30 DIFFERENT SITES OF EL DOHADO. 



second belong those that are supposed to lie between the 

 Kio Branco and the mountains of Dutch and French Gui- 

 ana. It results from this sketch, that the question whether 

 there exists a lake Parima on the east of the Eio Branco, is alto- 

 gether foreign to the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. 



Beside the country which we have just noticed (the 

 Dorado de la Parime, traversed by the Eio Branco), another 

 part of America is found, two hundred and sixty leagues 

 toward the west, near the eastern back of the Cordillera of 

 the Andes, equally celebrated in the expeditions to El Do- 

 rado. This is the Mesopotamia between the Caquetoa, the 

 Kio Negro, the Uaupes, and the Yurubesh, of which I have 

 already given a particular account ; it is the Dorado of the 

 Omaguas, which contains Lake Manoa of Father Acunha, 

 the JLaguna de oro of the Guanes, and the auriferous land, 

 whence Father Fritz received plates of beaten gold in his 

 mission on the Amazon, toward the end of the seventeenth 

 century. 



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 Am- 

 pudia, to discover the valley of El Dorado,* twelve days' 

 journey from Guallabamba, consequently in the mountains 

 Detween Pasto and Popayan. The information which Pedro 

 de Anasco had obtained from the natives, joined to that 

 which was received subsequently (1536) bv Diaz de Pineda, 

 who had discovered the provinces of Quixos and Canela, 

 between the Bio JN"apo and the Bio 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 



* 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 piegas y joyas de oro, y que no hdvia 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. v, lib. x, cap. xiv, and 

 dec. vi, lib. viii, cap. vi. Geoyr. Blaviana, voL xi, p. 261. Southey, 

 torn i, p. 78 et 373. 



