Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/90

76 men reaching the settlements of the Uaupés, when the pursuit by the Omaguas ceased.

Although the unfortunate ending of the campaign against the Omaguas made further progress impracticable, the leaders of the expedition still believed they had obtained an important result. Their excited fancy discerned a great city in the large village of the Omaguas, and in the communal house that occupied the middle of the town the castle or palace of a powerful prince. Such illusions have often occurred in America, and the mere introduction of a European terminology into the domain of the ethnology of the new continent has occasioned a serious confusion which can only be gradually cleared up. In the eyes of Von Hutten and his companions that great settlement could only be the kingdom of the gilded chieftain, and they comforted themselves for their disaster in the fancy that they had at last found the seat of the long-sought dorado.

Philip von Hutten had received a serious wound in the battle, which necessitated a longer stay with the Uaupés. The examination of the wound was performed in a singular manner. An aged war prisoner of the Uaupés was dressed in the armor of the knight and set upon his horse. He was then wounded by an Indian in the same way as Von Hutten had been. The flesh was then cut about the wound, the course of which was thus determined upon the poor victim. The Uaupés inferred that Von Hutten's wound was of similar shape, and treated it upon that supposition.

In the meantime, and before Von Hutten could even begin the retreat, Pedro de Limpias, as the