by Walter Raleigh

“ For mine own part, I am not so much in love with these long voyages as to devise thereby to cozen myself, to lie hard, to fare worse, to be subjected to perils, to diseases, to ill savours, to be parched and withered, and withal to sustain the care and labour of such an enterprise, except the same had more comfort than the fetching of marcasite in Guiana, or buying of gold ore in Barbary. But I hope the better sort will judge me by themselves, and that the way of deceit is not the way of honour or good opinion. ”

“ In Guiana itself I never saw marcasite; but all the rocks, mountains, all stones in the plains, woods, and by the rivers' sides, are in effect thorough-shining, and appear marvellous rich; which, being tried to be no marcasite, are the true signs of rich minerals, but are no other than El madre del oro, as the Spaniards term them, which is the mother of gold, or, as it is said by others, the scum of gold. Of divers sorts of these many of my company brought also into England, every one taking the fairest for the best, which is not general. ”

“ For mine own part, I did not countermand any man's desire or opinion, and I could have afforded them little if I should have denied them the pleasing of their own fancies therein; but I was resolved that gold must be found either in grains, separate from the stone, as it is in most of the rivers in Guiana, or else in a kind of hard stone, which we call the white spar, of which I saw divers hills, and in sundry places, but had neither time nor men, nor instruments fit for labour. ”