Drie scheeps-togten na het goud-rijke koningrijk Guiana, in America geleegen, door den Engelssen ridder Wal...

1595

As we then approached them, they remained standing. Our men then came to land through a small brook, which flowed from their town into the river.

The Indians refuse to have intercourse with the English.

When we lingered here for a while, our Indian guide, whom we had with us, asked to go to the village to fetch some fruits and to drink their homemade wine, as well as to inspect the land, and took his brother with him. Scarcely had they arrived there than the leader of that island wanted to have them taken prisoner because they had brought a strange people into their land to destroy it. However, the guide escaped through his quickness in running and came back to us with the report that his brother had been killed.

An old man captured.

Having understood this, one laid hands on an old man who was closest to them; this man was threatened that, if the guide’s brother did not return, he would be beheaded.

Indian escapes at risk of life.

This old man, showing himself very willing to atone for the loss, nevertheless cried out very loudly that one should do no harm to the same, yet they pursued him with large dogs and such a clamor that the forest echoed. He still reached the bank of the water and proceeded to swim, and thus, half-dead from fear, came over to us. That we had now kept this old Indian with us served us subsequently to great fortune, as he was well-versed in the paths and waters, and without him we would never have reached either Guiana or our ships again.

The ethnic group divided into Tivitivas and Warawite.

This ethnic group, now living on these islands, is commonly called Tivitivas. They are of two kinds, namely Ciawani and Warawite.

The great river called Oronoque or Baraquan has 9 outlets, which all out of its