The quest of El Dorado; the most romantic episode in the history of South American conquest . as a matter of fact, areour chief and best authorities on this inter-esting topic. The quotation above givenfrom Juan de Castellanos they characterizeas a mere poetical fancy. Holding suchviews, they naturally find fault with Hum-boldt for having spread broadcast the er-,ror, as they regard it, concerning the con-nection between El Dorado and Lake Gua-tavita—an error, they assert, into which the^great German-ssayant was, led by concedingundue authority to what the historian ofGranada, Bishop Piedrahit
The quest of El Dorado; the most romantic episode in the history of South American conquest . as a matter of fact, areour chief and best authorities on this inter-esting topic. The quotation above givenfrom Juan de Castellanos they characterizeas a mere poetical fancy. Holding suchviews, they naturally find fault with Hum-boldt for having spread broadcast the er-,ror, as they regard it, concerning the con-nection between El Dorado and Lake Gua-tavita—an error, they assert, into which the^great German-ssayant was, led by concedingundue authority to what the historian ofGranada, Bishop Piedrahita, writes on thesubject.* Plausible as they are, however, the * Cf. El Dorado, Aus der Geschichte der erstenAmerikanischen Endeckungs-Eeisen. Separat-Aus-druck aus den Mittleilungen der GeographischenGesellschaft in Hamburg (1889) ; Historia Generalde las Conquistas del Nuevo Reino de Granada, , Cap. Ill, por D. Lucas Piedrahita, Antwerp(1688); The Gilded Man, by A. F. Bandelier, NewYork (1893); Personal Narrative of Travels to theEquinoctial Regions of America during the Years 18. Lake Guatavita Showing the cut made by Sepulveda, a rich merchant of Bogota,who in 1562 received from Philip II a concession to drainthe lake in order to secure the great treasures supposed toexist at the bottom. Quite recentlj an English companyhaving a concession from the Colombian Government suc-ceeded in completely draining the lake and found the bottomcovered with a deposit of mud about 3 meters in will be necessary to carefully wash this in order to de-termine what treasures, if an,\. are contained in it. Accordingto the latest report available, only a few beads, ceramic andgold objects have so far been found. The lake is almost cir-cular in outline, with a diameter of about MOO meters, andwas, at the time of the Conquistadores, about 00 meters indepth. EXPEDITION—DE BELALCAZAR reasons of these writers for rejecting thetestimony of such veracious and conscien-tious chroni
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