ices. Then, as
the surface lowered, and the submerged mud was exposed to the air, it
solidified in a cement-like substance which was almost impossible to
penetrate. The treasure must have sunk many feet deep in this mud
during four or five centuries, and the workmen found it so baffling
that operations were suspended. The promoters of the enterprise found
this unexpected obstacle so much more than they had bargained for that
they had to abandon it for lack of resources. In their turn they had
been thwarted by the spirit of the gilded man, and the treasure of El
Dorado is still beyond the grasp of its eager pursuers.

[1] The performance of these ceremonies is vouched for by Lucas
Fernandez Piedrahita, Bishop of Panama; Pedro Simon, and other early
Spanish historians, translated and quoted by A. F. Bandelier in his
work, "The Gilded Man (El Dorado)." This version agrees with that
described in the volume written by the modern historian, Dr. Liborio
Zerda, professor of the University of Colombia, _El Dorado, Estudio
Historico, Ethnografico, Y Arqueologico_.

[2] Translated by A. F. Bandelier.

[3] Oviedo, or Oviedo y Valdez, royal histriographer, who witnessed the
first return of Columbus to Spain in 1493. He was later a treasury
officer at Darien, governor of Cartagena, and _alcaide_ of the fort at
Santo Domingo. He wrote the first general account of the discoveries
in America, and it has remained a standard authority. His principal
work is _Historia natural y general de las Indias_ in fifty books.

[4] For the convenience of the reader the spelling has been modernized
in this and the following extracts from Hakluyt.

[5] Martinez was the gunner or officer "who had charge of the
munitions."

[6] Commonly spelled Huascar and Atalualpa.

[7] "Her father loved me, oft invited me,
Still questioned me the story of my life
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving incidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery,'of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose head touch heaven,
It was my hint to spea