VAGUE IDEAS OF EL DOHADO. 53 



capital of the cacique of Aromaja, and the first city of the 

 imaginary empire of Guyana." 



As these often-inundated lands have been at all times 

 inhabited by nations of Carib race, who carried on a very 

 active inland trade with the most distant regions, we must 

 not be surprised that more gold was found here in the 

 hands of the Indians than elsewhere. The natives of the 

 coast did not employ this metal in the form of ornaments or 

 amulets only; but also as a medium of exchange. It is 

 not extraordinary, therefore, that gold has disappeared on 

 the coast of Paria, and among the nations of the Orinoco, 

 since their inland communications have been impeded by 

 the Europeans. The natives who have remained indepen- 

 dent are in our days, no doubt, more wretched, more indo- 

 lent, and in a ruder state, than they were before the con- 

 quest. The king of Morequito, whose son Raleigh took to 

 England, had visited Cumana in 1594, to exchange a great 

 quantity of images of massy gold for iron tools, and Euro- 

 pean merchandise. The unexpected appearance of an Indian 

 chief augmented the celebrity of the riches of the Orinoco. 

 It was supposed that El Dorado must be near the country 

 from which the king of Morequito came ; and as this country 

 was often inundated, and rivers vaguely called great seas, or 

 great basins of water, El Dorado must be on the banks of 

 a lake. It was forgotten that the gold brought by the 

 Caribs, and other trading people, was as little the produce 

 of their soil as the diamonds of Brazil and India are the 

 produce of the regions of Europe, where they are most 

 abundant. The expedition of Berrio, which had increased 

 in number during the stay of the vessels at Cumana, La 

 ICargareta, and the island of Trinidad, proceeded by More- 

 quito (near Vieja Guayana) towards the Rio Paragua, a 

 tributary stream of the Carony; but sickness, the ferocity 

 of the natives, and the want of subsistence, opposed invin- 

 cible obstacles to the progress of the Spaniards. They all 

 pcrislu-J ; except about thirty, who returned in a deplorable 

 btatf to the post ol Santo Thome. 



These disasters did not calm the ardour displayed during 

 the first half oi the 17th century in the search of El Dorado. 

 The governor of the island of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio, 

 became the prisoner oi' Sir Walter Raleigh, in the cele- 



