would find the river unnavigable for his ships, and the nations hostile. These representations had little weight with Raleigh, as he attributed them to a very natural wish on Berrio's part to keep off foreigners from his province; but, on trying to find the entrance to the river, he discovered Berrio's account to be true, so far as related to the difficulties of the navigation. After a thorough search for a practicable entrance, he gave up all hopes of passing in any large vessel, and resolved to go with the boats. He took in his largest boat, with himself, sixty men, including his cousin, his nephew, and principal officers. Another boat carried twenty, and two others ten each. "We had no other means," he says in his account afterward published, "but to carry victual for a month in the same, and also to lodge therein as we could, and to boil and dress our meat."
The Orinoco, at nearly forty leagues from the sea, forms, like the Nile, a kind of fan, strewed over with a multitude of little islands, that divide it into numerous branches and channels, and force it to discharge itself through this labyrinth into the sea by an infinity of mouths, occupying an extent of more than sixty leagues. "The Indians who inhabit those islands," says Raleigh, "in the summer, have houses upon the ground, as in other places; in the winter they dwell upon the trees, where they build very artificial towns and villages: for, between May and September, the river rises to thirty feet upright, and then are those islands overflowed twenty feet high above the level of the ground; and for this cause they are enforced to live in this manner. They use the tops of palmitos for bread; and kill deer, fish, and porks for the rest of their sustenance." Raleigh's account is confirmed by later travellers. Humboldt says, "The navigator, in proceeding along the channels of the delta of the Orinoco at night, sees with surprise the summits of the palm-trees illuminated by large fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons, which are suspended from the trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle, on a layer of moist clay, the fire necessary for their household wants."
Passing up with the flood, and anchoring during the ebb, Raleigh and his companions went on, till on the third day their galley grounded, and stuck so fast, that they feared their discovery must end there, and they be left to inhabit, like rooks upon trees, with these nations; but on the morrow, after casting out all her ballast, with tugging and hauling to and fro, they got her afloat. After four days more, they got beyond the influence of the tide, and were forced to row against a violent current, till they began to despair; the weather being excessively hot, and the river bordered with high trees, that kept away the air. Their provisions began to fail them; but some relief they found by shooting birds of all colors, – carnation, crimson, orange, purple, and of all other sorts, both simple and mixed. An old Indian whom they had pressed into their service was a faithful guide to them, and brought them to an Indian village, where they got a supply of bread, fish, and fowl. They were thus encouraged to persevere, and next day captured two canoes laden with bread, "and divers baskets of roots, which were excellent meat." Probably these roots were no other than potatoes; for the mountains of Quito, to which Sir Walter was now approaching, were the native country of the potato, and the region from whence it was first introduced into Europe. The Spaniards and Portuguese introduced it earlier than the English; but to Raleigh belongs the credit of making it known to his countrymen. The story is, that Sir Walter, on his return home, had some of the roots planted in his garden at Youghal, in Ireland, and that his gardener was sadly disappointed in autumn on tasting the apples of the "fine American fruit," and proceeded to root up the "useless weeds," when he discovered the tubers.
Raleigh treated the natives with humanity, and, in turn, received friendly treatment from them. The chiefs told him fine stories about the gold-mines; but, unfortunately, the gold was not to be had without labor, and the adventurers were in no condition to undertake mining operations. What they wanted was to find a region like Mexico or Peru, only richer, where gold might be found, not in the rocks or the bowels of the earth, but in possession of the natives, in the form of barbaric ornaments that they would freely barter for European articles, or images of their gods, such as Christians might seize and carry away with an approving conscience.
Thus far, their search for such a region had been unsuccessful, and their only hope was of reaching it by farther explorations. But the river was rising daily, and the current flowed with such rapidity, that they saw clearly, if it went on to increase as it had done for some time past, it must soon debar all farther progress.
Raleigh found by talking with the chiefs that they were all hostile to the Spaniards, and willing enough to promise him their aid in driving them out of the country. He accordingly told them that he was sent by a great and virtuous queen to deliver them from the tyranny of the Spaniards. He also learned that the Indians with whom he was conversing were an oppressed race, having been conquered by a nation who dwelt beyond the mountains, – a nation who wore large coats, and hats of crimson color, and whose houses had many rooms, one over the other. They were called the Eperumei; and against them all the other tribes would gladly combine, for they were the general oppressors. Moreover, the country of these Eperumei abounded in gold and all other good things.
He continued to make daily efforts to ascend the river, and to explore the tributary streams, but found his progress debarred in some quarters by the rapid current of the swollen streams, and in others by falls in the rivers. The falls of one of the tributaries of the Orinoco, the Caroli, he describes as "a wonderful breach of waters, running in three parts; and there appeared some ten or twelve over-falls in sight, every one as high over the other as a church-tower." He was informed that the lake from which the river issued was above a day's journey for one of their canoes to cross, which he computed at about forty miles; that many rivers fall into it, and great store of grains of gold was found in those rivers. On one of these rivers, he was told, a nation of people dwell "whose heads appear not above their shoulders;" which, he says, "though it may be thought a mere fable, yet, for my own part, I am resolved it is true, because every child in those provinces affirm the same. They are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair growth backward between their shoulders." Raleigh adds, "It was not my chance to hear of them till I was come away. If I had but spoken one word of it while I was there, I might have brought one of them with me to put the matter out of doubt." It might have been more satisfactory for the philosophers if he had done so; but his word was quite enough for the poets. One of that class, and the greatest of all, William Shakspeare, was, at that very time, writing plays for the gratification of Raleigh's gracious mistress and her subjects, and eagerly availed himself of this new-discovered tribe to introduce one of them in his play of "The Tempest," under the name of Caliban. He also makes Othello tell the gentle Desdemona "of most disastrous chances, and of the cannibals that each other eat; the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Nor are these the only instances in which we think we trace the influence of the romantic adventurer on the susceptible poet. The name of the divinity whom Caliban calls "my dam's God Setebos" occurs in Raleigh's narrative as the name of an Indian tribe; and Trinculo's plan of taking Caliban to England to make a show of him seems borrowed from this hint of Raleigh's. In his days of prosperity, Raleigh instituted a meeting of intellectual men at "The Mermaid," a celebrated tavern. To this club, Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, Selden, Donne, and other distinguished literary men, were accustomed to repair; and here doubtless the adventures and discoveries of Sir Walter, set forth with that talent of which his writings furnish abundant proof, often engaged the listening group. Raleigh was then forty-eight, and Shakspeare thirty-six, years old. But, in justice to Raleigh, it should be added, that he did not invent these stories, and that later travellers and missionaries testify that such tales were current among the Indians, though as yet no specimen of the tribe has been seen by trustworthy narrators.
Raleigh now found that he must bring his westward progress to a conclusion: "for no half-day passed but the river began to rage and overflow very fearfully; and the rains came down in terrible showers, and gusts in great abundance, and men began to cry out for want of shift; for no man had place to bestow any other apparel than that which he wore on his back, and that was thoroughly washed on his body for the most part ten times a day; and we had now been near a month, every day passing to the westward, farther from our ships." They turned back, therefore, and, passing down the stream, went, without labor and against the wind, little less than one hundred miles a day. They stopped occasionally, both for provisions, and for conference with the natives. In particular, one old chief, with whom he had conferred formerly on his ascent, gave him the confidential communication, that the attempt to attack the city of Manoa, at that time, was desperate; for neither the time of the year was favorable, nor had he nearly a sufficient force. He advised, that, forbearing any further attempts at that time, Raleigh should rest satisfied with the information he had gained, and return to his own country for a larger force, with which to come again the next year, and unite all the tribes which were hostile to the Eperumei, or people of Manoa, and by their aid make an easy conquest of them. The old chief added, that, for his part and his people's, they wanted no share of the spoils of gold or precious stones: they only wanted to be avenged on their enemies, and to rescue from them their women whom the Eperumei had carried away in their frequent incursions; "so that, whereas they were wont to have ten or twelve wives apiece, they were now enforced to content themselves with three or four."
Raleigh met with no material misadventure in his way down the river; and, though a storm attacked them the same night, they anchored in the mouth of the river; so that, in spite of every shelter they could derive from the shores, the galley "had as much to do to live as could be, and there wanted little of her sinking, and all those in her: " yet next day they arrived safe at the Island of Trinidad, and found the ships at anchor, "than which," says Raleigh, "there was never to us a more joyful sight."
Raleigh was not favorably received by the queen on his return, nor was he welcomed with any popular applause; for he had brought home no booty, and his account of the riches of the land into which he had led the way was received with suspicion. He published it under this boastful title: "The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana; with a relation of the great and Golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call Eldorado. Performed by Sir Walter Raleigh." In spite of all the great promises which he held out, the acknowledgment that he had made a losing voyage tended to abate that spirit of cupidity and enterprise which he wished to excite.
Sir Walter's history of his expedition contains, besides the marvels already cited, numerous others, some of which have a basis of fact, others not. Of the former kind is his account of oysters growing on trees. He says, "We arrived at Trinidado the 22d of March, casting anchor at Port Curiapan. I left the ships, and kept by the shore in my barge, the better to understand the rivers, watering-places, and ports of the island. In the way, I passed divers little brooks of fresh water, and one salt river, that had store of oysters upon the branches of the trees. All their oysters grow upon those boughs and sprays, and not on the ground. The like is commonly seen in the West Indies and elsewhere."
Upon this narrative, Sir Robert Schomburgh, a late explorer, has the following remark: "The first accounts brought to Europe, of oysters growing on trees, raised as great astonishment as the relation of Eldorado itself; and to those who were unacquainted with the fact that these mollusks select the branches of the tree, on which they fix themselves during high water, when the branches are immersed, it may certainly sound strange, that shells, which we know live in Europe on banks in the depths of the sea, should be found in the West Indies on the branches of trees. They attach themselves chiefly to the mangrove-tree, which grows along the shore of the sea, and rivers of brackish water, and covers immense tracts of coast; rooting and vegetating in a manner peculiar to itself, even as far as low-water mark. The water flowing off during ebb leaves the branches, with the oysters attached to them, high and dry."
Respecting the Republic of Amazons, Sir Walter says, "I made inquiry among the most ancient and best travelled of the Orenoqueponi; and I was very desirous to understand the truth of those warlike women, because of some it is believed, of others not. I will set down what hath been delivered me for truth of those women; and I spake with a cacique, or lord of people, who said that he had been in the river, and beyond it also. The nations of those women are on the south side of the river, in the province of Topago; and their chiefest strengths and retreats are in the islands of said river. They accompany with men but once in a year, and for the time of one month, which, I gather from their relation, to be in April. At that time, all the kings of the borders assemble, and the queens of the Amazons; and, after the queens have chosen, the rest cast lots for their valentines. This one month they feast, dance, and drink of their wines in abundance; and, the moon being done, they all depart to their own provinces. If a son be born, they return him to the father; if a daughter, they nourish it and retain it, all being desirous to increase their own sex and kind. They carry on wars, and are very blood-thirsty and cruel."
Sir Robert Schomburgh, who explored these regions extensively between the years 1835 and 1844, says, in reference to this subject, "The result of this fatiguing and perilous journey has only strengthened our conviction that this republic of women was one of those inventions, designed merely to enhance the wonders, of which the new world was regarded as the seat." It would, however, be unjust to condemn Raleigh's proneness to a belief in their existence, when we find that Condamine believed in them; that Humboldt hesitated to decide against them; and that even Southey, the learned historian of Brazil, makes this remark, "Had we never heard of the Amazons of antiquity, I should, without hesitation, believe in those of America. Their existence is not the less likely for that reason; and yet it must be admitted, that the probable truth is made to appear suspicious by its resemblance to a known fable."