The safest plan was to stand upright in them, armed with long poles to push them off from the rocks, against which the fierce current every moment threatened to dash them. As it was, they sank two or three feet deep in the water, so that we were nearly always immersed up to our waists.

This river rises in the mountains of Segovia, and falls into the sea at Cape Gracia á Dios, after having flowed for a long distance, with frightful rapidity, among an infinite number of huge rocks, and between the most terrible precipices imaginable. We had to pass more than a hundred cataracts great and small, and there were three which the most daring of us could not look at without turning giddy with fear, when we saw and heard the water plunging from such a height into those horrible gulfs. Everything was so fearful that only those who have experienced it can imagine it; as for me, though I shall all my life have my memory full of pictures of the perils of that voyage, it would be impossible for me to give any idea of it which would not be far below the reality.

We let ourselves go with the current, so rapid that often, in spite of our resistance, it bore us into foaming whirlpools, where we were engulfed with our pieces of wood. But happily before the greatest cataracts, and also just beyond them, there was a basin of calm water, which made it possible for us to gain the bank, drawing our piperies after us. Then, taking out of them whatever valuables we had there, we descended with these, leaping from rock to rock till we had reached the foot of the cataract. Then one of us would return and throw the piperies, which we had left behind, down into the flood—and we below caught them as they descended. Sometimes, indeed, we failed to catch them, and had to make new ones.

When we first set out we voyaged all together, that in case of accident we might come to each other's aid. But in three days, being out of all danger of the Spaniards, we began to travel separately, since a piperie dashed against the rocks had often been prevented from freeing itself by other piperies which the current hurled against it. It was arranged for those who descended first, when they came to an especially dangerous rapid, to hoist a little flag at the end of a stick, not to warn those behind of the cataract, since they could hear it nearly a league away, but to mark the side on which they ought to land. This plan saved a number of lives, nevertheless many others were lost.

The bananas which we found on the river bank were almost our only nourishment, and saved us from dying of hunger; for, though there was plenty of game, our powder and weapons were all wet and spoiled, so that we could not hunt.

Some days after we had begun to descend the river, as we were travelling separate, several freebooters who had lost all their spoils in gambling were guilty of most cruel treachery. Having gone in advance, these villains concealed themselves behind some rocks commanding the river, in front of which we all had to pass, and as everyone was looking after himself, and we descended unsuspiciously, at some distance from each other—for the reasons already given—they had time to fix upon and to massacre five Englishmen, who possessed greater shares of booty than the rest of us. They were completely plundered by these assassins, and my companion and I found their dead bodies on the shore. At night, when we were encamped on the river bank, I reported what we had seen, and the story was confirmed both by the absence of the dead Englishmen and of their murderers, who dared not come back to us, and whom we never saw again.

On the 20th of February we found the river much wider, and there were no more cataracts. When we had descended some leagues further it was very fine, and the current was gentle, and seeing that the worst of our perils were over, we dispersed into bands of forty each to make canoes, in which we might safely complete our voyage down the river.

On the 1st of March, by dint of great diligence, having finished four canoes, a hundred and twenty of us embarked, leaving the others, whose canoes were still incomplete, to follow.

On the 9th we reached the mouth of the river in safety, and lived there among the mulattos and negroes who inhabit the coast, till an English boat, touching there, took on board fifty of us, of whom I was one. On the 6th of April, without any other accident, we arrived at our destination, St. Domingo.

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON