EXPLORATION OP THE INTERIOR. 11 



the Chiloe and Fuegian arcliipelagoes, with all their intricate passages, projecting 

 headlands, groups and chains of reefs and islands. 



Exploration of the Interior. 



If the cartography of the seaboard is not yet completed, that of the interior is 

 even still more defective, despite the thousands of itineraries spread like a network 

 over the well-known settled regions, and carefully reproduced in all their details 

 on modern maps. The Conquistadores were the first explorers, and the geographical 

 history of the continent begins with the reports of their expeditions. The 

 Pizarros, the Almagros, the Yaldivias, and their lieutenants brought under their 

 dominion every city, every civilised tribe throughout the uplands and western 

 valleys of the Peruvian and Chilian Andes. 



Farther north, in the Venezuelan and Colombian regions, other captains and 

 leaders of armed followers — Germans in the service of the bankers of Charles Y., 

 or Spanish adventurers in search of fresh conquests and new viceroyalties — also 

 forced their way through savannas, across mountains and rivers, losing half or 

 more of their followers on the march. 



Alfinger, "cruellest of the cruel," roamed as a hunter of men the upland 

 regions, where are intermingled the headwaters of the streams which flow in one 

 direction to the Maracaibo inlet, in another towards the Rio Magdalena. Heredia, 

 Cesar, Robledo, Fernandez de Lugo penetrated into the mountainous northern 

 districts of the present Colombia. Fredemann, after traversing the overhanging 

 cliffs between the Venezuelan seaboard and the plains of the Orinoco, retraced his 

 steps to the coast, and then went in quest of the plateaux occupied b}^ the empire 

 of the Muyscas. When at last he reached this mysterious region beyond the 

 forests, the river gorges and woodlands, he found himself, to his utter amazement, 

 forestalled by other European conquerors who, in absolute ignorance of their rivals' 

 movements, had penetrated by other routes to the same place. Quesada, starting 

 from Santa Marta, had ascended the course of the Magdalena as far as the Opon 

 confluence, whence he had made his way to the Cundinamarca plateau, while 

 Belalcazar, at that time in Quito, had arrived at the same goal from an opposite 

 direction by traversing the Tuquerres plateau and crossing the central Cordillera 

 and the upper Magdalena. Like three vultures swooping down on the prey, they 

 were fain, much to their regret, to share the booty between them. 



These expeditions towards the capitals of empires, towards cities to which 

 roads had been opened by the natives from time immemorial, were succeeded by 

 an epoch of journeys made at haphazard towards visionary regions. Nothing 

 seemed impossible to these men, who, after the first years of monotonous life in 

 Spain, suddenly found themselves launched on a marvellous career of battles and 

 triumphs, traversing seas and continents, and sweeping whole populations away as 

 in a storm. All the doughty deeds related in their romances of chivalry they had 

 themselves performed. 



There remained nothing now but to crown their work with miraculous 

 achievements, to triumph with magic weapons over dragons and demons, to 



