(* These Prisoners Belonged To The Expedition Of Berrio And Of Hernandez De Serpa.

The English landed at Macuto (then Guayca Macuto), whence a white man, Villalpando, led them by a mountain-path between Cumbre and the Silla (perhaps passing over the ridge of Galipano) to the town of Caracas.

Simon page 594; Raleigh page 19. Those only who are acquainted with the situation can be sensible how difficult and daring this enterprise was.) He lent faith to the fables invented by Juan Martin de Albujar, and entertained no doubt either of the existence of the two lakes Cassipa and Rupunuwini, or of that of the great empire of the Inca, which, after the death of Atahualpa, the fugitive princes were supposed to have founded near the sources of the Essequibo. We are not in possession of a map that was constructed by Raleigh, and which he recommended to lord Charles Howard to keep secret. The geographer Hondius has filled up this void; and has even added to his map a table of longitudes and latitudes, among which figure the laguna del Dorado, and the Ville Imperiale de Manoas. Raleigh, when at anchor near the Punta del Gallo* in the island of Trinidad (* The northern part of La Punta de Icacos, which is the south-east cape of the island of Trinidad. Christopher Columbus cast anchor there on August 3, 1498. A great confusion exists in the denomination of the different capes of the island of Trinidad; and as recently, since the expedition of Fidalgo and Churruca, the Spaniards reckon the longitudes in South America west of La Punta de la Galera (latitude 10 degrees 50 minutes, longitude 63 degrees 20 minutes), it is important to fix the attention of geographers on this point. Columbus called the south-east cape of the island Punta Galera, on account of the form of a rock. From Punta de la Galera he sailed to the west and landed at a low cape, which he calls Punta del Arenal; this is our Punta de Icacos. In this passage, near a place (Punta de la Playa) where he stopped to take in water (perhaps at the mouth of the Rio Erin), he saw to the south, for the first time, the continent of America, which he called Isla Santa. It was, therefore, the eastern coast of the province of Cumana, to the east of the Cano Macareo, near Punta Redonda, and not the mountainous coast of Paria (Isla de Gracia, of Columbus), which was first discovered.), made his lieutenants explore the mouths of the Orinoco, principally those of Capuri, Grand Amana (Manamo Grande), and Macureo (Macareo). As his ships drew a great deal of water, he found it difficult to enter the bocas chicas, and was obliged to construct flat-bottomed barks. He remarked the fires of the Tivitivas (Tibitibies), of the race of the Guaraon Indians, on the tops of the mauritia palm-trees; and appears to have first brought the fruit to Europe (fructum squamosum, similem palmae pini). I am surprised, that he scarcely mentions the settlement, which had been made by Berrio under the name of Santo Thome (la Vieja Guayana.) This settlement however dates from 1591; and though, according to Fray Pedro Simon, "religion and policy prohibited all mercantile connection between Christians [Spaniards] and Heretics [the Dutch and English]," there was then carried on at the end of the sixteenth century, as in our days, an active contraband trade by the mouths of the Orinoco.

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