father
and son, had sat together and had talked over their various travels!
And how he could remember his father's account of his latest journey!
His mother had been out at the time when it was related; they never
mentioned these matters in her presence because they pained her;
moreover, if she was near by when they were talked about, she would
contrive some excuse for snatching the boy away. They had watched
their opportunity, however, and his father had told him.

He had set out in a canvas sailing boat, and had ascended the Orinoco
for twenty days. Every now and then he had come to rapids, where he
had had to go ashore to carry his boat, or to marshes, where he had
had to wade. As he travelled farther from the mainland, his Indian
guides had deserted him till there was none left, and he had had to go
on alone. Day by day he had passed by great rocks, on which there was
writing engraved, which, perhaps, contained directions for travellers
who, ages since, had been bound for that same city; but they were now
of no use to him, because they were written in a forgotten language
and in an alphabet which not even the Indians could understand. So he
had gone on until at last he came to the crystal mountain, and the
waterfall which Raleigh had described; and after that he had travelled
further than even great Raleigh himself, or any other white man. It
was at this point that the boy had gasped and asked to be allowed to
kiss his father's hands.

Then his father had told him how beyond the mountain there had seemed
to be nothing but tangled wood and swamp, and how he had caught fever
and wandered on in delirium until, when he came to himself, he had
found himself standing on the shores of what had once been a vast
inland lake, but which had now become partially dry, through which it
was only possible to wade. So he left his boat and waded on, sometimes
shoulders high, for four days; for, though he was racked with pains,
he would not give up because he believed the lake to be Parima. On
the evening of the fourth day, when his strength was almost spent and
he was ready to sink with faintness, he came to an island and saw in
the distance, in the light of the setting sun, golden spires and the
roofs of houses many miles away, which he knew to be El Dorado. But by
this time he had only two days' provisions left and dared not venture
further; so he, like Pedro de Urra, having come within sight of his
desire, had been compelled to