Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/311

Rh first and most celebrated city. It was conjectured to be the capital of the empire of Dorado, so called, because gold not only glittered in the temples, palaces, and gardens, as in Peru, but likewise, 'according to report, in every part of its vast territory, insomuch, that the banks and profound depth of the lakes, nay, the groves even, were covered with that precious metal. One of its discoverers, who was enabled, by the dispersion of the advanced bodies of troops stationed to defend the frontiers, to reach a point whence he descried the above-mentioned capital, reported that its walls were crowned with statues and turrets of the finest gold, which was infinitely more flattering to the view, than were the gardens with which Semiramis adorned the walls of Babylon, and even than the Elysium of the poets. So grateful a piece of intelligence, to which the spoils of Atahualpa and Montezuma attached some degree of credit, made a rapid progress from America to the north of Europe. While the Pizarros, in Peru, Ordaz, in Quito, and Quezada, in the new kingdom, made preparations for its conquest; and while the court of Madrid glowed with pretensions founded on a priority of claim, and fitted ships in the ports of Spain, the a6live English, and other powers, opened their coffers, and redoubled their efforts, with a view to be the foremost to seize on the prize. But this prize, like the enchanted palaces of fairy tales, fled from province to province, mocking those by whom it was pursued. The imagination, and the eyes, view objects in a different manner. To the latter they diminish with the distance, and augment in proportion as they are approached: but to the former, on the other hand, they enlarge in the ratio of the space by which they are separated, and decrease in the same manner by