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And so ends abruptly this sad document. The truth comes at last but when, does not appear in a letter from Keymis, dated January 8. San Thome has been stormed, sacked, and burnt. Four refiners' houses were found in it; the best in the town; so that the Spaniards have been mining there; but no coin or bullion except a little plate.
Yes; we were on the track of the old sea-heroes; of Drake and Hawkins, Carlile and Cavendish, Cumberland and Raleigh, Preston and Sommers, Frobisher and Duddeley, Keymis and Whiddon, which last, in that same Flores fight, stood by Sir Richard Grenville all alone, and, in 'a small ship called the Pilgrim, hovered all night to see the successe: but in the morning, bearing with the Revenge, was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous houndes, but escaped' to learn, in after years, in company with hapless Keymis, only too much about that Trinidad and Gulf of Paria whither we were bound.
The results of this disastrous voyage must be shortly given. Raleigh sailed March 28, 1617, and reached the coast of Guiana in November following. Being himself disabled by sickness from proceeding farther, he despatched a party to the mine under the command of Captain Keymis, an officer who had served in the former voyage to Guiana.
The Spaniards still occupied the passes to the mine, and after an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, Keymis abandoned the enterprise and returned to the ships. Raleigh's correspondence expresses in affecting terms his grief and indignation at this double misfortune: the loss of a brave and promising son, and the destruction of the hopes which he had founded on this long-cherished adventure.
And when I came to the river of Cumaca, to which Putijma promised to conduct Captain Keymis, I left Captain Eynos and Master Porter in the said river to expect his coming, and the rest of us rowed down the stream towards Emeria. In this branch called Cararoopana were also many goodly islands, some of six miles long, some of ten, and some of twenty.
At length, in the quarter to which Captain Keymis had been directed, the small lake of Amucu was discovered, to which a river called the Parinia is connected; and from the geological structure of the surrounding country, is supposed to have been formerly much larger than at present.
How, indeed, could they have found heart to sail at all? The only answer is that they knew Raleigh well enough to have utter faith in him, and that Keymis himself knew of the mine. Puppies at home in England gave out that he had killed himself from remorse at having deceived so many gentlemen with an imaginary phantom.
Sir Walter Raleigh sent his faithful lieutenant, Captain Keymis, to carry on the expedition he was himself unable to undertake. His chief object, and that of his successors, was to discover the site of the golden city. Keymis, while sailing up the Essequibo, heard that by ascending one of its tributaries the Rupunoony he would certainly reach it.
To this place Raleigh directly bent his course; and, remaining himself at the mouth of the river with five of the largest ships, he sent up the rest to St. Thomas, under the command of his son, and of Captain Keymis, a person entirely devoted to him. The Spaniards, who had expected this invasion, fired on the English at their landing, were repulsed, and pursued into the town.
Have the Spaniards slain him, too? Keymis comforts them as he best can; hears of more gold mines; and gets back safe, a little to his own astonishment; for eight-and-twenty ships of war have been sent to Trinidad to guard the entrance to El Dorado, not surely, as Keymis well says, 'to keep us only from tobacco. A colony of 500 persons is expected from Spain.
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