48 
THE TEJtPLE OF THE SUN. 
tinually described Dorado as easy to be reached, and situate 
at no considerable distance. It was like a phantom that 
seemed to flee before the Spaniards, and to call on them 
unceasingly. It is in the nature of man, wandering on the 
earth, to figure to himself happiness beyond the region whicli 
he knows. ^ El Dorado, similar to Atlas and the islands of 
the ITesperides, disappeared by degrees from the domain of 
geography, and entered that of mythological fictions. 
I shall not hero relate tlic numerous enterprises which ■' 
were undertaken for the conquest of this imaginary couiitiy. ( 
Unquestionably we are indebted to tliem in great part for ' 
our Jiuowlcdge of the interior of America; they have been 
useful to geography, as errors and daring bypotlieses are often ! 
to the search of truth : but in the discussion on which we i 
are employed, it is inciiinbent on me to rest only upon those ] 
facts wliich have^ had the most direct uilluence on the con- • 
structioii of ancient and modem maps. Ilernaii Perez de ' 
Quesada, after the depai-ture of his brother the Adehuitado ' 
for Europe, sought anew (1539) but this time in the inoun- ' 1 
tainous la id nortli-east_ of Bogota, the temple of the smi i 
(Casa del Sol), of which Geronimo de Ortnl had heard 1 
spoken in 153(5 on the banki of the Meta. The worship of 
the sun introduced by Bochica, and tlio celebrity of tlie > 
sanctuary of Iraca, or Sogamozo, gave rise to those confused 
reports of temples and idols of massy gold; but on the 
mountains as in the plains, the traveller believed himself to 
he always at a distance from them, because the reality never 
corresponded with the chimerical dreams of the imagination. 
Erancisco de Orellana, after having vainly sought eF D orado 
with Pizarro in the l^TOvincia de los CaneJos, and on the 
auriferous banks of the Xapo, went down ( 1 540) the great 
river ol the Amazon. He found there, between the mouths 
of tlio Javari and the Bio de la I'rinidad (Yupura ?) a pro- i 
vineo rich in gold, called IHacbiparo (Miichifaro), in the I 
vicinity of that of the Aoinaguas, or Omaguas. Tbeso ‘ 
notions contributed to carry El Dorado toward the south- 
east, for the names Onuii/uas (Om-aguas, Aguas), Bit-Aguas, 
and Papamcne, designated the same country— that which 
Jorge de Espira had discovered in his expedition to tho 
Caqiieta. The Omaguas, the JSIatiaos or Hunoas, and the 
^gpes (Uaupes or Guayupes) live in the plains on the 
