heard that the cinnamon-tree abounded in the forests on the eastern
slope of the Andes, and that farther east dwelt powerful Indian tribes
rich in gold. That is, while the original and genuine myth of the Dorado
had reached to Quito from the north, the echo myth of Meta had got there
from the east. Since Belalcazar had gone to the real former home of the
Dorado, and had failed to find that gentleman at home, it was supposed
that the home must be somewhere else,--east, instead of north, from
Quito. Gonzalo made his disastrous expedition into the eastern forests
with two hundred and twenty men. In the two years of that ghastly
journey all the horses perished, and so did all the Indian companions;
and the few Spaniards who survived to get back to Peru in 1541 were
utterly broken down. The cinnamon-tree had been found, but not the
Gilded Man. One of Gonzalo's lieutenants, Francisco de Orellana, had
gone in advance on the upper Amazon with fifty men in a crazy boat. The
two companies were unable to come together again, and Orellana finally
drifted down the Amazon to its mouth with untold sufferings. Floating
out into the Atlantic, they finally reached the island of Cubagua, Sept.
11, 1541. This expedition was the first to bring the world reliable
information as to the size and nature of the greatest river on earth,
and also to give that river the name it bears to-day. They encountered
Indian tribes whose women fought side by side with the men, and for that
reason named it _Rio de las Amazones_,--River of the Amazons.

In 1543 Hernan Perez Quesada, a brother of the conqueror, penetrated the
regions which George of Speyer had visited. He went in from Bogota,
having heard the twisted myth of Meta, but only found misery, hunger,
disease, and hostile savages in the sixteen awful months he floundered
in the wilderness.

Meanwhile Spain had become satisfied that the leasing of Venezuela to
the German money-lenders was a failure. The Welser regime was doing
nothing but harm. Yet a last effort was determined upon, and Philip von
Hutten, a young and gallant German cavalier, left Coro in August, 1541,
in chase of the golden myth, which by this time had flitted as far south
as the Amazon. For eighteen months he wandered in a circle, and then,
hearing of a powerful and gold-rich tribe called the Omaguas, he dashed
on south across the equator with his force of forty men. He met the
Omaguas, was defeated by them and wounded, and finally st