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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



turn to England, where he was beheaded for the crime alreadj 

 punished by thirteen years' confinement. 



Modern historians and travellers, and men of judgment and 

 intelligence who have inhabited the regions at the mouth of the 

 Orinoco, have not hesitated to avow their opinion that the story 

 of El Dorado is not without some sort of foundation in fact. 

 Humboldt accounts for it geologically, and holds the ardent 

 imagination of the Indians to be answerable for the fable. He 

 conjectures that there may be islands and rocks of micaslate 

 and talc in and around Lake Parima, which, reflecting from their 

 surfaces and angles the glowing rays of the sun, may have been 

 transformed by the extravagant fancy of the natives into the 

 gorgeous temples and palaces of a gilded metropolis. He at- 

 tempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe 

 of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this cele- 

 brated locality: its great distance from the sea, the trackless 

 forests, the wild beasts and barbarian inhabitants, have repelled 

 both the conqueror and the explorer, so that it is not known 

 to this day what degree or what kind of authority exists for the 

 extraordinary story in question. But, inasmuch as Cortez 

 passed within ten miles of the wonderful city of Copan without 

 hearing of it, the supposition that there may be aboriginal cities 

 in the unexplored regions of South America, affording, perhaps, 

 basis sufficient for the tale of El Dorado without its exaggera- 

 tions, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent 

 ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not ex- 

 pected, seem to argue the existence of others in regions where 

 positive and persistent tradition has located them. 



