40 SUPPOSED EMERALD MI^ES. 



history of ' tlie gilded man' belongs originally to the Andes 

 of New Grenada, and particularly to the plains in the 

 vicinity of their eastern side: we see it progressively ad- 

 vance, as I observed above, three hundred leagues toward 

 the east-north-east, from the sources of the Caqueta to 

 those of the Rio Branco and the Essequibo. Gold was 

 eought in different parts of South America before 1536, 

 without the word El Dorado having been ever pronounced, 

 and without the belief of the existence of any other centre 

 of civilization and wealth, than the empire of the Inca of 

 Cuzco. Countries which now do not furnish commerce 

 with the smallest quantities of the precious metals, the 

 coast of Paria, Terra Eirma (Castillo del Oro), the moun- 

 tains of Santa Martha, and the isthmus of Darien, then 

 enjoyed the same celebrity which has been more recently 

 acquired by the auriferous lands of Sonora, Choco, and 

 Brazil. 



Diego de Ordaz (1531) and Alonzo de Herrera (1535) 

 directed their journeys of discovery along the banks of the 

 Lower Orinoco. The former is the famous Conquistador of 

 Mexico, who boasted that he had taken sulphur out of the 

 orater of the Peak of Popocatepetl, and whom the emperor 

 Charles V. permitted to wear a burning volcano on his 

 armorial bearings. Ordaz, named Adelantado of all the 

 country which he could conquer between Brazil and the 

 coast of Venezuela, which was then called the country oi 

 the German Company of Welsers (Belzares) of Augsburg, 

 began his expedition by the mouth of the Marafion. He 

 there saw, in the hands oi the natives, " emeralds as big as 

 a man's fist." They were, no doubt, pieces of that saus- 

 surite jade, or compact feldspar, which we brought home 

 from the Orinoco, and which La Condamine found in abund- 

 ance at the mouth of the Eio Topayos. The Indians related 

 to Diego de Ordaz, "that on going up during a certain 

 number of suns toward the west, he would find a large 

 rock (pena) of green stone ;" but before they reached this 

 pretended mountain of emerald (rocks of euphotide?) a ship- 

 wreck put an end to all farther discovery. The Spaniards 

 saved themselves with difficulty in two small vessels. They 

 hastened to get out of the mouth of the Amazon ; and the 

 currents, which in those parts run with violence to tha 



