THE TABLED EL DORADO. 
181 
°f Murcielaco, towards the sources of the Erevato and the 
Aeutuari. 
. It was across these mountains, which are inhabited 
'>v Indians of gentle character, employed in agriculture,* 
’bat, at the time of the expedition for settling boundaries, 
General Iturriaga took some horned cattle for the supply 
of the new town of San Fernando de Atabapo. The in- 
habitants of Encaramada then showed the Spanish soldiers 
the way by the Eio Manapiari,f which falls into the Ven- 
tuari. By descending these two rivers, the Orinoco and the 
Atabapo may be reached without passing the great cataracts, 
''’hieh present almost insurmountable obstacles to the con- 
Ve yance of cattle. The spirit of enterprise which had so 
otninently distinguished the Castilians at the period of the 
discovery of America, was again roused for a time in the 
fiddle of the eighteenth century, when Ferdinand VI was 
desirous of knowing the true limits of his vast possessions ; 
: ‘ n d in the forests of Guiana, that land of fiction and 
tabuloug tradition, the wily Indians revived the chimerical 
*dea of the wealth of El Dorado, which had so much occu- 
P le d the imagination of the first conquerors. 
Amidst the mountains of Encaramada, which, like most 
coarse-grained granite rocks, are destitute of metallic veins, 
"o cannot help inquiring whence came those grains of gold 
" ‘rich Juan Martinez J and Ealeigh profess to have seen in 
®Uch abundance in the hands of the Indians of the Orinoco. 
I’rom what I observed in that part of America, I am led to 
t ' u uk that gold, like tin, 1 1 is sometimes disseminated in an 
, * The Mapoyes, Parecas, Javaranas, and Curacicanas, who possess 
, me plantations (conucos) in the savannahs by which these forests are 
funded. 
■ + Between Encarmada and the Rio Manapiare, Don Miguel Sanchez, 
inr t ^‘‘ s little expedition, crossed the Rio Guainaima, which flows 
tl °k t * le Cuchivero. Sanchez died, from the fatigue of this journey, or. 
ne bo rders Qf the ventuari. 
t £l* e companion of Diego Ordaz. 
jo A l‘ us tin is found in granite of recent formation, at Geyer ; in hya- 
iti or Truism, at Zitmwald j and in syenitic porphyry, at Altenberg, 
in th*? 0 ^’ as " e ll as near Naila, in the Fichtelgebirge. 1 have also seen, 
any v A‘P Gr Palatinate, micaceous iron, and black earthy cohalt, far from 
bon 11 " ! " ve ltl, disseminated in a granite destitute of mica, as magnetic 
■sand is in volcanic rocks 
