After him came Pedro Hernandez de Serpa, and landed at Cumana, in the West Indies, taking his journey by land towards Orenoque, which may be some 120 leagues; but ere he came to the borders of the said river, he was set upon by a nation of the Indians, called Wikiri, and overthrown in such sort, that of 300 soldiers, horsemen, many Indians, and negroes, there returned but eighteen.  Others affirm that he was defeated in the very entrance of Guiana, at the first civil town of the empire called Macureguarai.  Captain Preston, in taking Santiago de Leon (which was by him and his companies very resolutely performed, being a great town, and far within the land) held a gentleman prisoner, who died in his ship, that was one of the company of Hernandez de Serpa, and saved among those that escaped; who witnessed what opinion is held among the Spaniards thereabouts of the great riches of Guiana, and El Dorado, the city of Inga.  Another Spaniard was brought aboard me by Captain Preston, who told me in the hearing of himself and divers other gentlemen, that he met with Berreo’s campmaster at Caracas, when he came from the borders of Guiana, and that he saw with him forty of most pure plates of gold, curiously wrought, and swords of Guiana decked and inlaid with gold, feathers garnished with gold, and divers rarities, which he carried to the Spanish king.

After Hernandez de Serpa, it was undertaken by the Adelantado, Don Gonzalez Ximenes de Quesada, who was one of the chiefest in the conquest of Nuevo Reyno, whose daughter and heir Don Antonio de Berreo married.  Gonzalez sought the passage also by the river called Papamene, which riseth by Quito, in Peru, and runneth south-east 100 leagues, and then falleth into Amazons.  But he also, failing the entrance, returned with the loss of much labour and cost.  I took one Captain George, a Spaniard, that followed Gonzalez in this enterprise.  Gonzalez gave his daughter to Berreo, taking his oath and honour to follow the enterprise to the last of his substance and life.  Who since, as he hath sworn to me, hath spent 300,000 ducats in the same, and yet never could enter so far into the land as myself with that poor troop, or rather a handful of men, being in all about 100 gentlemen, soldiers, rowers, boat-keepers, boys, and of all sorts; neither could any of the forepassed undertakers, nor Berreo himself, discover the country, till now lately by conference with an ancient king, called Carapana (Caribana, Carib land, was an old European name for the Atlantic coast near the mouth of the Orinoco, and hence was applied to one of its chiefs.  Berrio called this district “Emeria"), he got the true light thereof.  For Berreo came about 1,500 miles ere he understood aught, or could find any passage or entrance into any part thereof; yet he had experience of all these fore-named, and divers others, and was persuaded of their errors and mistakings.  Berreo sought it by the river Cassanar, which falleth into a great river called Pato:  Pato falleth into