age, who had means. . . enough for him to live decently in our city of San Domingo on the island of Hispaniola, with more security and fame than could come to him in all these wars, or in hunting the fabulous riches of Meta, of which no one knows anything to this day, or can find the way there without its costing yet more human lives and leading to other troubles. To this point has our story come, this month of August, in the year one thousand five hundred and forty-five."[1] This event took place in 1536.
The map which Oviedo made about 1545 of the regions successively traversed by Ordaz, Herrera, and D'Ortal defined the results of all these expeditions better than any description could do. The fancied golden empire had not been found north of the lower course of the Orinoco and east of the territory given to the Welsers. It was the fortune of the Germans in Venezuela to determine what was the foundation of the myth which had thus transplanted itself into the eastern region of northern South America.
While Ambrosius Dalfinger was still lost on his campaign towards the Magdalena, the Welsers sent to Coro to his support a division of soldiers, with twenty-four German miners, under the command of Nicolaus Federmann, a burger of Ulm. This reinforcement probably arrived at Coro in June, 1530. Immediately afterward came another reinforcement upon three ships, and with it an agent of the Welsers, Hans Seissenhoffer, who was made governor in Dalfinger's absence. Federmann, who seems to have been a capable, crafty, and energetic man, became Seissenhoffer's lieutenant. On account
- ↑ Oviedo, lib. xxiv. cap. xvi.
