The Voyage of 'Aguirre in Search of El Dorado. 209 



fish.es, where no choroid gland exists, other anatomical arrange- 

 ments appear to subserve the same purpose. 



3. The phenomena above described in connection with the 

 twin-cones of the cod show that the baccillary prolongations 

 (Zapfenstabchen) are not persistently formed appendages, as 

 hitherto supposed, but they are filaments capable of pro- 

 trusion from the cones on the application of certain stimuli. 

 The cones themselves are to be regarded as special tactile 

 bodies, destined to receive and convey to the true nervous ele- 

 ments of the retina, pencils of fight reflected from the choroid. 

 They are analogous, therefore, to the ordinary Pacinian corpuscles 

 of the skin, which they resemble in many respects, and each, 

 cone may not inaptly be compared, in a functional sense, to a 

 single ocellus in the compound eye of an insect. The vertebrate 

 ocelli, so to speak, are arranged on a convex expansion of the optic 

 nerve, with their visual planes directed inwards, whilst in the 

 compound eye of invertebrates the ocelli are directed outwards. 



THE VOYAGE OF AGUIRRE IN SEARCH OF 



EL DORADO.* 



No picture of the sixteenth century would be complete unless it 

 recorded the remarkable adventures of the Spaniards in search 

 of the marvellous treasures which the American Continent was 

 presumed to contain. Nowhere else do we find such a strange 

 combination of credulity, superstition, avarice, chivalry, and 

 ruffianism, as was exhibited by the various bands of marauders 

 who went in search of the famous El Dorado, the imaginary 

 region of exhaustless wealth. 



After plundering the flourishing states of Mexico, Bogota, 

 and Peru, the madness for gain was increased, and instead of 

 availing themselves of the boundless opportunities for the exer- 

 cise of industry, which the new countries presented, the atten- 

 tion of the adventurers was turned to the interior of the 

 continent, where golden cities were supposed to be concealed 

 by the vast primeval forests which separated them from the 

 common world. Among the local facts and customs which 

 served as the basis for the wildest fables, it appears that the 

 chief of Guatavita made a solemn sacrifice once a year, and to 



* The Expedition of Pedro de Ursua and Lope de Aguirre in Search of El 

 Dorado and Omagua, in 1560 — 1, translated from Eray Pedro Simon's Sixth 

 Historical Notice of the Conquest of Tierra Firme, by Wm. Bollaert, Esq., 

 E.R.G.S., Corresponding Member of the University of Chile, Member of the Eth- 

 nological Society of New York, with an Introduction, by Clements E.. Markham, 

 Esq. London : printed for the Hakluyt Society. 



