The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1945-08-16

was the nrSt White man to hear
about this strange custom, through
a rowing Indian, was at that time in
Quito and the year was 1885.
In sudden enthusiasm the conquis-
tador is said to have exclaimed:
I'VE must at once go in search of
ell Dorado" (the gilded man, in
Spanish), name which eventually
was applied mot only to the gilded
chief himself, but also to the city
wherein he was supposed to reside,
and to the province over which he
bore rule, and to the city wherein
he was supposed to reside, and to
the province over which he bore rule,
and to the lake on which his capital
was said to be located.
Augmented by the Imagination of
the eager and credulous Spaniards,
Ell Dorado became synonymous with
land of promise, and innumerable
expeditions, besides that of Belalcazar
himself, were organized in quest of
that elusive paradise.
Martinez, one of the members of
the expedition undertaken by Diego
de Ordaz in 1881, claimed to have
been rescued from shipwreck, taken
inland and entertained by "El Dora
dc" in person, in his magic city.
Also famous are the journeys of
Orelland (1540-41), who followed the
Rio Napo to the valley of the
Amazon, that of Philip Won Hutton
(1541-45) whose party worked its
way inland from the coast of
Caracas, and that of Gonzalo
Ximenez de Quesada who started out
in 1869 from what is today Bogota.
At the end of the sixteenth
century-1595-Si Walter Raleigh
added his name to that of those who
had gone in search of Ell Dorado
and described its fabulous city,
Manon, as one placed on the shores
of Lake Parma in Guiana.
This lake was marked on English
maps until the nineteenth century
when Humboldt proved that it never
existed.
The land of Ell Dorado was rapid
ly becoming delusion, a mirage in
the minds of some of the men who
never found it. The fable of its
discovery or merely of its existence
was being spread not only by
Europeans but also by migratory
Indians of the time, while pioneers
continued their endless search in the
wilderness.
And what courage, what energy
they had-those first pioneers and
their immediate followers who as
early as 1776 had built a chain of
blockhouses reaching across a
country which is now rated as 'un-
explored.
For over two centuries they
continued their fruitless quest, from
the north coastline almost down to
the Amazon, from the Andes range
across to the Orinoco relentless,
resolute, undismayed
1t has been said that the myth of
Ell Dorado was used by the summing
Indians in order to either get rid of
the invaders or take them into lands
of other tribes with which they were
at war.
If this was really their plan, they
succeeded only partially and helped,
in fact, the cause of civilization.
The pursuit of this strange golden
phantom served as a valuable con-
tribution to geographic knowledge
and to progress, and it was thanks
to it, thanks to the adventures who
undertook the quest, that we can
still form true mental picture of
the conditions of the northern half
of South America at the time of the
Conquest.
Like any great unfulfilled venture,
the quest for the gilded man and
his treasures has certain romantic
flavor. 1t remains one of the most
colorful episodes, one of the most
daring chapters of the history of
South America.