About this time he made acquaintance with the Spanish legend of the fabulous wealth of El Dorado, the city of Manoa, in South America. The story fascinated his romantic nature, and he could not rest until he had attempted its discovery. Yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he refrained from going in search of it himself, and sent his tried and trusty servant, Jacob Whiddon, in his stead. Whiddon returned without having discovered anything, and Raleigh now essayed the adventure himself. With a fleet of five ships he sailed in February 1595, and in the next month arrived at the island of Trinidad. He seized the capital and captured the governor, who confirmed the stories of the richness and wonder of Manoa, and told him of its remarkable inhabitants, the dog-headed men “whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” Early in April Raleigh started on the quest with a little flotilla of five boats, a hundred men, and provisions for a month. He entered the Orinoco, but found the labour of rowing against the vast and powerful stream most exhausting. Sometimes his boats did not progress a stone’s-throw in an hour. After struggling onwards for nearly four hundred miles he was obliged to own himself beaten. He brought back with him some pieces of quartz showing grains of gold and the earliest specimens of mahogany ever seen in this country. Subsequently he attacked several Spanish settlements and then returned to England, where his enemies declared that the story of his river voyage was an invention. As a matter of fact, Guiana is rich in gold, and more than one famous mine has been worked in the country which Raleigh endeavoured to explore. Raleigh lived peacefully at home for nearly two years, and then played a brilliant part in Drake’s daring attack on Cadiz. He commanded the _Warspite_, the leading ship, and though severely wounded, landed with his men for the storming of the town. His gallantry won him the queen’s forgiveness, and once more he was a familiar figure about the court. Under Essex he commanded a ship in the fleet which sailed for Flores, in the Azores, to lie in wait for Spanish treasure galleons. His disobedience of orders in his capture of Fayal earned for him the enmity of Essex, who now became one of his bitterest enemies. Essex, however, came to the block, but not before he had done Raleigh considerable mischief.