Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/105

Rh under the lead of a chief named Viraratu, accompanied by two Portuguese, and sailed into the Amazon and up that river, amid hard-fought battles with the shore-dwellers, to the borders of Peru. Their appearance aroused great interest amongst the Spaniards. Fray Pedro Simon says of the event: "Those Indians brought accounts from the province of the Omaguas, which Captain Francisco de Oreliana mentioned when he went down the Marañon River. . . . In that province, of which the Indians told when they came into Peru, lived the gilded man." Thus the idea of the dorado was awakened anew.

In the disordered condition of the country years passed before an expedition to the golden land of the Omaguas could be contemplated. The Marquis of Cañete readily perceived how favorable an occasion this story of the Brazilian visitors and the "dorado fever" it excited afforded him. After a personal interview with the Indians he proceeded energetically with preparations for an expedition to the shores of the Middle Amazon. Drafts were made upon the royal treasury for this object. The disorderly elements in the country seized the occasion with not less eagerness than the viceroy to secure for themselves an unmolested withdrawal; and thus the dorado, which had provoked the conquest of New Granada and had brought the colony of Venezuela to the verge of destruction, was this time the beneficent messenger of rest to Peru.

A campaign of this kind required a strong leader. The choice of the Marquis of Cañete fell upon Pedro