HKB
gold they had in other towns on this side Manoa, there being many very great and rich, and (as he said) built like the towns of Christians, with many rooms.
When these ten Spaniards were returned, and ready to put out of the border of Aromaia (the district below the Caroni river), the people of Morequito set upon them, and slew them all but one that swam the river, and took from them to the value of 40,000 pesos of gold; and one of them only lived to bring the news to Berreo, that both his nine soldiers and holy father were benighted in the said province. I myself spake with the captains of Morequito that slew them, and was at the place where it was executed. Berreo, enraged herewithal, sent all the strength he could make into Aromaia, to be revenged of him, his people, and country. But Morequito, suspecting the same, fled over Orenoque, and through the territories of the Saima and Wikiri recovered Cumana, where he thought himself very safe, with Vides the governor. But Berreo sending for him in the king's name, and his messengers finding him in the house of one Fajardo, on the sudden, ere he was suspected, so as he could not then be conveyed away, Vides durst not deny him, as well to avoid the suspicion of the practice, as also for that an holy father was slain by him and his people. Morequito offered Fajardo the weight of three quintals in gold, to let him escape; but the poor Guianian, betrayed on all sides, was delivered to the camp-master of Berreo, and was presently executed.
After the death of this Morequito, the soldiers of Berreo spoiled his territory and took divers prisoners. Among others they took the uncle of Morequito, called Topiawari, who is now king of Aromaia, whose son I brought with me into England, and is a man of great understanding and policy; he is above an hundred years old, and yet is of a very able body. The Spaniards led him in a chain seventeen days, and made him their guide from place to place between his country and Emeria, the province of Carapana aforesaid, and he was at last redeemed for an hundred plates of gold, and divers stones called piedras hijadas, or spleen-stones. Now Berreo for executing of Morequito, and other cruelties, spoils, and slaughters done in Aromaia, hath lost the love of the Orenoqueponi, and of all the borderers, and dare not send any of his soldiers any further into the land than to Carapana, which he called the port of Guiana; but from thence by the help of Carapana he had trade further into the country, and always appointed ten Spaniards to reside in Carapana's town (the Spanish settlement of Santo Tome de la Guyana, founded by Berrio in 1591 or 1592, but represented by Raleigh as an Indian pueblo), by whose favour, and by being conducted by his people, those ten searched the country thereabouts, as well for mines as for other trades and commodities.
They also have gotten a nephew of Morequito, whom they have christened and named Don Juan, of whom they have great hope, endeavouring by all means to establish him in the said province. Among many other trades, those Spaniards used canoas to pass to the rivers of Barema, Pawroma, and Dissequebe (Essequibo), which are on the south side of the mouth of Orenoque, and there buy women and children from the cannibals, which are of that barbarous nature, as they will for three or four hatchets sell the sons and daughters of their own brethren and sisters, and for somewhat more even their own daughters. Hereof the Spaniards make great profit; for buying a maid of twelve or thirteen years for three or four hatchets, they sell them again at Margarita in the West Indies for fifty and an hundred pesos, which is so many crowns.