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 Meta, and Meta into Baraquan, which is also called Orenoque. He took his journey from Nuevo Reyno de Granada, where he dwelt, having the inheritance of Gonzalez Ximenes in those parts; he was followed with 700 horse, he drove with him 1,000 head of cattle, he had also many women, Indians, and slaves. How all these rivers cross and encounter, how the country lieth and is bordered, the passage of Ximenes and Berreo, mine own discovery, and the way that I entered, with all the rest of the nations and rivers, your lordship shall receive in a large chart or map, which I have not yet finished, and which I shall most humbly pray your lordship to secrete, and not to suffer it to pass your own hands; for by a draught thereof all may be prevented by other nations; for I know it is this very year sought by the French, although by the way that they now take, I fear it not much. It was also told me ere I departed England, that Villiers, the Admiral, was in preparation for the planting of Amazons, to which river the French have made divers voyages, and returned much gold and other rarities. I spake with a captain of a French ship that came from thence, his ship riding in Falmouth the same year that my ships came first from Virginia; there was another this year in Helford, that also came from thence, and had been fourteen months at an anchor in Amazons; which were both very rich.