CHAPTER III.
OMAQUA.
THE licentiate Juan de Castellanos, in his "Elegias de Varones Illustres de Indias" (1589), sang the legend of the dorado as it was current in Quito in 1536:
When with that folk came Annasco,
Benalcazar learned from a stranger
Then living in the city of Quito,
But who called Bogotá his home,
Of a land there rich in golden treasure,
Rich in emeralds glistening in the rock.
******
A chief was there, who, stripped of vesture,
Covered with golden dust from crown to toe,
Sailed with offerings to the gods upon a lake,
Borne by the waves upon a fragile raft,
The dark flood to brighten with golden light.
In these words of a poet who can make far more pretension to historical accuracy than his contemporaries Erxcilla and Martin de Barco[1] lies a significant confirmation of the thesis maintained in our chapter on Cundinamarca: that the fame of the dorado had penetrated southward. Belalcazar's contemporary Oviedo declares positively that much was said in those regions of a great chief called "Dorado." Herrera, although not really contemporary (he was born in 1549), but one of the best authorities con-
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- ↑ The former sings in "Araucana" of Chili; the latter of La Plata in "Argentina."
