Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/237



CHAPTER IX.

EL DORADO.

Inveteracet hoc  quoque ;    et  quod  hodie  exemplis  tuemur,  inter  exempla erit.

— Tacitus.

So they  called  the  country  El  Dorado,  The  Gilded; some of  them  so  called  it  not  knowing  why ;  the  name even fastening  itself  upon  a  political  division  of  the state.

Some of  them  knew  that  since  the  coming  of  the Spaniards, when  Vasco  Nunez  hunted  for  the  golden temple of  Dabaiba,  and  Juan  Ponce  de  Leon  searched for a  fountain  of  perpetual  youth,  and  Cortes  freighted treasure ships  from  Mexico,  and  Pizarro  from  Peru, down to  the  silvery  daj^s  of  stock  gambling,  and  the cold dull  tyranny  of  railroad  management,  there  has ever been  in  the  minds  of  the  greedy,  somewhere  a region  ruled  by  El  Dorado,  or  rather  a  place  called El Dorado,  or  The  Gilded. It was  not  necessary  the gilt should  be  gold,  or  even  that  there  should  be  gild- ing at all ;  indeed,  the  thing  was  rather  of  the  Jack-a lantern order,  or  like  the  crock  of  gold  at  the  end  of the  rainbow,  when  ready  to  put  your  hand  upon  it,  it was  not  there.

The true,  or  original  El  Dorado — that  is,  true  so far  as  any  aborginal  or  other  mythology  can  be  woven into sober  story — was  in  South  America,  where,  as some  say,  the  micaceous  quartz  in  the  Essequibo  val- ley, in Guiana,  gilded  the  land. Or it  may  have  been because the  high  priest  of  Bogota  spnnkled  his