Still proceeding, on the fifteenth day, to their great joy, the distant mountains of Guiana came into view, and the same day brought them in sight of the great Orinoco, about the branches of which river thousands of tortoise eggs were found, which proved to be “very wholesome meat, and greatly restoring.” The natives, too, were friendly, and to Raleigh’s credit, be it said, he appears in all cases to have treated them fairly and well. With the cacique he made merry, treating the natives to a small quantity of Spanish wine, they in return bringing in fruits, bread, fish, and flesh. The chief conducted them to his own town, “where,” says Raleigh, “some of our captains caroused of his wine till they were reasonably pleasant; for it is very strong with pepper, and the juice of divers herbs digested and purged; they keep it in great earthen pots of ten or twelve gallons, very clear and sweet; and are themselves at their meetings and feasts the greatest carousers and drunkards in the world.” The settlement stood on a low hill, “with goodly gardens a mile compass round about it.” And so they proceeded, meeting friendliness everywhere among the natives, till the rivers commenced fast rising, and they could not row against the stream. Small parties were then detailed ashore to look for mineral stones. Raleigh describes the country as lovely; “the deer crossing in every path; the birds towards the evening singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes; cranes and herons, of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the river’s side; the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind; _and every stone that we stooped to take up promised either gold or silver by its complexion_. * * * I hope some of them cannot be bettered under the sun; and yet we had no means but with our daggers and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being most hard, of that mineral spar aforesaid, which is like a flint, and is altogether as hard, or harder; and besides, the veins lie a fathom or two deep in the rocks. But we wanted all things requisite, save only our desires and good will, to have performed more, if it had pleased God.” Some of the others brought glistening stones, and among them, apparently pyrites, which very commonly accompanies gold, but of the precious metal itself Raleigh could hardly boast a speck in truth. His account of these discoveries is mixed up with the strangest fables, as for example of the Ewaipanoma, a people of that country whose eyes were in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts! [Illustration: RALEIGH ON THE RIVER.]