The queen in the course of time bestowed on him lands in Ireland, both in the counties of Cork and Waterford. She also gave him an estate at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he laid out some beautiful gardens. He asked so many favours for his friends, as well as for himself, that Elizabeth once said to him soon after she had knighted him, "When shall you cease to be a beggar, Sir Walter?"
"When your Majesty ceases to be benevolent," he replied.
The court life, however gay and pleasant, did not satisfy his eager spirit, and he rejoiced very much when the queen granted him a patent for the discovery and planting of new lands in America. For this purpose he fitted out two small vessels, which reached the coast of Florida in the year 1585. They sailed northward as far as an island called Roanoke, and found a tract of land on the continent, to which Elizabeth gave the name of Virginia, but it did not really become a flourishing colony until the reign of her successor.
Raleigh, like many other noble-minded men of his time, bore a great hatred to Spain on account of her tyrannies; and when the invincible Armada came to invade England, he was amongst the bravest of those who fought for their queen and their country. And the next year he held an important command under Drake and Norris in an expedition to place Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal.
When he returned to England, after having won great fame by his valour, he found that the young Earl of Essex was rising rapidly in the queen's favour. Much jealousy existed between these two courtiers; they were constantly quarrelling, and the following incident will show how petty were the means used by Essex to annoy his rival.
The nobles used to make a very splendid appearance at the jousts and tournaments which were held on the queen's birthday, and on one of these occasions Raleigh took it into his head to accoutre all his followers in orange-coloured plumes. Essex hearing of this, got together a much more numerous cavalcade, decked all in the colour chosen by Raleigh, and appeared at the head of his followers dressed in a complete suit of orange-colour, so that when he entered the tilt-yard in sight of Elizabeth, the followers of his rival only looked "like so many appendages to his own train."[23] Raleigh once set out at the head of a fleet with two of the queen's ships, and had the good fortune to capture a Portuguese vessel which had a very rich cargo. It was in the year 1595 that he sailed with five vessels for the discovery and conquest of Guiana,[24] a country of South America, which was called "El Dorado," on account of the gold mines it was supposed to contain. This was an enterprise he had planned during some months that he had been living in retirement at Sherborne, having incurred the displeasure of the queen. First of all he had sent out a captain to the spot, who made a favourable report of his voyage when he returned home. So Raleigh put out to sea and landed in the island of Trinidad, where he burnt the fort of Saint Joseph, which had been lately constructed by the Spaniards, and took Don Antonio, the Spanish governor, prisoner. He treated Antonio very kindly, and gained from him some valuable information in reference to the country he desired to explore. He was now very eager to set out on his enterprise, and liked the idea of it all the better because it would undoubtedly be attended with danger. He left his ships at Cariapan, in Trinidad, and sailed with a hundred men in several small barks to find "the golden land." And before he returned to England he had sailed 400 miles up the river Orinoco, which flows through Guiana, thus being the first Englishman who had ventured in that direction.
Sir Walter Raleigh wrote some strange accounts of the people he found in the new country. Those that inhabited the mouth of the Orinoco upon the northern branches of the river were called "Tissitinas;" they were very brave, and talked slowly and sensibly. In dry weather they had their dwellings on the ground like most other people, but between May and September the Orinoco rising thirty feet and overflowing the broken land, they lived up in the trees, as Columbus had already found men living in other parts a century before. They never eat anything that was planted or sown, and for bread they used the tops of the palmitos.[25] The people dwelling on the branches of the Orinoco called Capuri, and Macureo, were skilful makers of canoes, and sold them for gold and tobacco. When their chief, or king, died, they had the strange custom of keeping his body until all the flesh fell off its bones, and then they adorned the skull with gay-coloured feathers, and the limbs with gold plates, and hung up the skeleton in the house the chief had dwelt in when alive. The more gentle natives used to make war on the cannibals, but all tribes were at peace with one another, and held the Spaniards for their common enemy when the English appeared amongst them.
Sometimes the adventurers suffered greatly from thirst and from the excessive heat of the climate, since Guiana lies all in the torrid zone, the hottest part of the earth. In one district they passed through, which was low and marshy, the water that issued out of the boggy ground was almost red, and they could only fill their waterpots with it about noon, for if they filled them at morning or evening, it was as bad to drink as poison, and at night it was worst of all. The wine that was used in some parts was very strong; it was made of the juice of different fruits and herbs, and highly seasoned with pepper. The natives kept it in great earthen pots, which held ten or twelve gallons each.
At one time during their travels the weather became fearfully hot. The rivers were bordered with high trees, which met overhead and shut out the air, so that they panted for breath; the currents were against them; the water was very unwholesome to drink, and their bread was all gone. They lived on fish, and the fruits they plucked along the banks of the rivers. The beautiful flowers of the tropics twined around the great trees in the shade, and there were birds flitting about, as Sir Walter writes, "crimson, carnation, orange, tawny, and purple!" Still, they were in great want of bread, and an old native pilot whom they had taken, promised them that if they would enter a branch of the river on their right hand, with only their barge and wherries, and leave the galley they had come in to anchor in the great river, he would take them to a town, where they would find bread and poultry. So they set off in their wherries, and, because they thought the place was so near, they took no food with them at all. The day wore on, and still the pilot said "a little farther," until the sun was low in the sky, and they had glided down the stream forty miles. Then all at once it became dark, because there is no twilight in the tropics; dark as pitch, they said; the river narrowed and the trees bent over it so closely, that they had to cut their passage through the branches with their swords. They distrusted the pilot, although the poor old man, who must have been somewhat out of his reckoning, still kept assuring them that they had only a little further to go; and an hour after midnight, to their great joy they saw a light, and heard the barking of dogs, and came to a village or town which was almost empty, because nearly all its inhabitants had gone to the head of the Orinoco to trade for gold. Here they found plenty of fish, and fowls, and Indian wine, and bread, for which they gave the people things in exchange. Raleigh says that the Spaniards used to get a hundred pounds of cassava bread for a knife.
There is frequent mention in his narrative of an old king named Topiawari, whose son he brought with him to England. He was a hundred and ten years old, and had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards under Berreo, and led about by them in a chain for seventeen days, that he might guide them from place to place, for he was "a man of great understanding and policy." He purchased his freedom with a hundred plates of gold. This old king came fourteen miles on foot to see the English commander, and returned to his home the same day; which must have been a long journey for one who, as he touchingly observed himself, was "old, weak, and every day called for by death." A number of people came with him from the villages laden with provisions, and amongst these were delicious pine-apples in plenty. One of the people gave Raleigh an armadillo, which he calls "a very wonderful creature, barred all over with small scales, with a horn growing out of it," the powder of which he was told cured deafness.