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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It Was Like A Phantom That Seemed To Flee Before The
Spaniards, And To Call On Them Unceasingly.
It is in the nature of
man, wandering on the earth, to figure to himself happiness beyond the
region which he knows.
El Dorado, similar to Atlas and the islands of
the Hesperides, disappeared by degrees from the domain of geography,
and entered that of mythological fictions.
I shall not here relate the numerous enterprises which were undertaken
for the conquest of this imaginary country. Unquestionably we are
indebted to them in great part for our knowledge of the interior of
America; they have been useful to geography, as errors and daring
hypotheses are often to the search of truth: but in the discussion on
which we are employed, it is incumbent on me to rest only upon those
facts which have had the most direct influence on the construction of
ancient and modern maps. Hernan Perez de Quesada, after the departure
of his brother the Adelantado for Europe, sought anew (1539) but this
time in the mountainous land north-east of Bogota, the temple of the
sun (Casa del Sol), of which Geronimo de Ortal had heard spoken in
1536 on the banks of the Meta. The worship of the sun introduced by
Bochica, and the celebrity of the sanctuary of Iraca, or Sogamozo,
gave rise to those confused reports of temples and idols of massy
gold; but on the mountains as in the plains, the traveller believed
himself to be always at a distance from them, because the reality
never corresponded with the chimerical dreams of the imagination.
Francisco de Orellana, after having vainly sought El Dorado with
Pizarro in the Provincia de los Canelos, and on the auriferous banks
of the Napo, went down (1540) the great river of the Amazon.
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