norum saxo impressa adhuc manent, affirmantibus constanter indigenis,
ex eo loco Apostolum Thomam multitudini undequaque ad eum audiendum
confluenti solitum fuisse legem divinam tradere: et addunt mandiocae, ex
qua farinam suam ligneam conficiunt, plantandae rationem ab eodem
accepisse." P. Nicolao del Techo, _Historia Provincial Paraquariae
Societatis Jesu_, Lib. vi, cap. iv (folio, Leodii, 1673).]

[Footnote 2: "Ipse abii," he writes in his well known Letter, "et propriis
oculis inspexi, quatuor pedum et digitorum satis alte impressa vestigia,
quae nonnunquam aqua excrescens cooperit." The reader will remember the
similar event in the history of Quetzalcoatl (see above, chapter iii, Sec.3)]

The story was that wherever this hero-god walked, he left behind him a
well-marked path, which was permanent, and as the Muyscas of New Granada
pointed out the path of Bochica, so did the Guaranays that of Zume, which
the missionaries regarded "not without astonishment."[1] He lived a
certain length of time with his people and then left them, going back over
the ocean toward the East, according to some accounts. But according to
others, he was driven away by his stiff-necked and unwilling auditors, who
had become tired of his advice. They pursued him to the bank of a river,
and there, thinking that the quickest riddance of him was to kill him,
they discharged their arrows at him. But he caught the arrows in his hand
and hurled them back, and dividing the waters of the river by his divine
power he walked between them to the other bank, dry-shod, and disappeared
from their view in the distance.

[Footnote 1: "E Brasilia in Guairaniam euntibus spectabilis adhuc semita
viditur, quam ab Sancto Thoma ideo incolae vocant, quod per eam Apostolus
iter fecisse credatur; quae semita quovis anni tempore eumdem statum
conservat, modice in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum
herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque speciem viae artificiose
ductae; quam Socii nostri Guairaniam excolentes persaepe non sine stupore
perspexisse se testantur." Nicolao del Techo, _ubi supra_, Lib. vi, cap.
iv.

The connection of this myth with the course of the sun in the sky, "the
path of the bright God," as it is called in the Veda, appears obvious. So
also in later legend we read of the wonderful slot or trail of the dragon
Fafnir across the Glittering Heath, and many cognate instances, which
mythologists now explain by the same reference.]