Extremely rare Dutch edition of Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) and Lawrence Keymis' (?-1618) account of their expedition to Guiana in 1595 in search of El Dorado. Raleigh and Keymis mention its local name, Manõa, and compare their experiences with earlier (Spanish) accounts, which seemed to confirm the marvellous tales about this city. They returned to England with some gold, and discovered the rumour had been spread that they had never been to Guiana, but had stayed in Cornwall and bought the gold. They wrote the present account in order to squash this slander. The present Dutch edition is extremely rare, as we have only been able to trace 2 copies in institutions, and 1 in sales records.
The present work is a translation of The discovery of the large, rich and beautiful empire of Guiana (1596), and was first translated into Dutch in 1598. This 1644 (fourth Dutch) edition forms a part of the first volume of the original edition of Isaac Commelin's collection of voyages Begin ende voortgangh van de Vereenigde Neederlandtsche geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie of 1644, which is also very scarce. As it was an English voyage, Raleigh's account was omitted in the editions of 1645 and 1646.
The work is browned throughout, a water stain in the lower inner corner in the first half of the work and the lower outer corner in the second half, the upper outer corner of leaf M1 is torn, with some loss of text, the upper margins has been cut somewhat short, with loss of the headline and pagination. Otherwise in good condition. Sabin 67558; STCN 087968827 (1 copy); Tiele, Mémoire, p. 306 (not seen!); USTC 1013841 (1 copy); WorldCat 68857754, 62405688 (2 copies); cf. Cox II, p. 254 (other ed.); Landwehr, VOC, 250 (other ed.).