Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/50

36 punished them severely for it. Sailing up the principal stream, he at length came to the falls of the Orinoco, near Atures and Maypures, since made famous by Alexander von Humboldt, where the miles of rapids and small cataracts by which the course of the river was broken made further navigation impossible. Before this the officers of the expedition had vainly tried to persuade Ordaz to abandon his boats and press into the interior. Now it was necessary to leave the boats. On the right extended a broad savanna, on which a hostile encounter took place with the Indians. They informed Ordaz that the river flowed from a large lake which lay in the midst of high and rugged mountains. The way thither lay through a province called Meta, which was thickly populated and rich in gold. Silver, which the Spaniards showed the natives, was not known to them, but they recognized gold at once as the substance that was abundant in Meta. They pointed to the west as the direction in which this land was to be found. Unfortunately, the river was falling so rapidly that Ordaz would not venture to march inland. Unwillingly he had to embark again and begin a dangerous and laborious retreat. Eighty of his men died from the hardships of the voyage; with the rest, ill and despondent, he reached Paria. His purpose was, since the Indians near the falls of the Orinoco had spoken so highly of the wealth of Meta, to march overland thither from the northern coast of Venezuela the Gulf of Cariaco. He left a little colony of a hundred souls at Paria, and sent a part of his force under Alonzo de Herrera to Cumaná, following it himself eight days later. To