Drake now crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and—­the first foreigner to accomplish the feat—­set eyes on the Pacific Ocean, in which he swore to cruise before he had finished his career.  Here, moreover, having failed to capture one royal treasure convoy, his good fortune led him to meet with a second, and the gold and silver borne by the laden mules became the property of himself and his men.

Drake started out on his next voyage in 1577, and fulfilled his purpose of breasting the waters of the Pacific; for, after various adventures on the east coast of the Continent, he sailed through the Straits of Magellan, and found himself in the ocean that, until then, had been traversed by Spanish vessels alone.  His arrival came as a bolt from the blue to the Spaniards, who had not dreamed of the possibility of the invasion of the Pacific, the waters of which they had grown to consider as sacred to themselves.  The alarm spread like wild-fire along the whole length of that great coast.  All the while Drake cruised up and down, capturing and destroying wherever he might.  Indeed, of all the adventurers of this period, Drake was the one whose name conveyed the greatest terror to the Spanish colonists.  This was evident in all parts of the Continent.  Thus the impetuosity of his attacks and incursions in the neighbourhood of the Guianas and Venezuela was sufficient utterly to startle and dismay the unfortunate Spaniards.

[Illustration:  THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN.]

The taking of Caracas in 1595 showed him as not only an able leader, but as an extraordinarily gifted tactician.  It was in the course of this attack, by the way, that the fine old hidalgo, Alonso Andrea de Ledesma, mounted his horse, and, shield on arm, lance in rest, charged full tilt single handed against the English force, who would have spared him had he permitted it.  But his onslaught was too impetuous for that.  All the invaders could do for the gallant old knight was to give him an honourable and reverent burial.

After a while, Queen Elizabeth herself now lending open support to the adventurers, Drake’s expeditions became more and more daring, and, until he died of fever at Porto Bello, his personality was one which gave sleepless nights from time to time to responsible persons on the coasts of the great Continent.

The name of Raleigh, “poet, statesman, courtier, schemer, patriot, soldier, freebooter, discoverer, colonist, castle-builder, historian, philosopher, chemist, prisoner, and visionary,” is, of course, from the romantic point of view, principally associated with El Dorado, and his quest of the magic and imaginary land of gold.  It was for this reason that Raleigh’s dealings with the Spaniards in South America were more circumscribed than those of many of his colleagues.  Led to the belief, both by his own fanciful convictions and by the legends brought him by the Indians, he had conceived El Dorado as situated somewhere in the Guianas, and thus his operations were chiefly confined to this part of the world and to the neighbourhood of the Orinoco River.