ruggled back to
Venezuela after suffering for more than three years in the most
impassable forests and swamps of the tropics. Upon his return he was
murdered; and that was the last of the German domination in Venezuela.

The fact that the Omaguas had been able to defeat a Spanish company in
open battle gave that tribe a great reputation. So strong in numbers
and in bravery, it was naturally supposed that they must also have
metallic wealth, though no evidence of that had been seen.

Driven from its home, the myth of the Gilded Man had become a wandering
ghost. Its original form had been lost sight of, and from the Dorado had
gradually been changed to a golden tribe. It had become a confusion and
combination of the Dorado and Meta, following the curious but
characteristic course of myths. First, a remarkable fact; then the story
of a fact that had ceased to be; then a far-off echo of that story,
entirely robbed of the fundamental facts; and at last a general tangle
and jumble of fact, story, and echo into a new and almost unrecognizable
myth.

This vagabond and changeling myth figured prominently in 1550 in the
province of Peru. In that year several hundred Indians from the middle
course of the Amazon--that is, from about the heart of northern
Brazil--took refuge in the eastern Spanish settlements in Peru. They had
been driven from their homes by the hostility of neighbor tribes, and
had reached Peru only after several years of toilsome wanderings.

They gave exaggerated accounts of the wealth and importance of the
Omaguas, and these tales were eagerly credited. Still, Peru was now in
no condition to undertake any new conquest, and it was not till ten
years after the arrival of these Indian refugees that any step was taken
in the matter. The first viceroy of Peru, the great and good Antonio de
Mendoza, who had been promoted from the vice-royalty of Mexico to this
higher dignity, saw in this report the chance for a stroke of wisdom. He
had cleared Mexico of a few hundred restless fellows who were a great
menace to good government, by sending them off to chase the golden
phantom of the Quivira--that remarkable expedition of Coronado which was
so important to the history of the United States. He now found in his
new province a similar but much worse danger; and it was to rid Peru of
its unruly and dangerous characters that Mendoza set on foot the famous
expedition of Pedro de Ursua. It was the most numerous body of men e