PIEAKA. 
Latitude, 3® 38' N. Longitude, 59° 16' W. 
CENTURIES have elapsed since the supposed existence of an extensive auriferous district fired the imagination of all Europe, and found 
ready belief, at a period when chivalrous enterprise seems to have been succeeded by a thirst for adventures in the newly found part of 
the world. 
The marvellous discoveries and narratives of the first conquerors had already prepared the minds of the credulous for the greatest 
wonders, and disposed them to admit the accounts given of a still more recently discovered country, called El Dorado, the gold-covered 
capital of which was built upon a vast lake, surrounded by mountains so impregnated with the precious metals, “ that they shone with a 
dazzling splendour.” This picture excited the desires of thousands, and by alluring them to follow the phantom, led them to encounter 
dangers, privations, and a waste of human life unparallelled in the history of imaginary schemes. 
The mania for the discovery of these auriferous regions was not confined to Spain, it spread equally over England and Germany, and 
such was the influence of this seducing picture, first sketched by rumour, and then coloured by imagination, that like another Scylla and 
Charybdis, the more victims it drew into its vortex, the more were found to embark in the plans laid for its attainment. If we look at 
that splendid army of adventurers, who to the number of several thousands were beguiled by the persuasive Domingo de Vera, and his highly 
wrought description of the boundless riches of the great lagoon with auriferous banks; the opulent city of Manoa, over which reigned a 
grand Patiti, which was covered with gold dust, and the golden roofed palaces of which could be seen afar off, while hundreds of canoes 
floated on the bosom of the surrounding waters, or lay stranded on their glittering sands — or if we turn to the pages of British history, 
and there find recorded how, deceived by these reports and his thirst for adventures, the chivalric Raleigh led forth from England’s shores 
several armaments with the lofty object of conquering the golden capital of El Dorado, we everywhere meet with a series of disasters, and read 
a continued narrative of human privations and sufferings. It is related of those deluded adventurers, whom the flattering accounts of 
Domingo de Vera induced to leave their homes, that only two or three returned to Spain. Disappointed in his undertakings, and assailed 
by his commander with reproaches, Keymis, the faithful follower of Raleigh, with his own hand ended his career ; and the accomplished 
Raleigh himself, he whom his contemporaries called “ the gallantest knight that ever was,” paid the forfeit of his illusions with his life upon 
the scaflbld. What wonder therefore that the fable of El Dorado was reprobated as a device, invented by Satan to lure mankind to 
destruction ! 
The existence or non-existence of the Dorado and lake Parima, continued to occupy the imagination and attention of adventurers until 
the close of the last century, at which late period (1766 and 1777) Don Manuel Centurion, the Governor of Santo Thome, sent an expedition 
from the Orinoco in search of the Laguna de Parima and the city of Manoa ; enterprises equally marked by the endurance of the greatest 
hardships, and the sacrifice of human life. 
In this universal search for El Dorado, two places appear to have more particularly attracted general attention ; namely, the regions 
along the eastern slope of the Andes of Cundinamarca (New Grenada) which have been considered as the birth-place of the fiction, and that 
part of Guiana which lies between the river Rupununi, and the Rio Branco. A large inland lake, “ another Caspian Sea,” as Raleigh 
expresses himself, was the constant companion of the golden city, and whether this locality referred to the Andes, south of Mexico, or to 
Guiana, we find it surrounded by water. Thus when the space where El Dorado was situated was supposed to be in Guiana, the name 
of the river Parima, and the inundations to which the flat country or savannahs were subjected, through which the rivers Parima, Takutu, 
Xurumu, Malm, and Rupununi, take their course, gave rise to the fable of the white sea, or Laguna del Parima or Rupununi. Captain 
Keymis, who at the expense of Raleigh undertook a second voyage to Guiana, identified the locality of Dorado with this lake, which, as he 
imagined, contained the town of Manoa. 
Tlie researches of the most eminent traveller of our age, to whom every physical science is indebted for his contributions, the celebrated 
de Humboldt, proved by deep reasoning, founded either upon personal experience, or upon the inspection of every document which related to 
this lake Parima, that it no longer existed, and with its erasure from our maps vanished the last vestiges of that delusive bubble, El Dorado. 
Tlie errors of geographers respecting a great interior lake having been corrected and explained by de Humboldt’s able pen, the long 
entertained and pleasing idea of a surrounding country, rich in gold, lias been abandoned in our enlightened times ; yet such is the charm 
