Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The First And Above All The Most Celebrated Enterprises Attempted In
Search Of El Dorado Were Directed Toward The Eastern Back Of The Andes
Of New Grenada.
Fired with the ideas which an Indian of Tacunga had
given of the wealth of the king or zaque
Of Cundirumarca, Sebastian de
Belalcazar, in 1535, sent his captains Anasco and Ampudia, to discover
the valley of El Dorado,* twelve days' journey from Guallabamba,
consequently in the mountains between Pasto and Popayan. (* El valle
del Dorado. Pineda relates: que mas adelante de la provincia de la
Canela se hallan tierras muy ricas, adonde andaban los hombres armados
de piecas y joyas de oro, y que no havia sierra, ni montana. [Beyond
the province of Canela there are found very rich countries (though
without mountains) in which the natives are adorned with trinkets and
plates of gold.] Herrera dec. 5 lib. 10 cap. 14 and dec. 6 lib. 8 cap.
6 Geogr. Blaviana volume 11 page 261. Southey tome 1 pages 78 and
373.) The information which Pedro de Anasco had obtained from the
natives, joined to that which was received subsequently (1536) by Diaz
de Pineda, who had discovered the provinces of Quixos and Canela,
between the Rio Napo and the Rio Pastaca, gave birth to the idea that
on the east of the Nevados of Tunguragua, Cayambe, and Popayan, were
vast plains, abounding in precious metals, and where the inhabitants
were covered with armour of massy gold. Gonzales Pizarro, in searching
for these treasures, discovered accidentally, in 1539, the
cinnamon-trees of America (Laurus cinnamomoides, Mut.); and Francisco
de Orellana went down the Napo, to reach the river Amazon. Since that
period expeditions were undertaken at the same time from Venezuela,
New Grenada, Quito, Peru, and even from Brazil and the Rio de la
Plata,* for the conquest of El Dorado. (* Nuno de Chaves went from the
Ciudad de la Asumpcion, situate on Rio Paraguay, to discover, in the
latitude of 24 degrees south, the vast empire of El Dorado, which was
everywhere supposed to lie on the eastern back of the Andes.) Those of
which the remembrance have been best preserved, and which have most
contributed to spread the fable of the riches of the Manaos, the
Omaguas, and the Guaypes, as well as the existence of the lagunas de
oro, and the town of the gilded king (Grand Patiti, Grand Moxo, Grand
Paru, or Enim), are the incursions made to the south of the Guaviare,
the Rio Fragua, and the Caqueta. Orellana, having found idols of massy
gold, had fixed men's ideas on an auriferous land between the Papamene
and the Guaviare. His narrative, and those of the voyages of Jorge de
Espira (George von Speier), Hernan Perez de Quesada, and Felipe de
Urre (Philip von Huten), undertaken in 1536, 1542, and 1545, furnish,
amid much exaggeration, proofs of very exact local knowledge.* (* We
may be surprised to see, that the expedition of Huten is passed over
in absolute silence by Herrera (dec. 7 lib. 10 cap. 7 volume 4 238).
Fray Pedro Simon gives the whole particulars of it, true or fabulous;
but he composed his work from materials that were unknown to Herrera.)
When these are examined merely in a geographical point of view, we
perceive the constant desire of the first conquistadores to reach the
land comprised between the sources of the Rio Negro, of the Uaupes
(Guape), and of the Jupura or Caqueta. This is the land which, in
order to distinguish it from El Dorado de la Parime, we have called El
Dorado des Omaguas.* (* In 1560 Pedro de Ursua even took the title of
Governador del Dorado y de Omagua. Fray Pedro Simon volume 6 chapter
10 page 430.) No doubt the whole country between the Amazon and the
Orinoco was vaguely known by the name of las Provincias del Dorado;
but in this vast extent of forests, savannahs, and mountains, the
progress of those who sought the great lake with auriferous banks, and
the town of the gilded king, was directed towards two points only, on
the north-east and south-west of the Rio Negro; that is, to Parima (or
the isthmus between the Carony, the Essequibo, and the Rio Branco),
and to the ancient abode of the Manaos, the inhabitants of the banks
of the Yurubesh. I have just mentioned the situation of the latter
spot, which is celebrated in the history of the conquest from 1535 to
1560; and it remains for me to speak of the configuration of the
country between the Spanish missions of the Rio Carony, and the
Portuguese missions of the Rio Branco or Parima. This is the country
lying near the Lower Orinoco, the Esmeralda, and French and Dutch
Guiana, on which, since the end of the sixteenth century, the
enterprises and exaggerated narratives of Raleigh have shed so bright
a splendour.
From the general disposition of the course of the Orinoco, directed
successively towards the west, the north, and the east, its mouth lies
almost in the same meridian as its sources: so that by proceeding from
Vieja Guyana to the south the traveller passes through the whole of
the country in which geographers have successively placed an inland
sea (Mar Blanco), and the different lakes which are connected with the
El Dorado de la Parime. We find first the Rio Carony, which is formed
by the union of two branches of almost equal magnitude, the Carony
properly so called, and the Rio Paragua. The missionaries of Piritu
call the latter river a lake (laguna): it is full of shoals, and
little cascades; but, passing through a country entirely flat, it is
subject at the same time to great inundations, and its real bed (su
verdadera caxa) can scarcely be discovered. The natives have given it
the name of Paragua or Parava, which means in the Caribbee language
sea, or great lake. These local circumstances and this denomination no
doubt have given rise to the idea of transforming the Rio Paragua, a
tributary stream of the Carony, into a lake called Cassipa, on account
of the Cassipagotos,* who lived in those countries.
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