"THE GILDED KINO." 45 



the kingdom of Quito, where Luis Daza (1535) met with an 

 Indian of New Grenada, who had been sent by his prince 

 (no doubt the zippa of Bogota, or the zaque of Tunja), to 

 ilrmund assistance from Atahualpa, inca of Peru. This 

 Ambassador boasted, as is usual, the wealth of his country; 

 but what particularly fixed the attention of the Spaniards, 

 who were assembled with Daza in the town of Tacunga 

 (XJactacunga), was the history of a lord, "who, his body 

 ruvi'ivd with powdered gold, went into a lake amid the 

 mountains." This lake may have been the Laguna de 

 Totta, a little to the east of Sogamozo (Iraca) and of Tunja 

 (Hunca, the town of Huncahua), where two chiefs, eccle- 

 siastical and secular, of the empire of Cundinamarca, or 

 Cund irumarca, resided ; but no historical remembrance being 

 attached to tins mountain lake, I rather suppose that it was 

 the sacred lake of Gruatavita, on the east of the mines of 

 rock-salt of Zipaquira, into which the gilded lord was made 

 to enter. I saw on its banks the remains of a staircase hewn 

 in the rock, and serving for the ceremonies of ablution. 

 The Indians said that powder of gold and golden vessels 

 were thrown into this lake, as a sacrifice to the adoratorio de 

 Guatavita. Vestiges are still found of a breach, which was 

 made by the Spaniards for the purpose of draining the lake. 

 The temple of the sun at Sogamozo being pretty near the 

 northern coasts of Terra Firma, the notions of ' the gilded 

 man' were soon applied to a high-priest of the sect of 

 Bochica, or Indacauzas, who every morning, before he per- 

 formed his sacrifice, caused powder of gold to be stuck upon 

 his hands and face, after they had been smeared with grease. 

 Other accounts, preserved in a letter of Oviedo addressed to 

 the celebrated cardinal Bembo, say, that Gronzalo Pizarro, 

 when he discovered the province of cinnamon-trees, " sought 

 at the same time a great prince, noised in those countries, 

 who was always covered with powdered gold, so that from 

 head to foot he resembled an image of gold fashioned by the 

 hand of a skilful workman (a una figura d'oro lavorato di 

 mano d'un buonissimo orefice). The powdered gold is fixed 

 on the body by means of an odoriferous resin ; but, as this 

 kind of garment would be uneasy to him while he slept, the 

 prince washes himself every evening, and is gilded anew in 

 the morning, which proves that the empire of El Dorado ia 



