The Gilded Man (El Dorado)/The Expedition of Ursua and Aguirre
CHAPTER IV.
THE EXPEDITION OF URSUA AND AGUIRRE.
THE government of Bogotá and Santa Marta was lodged in 1542 in the hands of Alonzo de Luga, a son of the former overseer of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of Cundinamarca. With reckless greed Lugo had levied contributions on the province, plundered the original Spanish conquerors, and robbed the royal treasury. When he learned that a royal inquisitorial judge had been sent to Bogotá he hastily gathered up his spoil—300,000 ducats, according to Joaquin Acosta—and fled to Europe, where he died in Milan. Armendariz, having at first enough to do at Cartagena in hearing the numerous complaints against Lugo, despatched his nephew Pedro de Ursua into the interior. The latter established himself in Bogotá without opposition, and summarily arrested Lope Montalbo de Lugo, who had remained there as the deputy of the fugitive governor. Armendariz himself occupied the capital of New Granada in the year 1546, while Ursua became his military aid, although he was then only twenty years old.
The sedentary Indian tribe of Cundinamarca, the Muysca, had been completely subjugated, but numerous hordes of warlike, cannibal natives still roamed around their territory. These rovers by their constant attacks endangered the settlements of the Muysca and the Spanish colony itself. Their subjugation was therefore a necessity for the prosperity of the "new kingdom," and seemed the more desirable because the gold which the Muysca possessed came from the regions inhabited by them. Already, under Lugo's wretched administration, the captain Vanegas had chastised the Panches in the west and conquered their country, but northwest of Bogota the Musos still roamed in the extensive forest flats and grassy prairies, and their predatory attacks threatened to depopulate the district of Tunja. Ursua had led an expedition to the northeast in 1548 and founded the settlement of Pampluna. On his return to Bogota from this expedition (which is commonly spoken of as a "dorado journey") the proposition was made to him, by the three royal judges who now ruled New Granada in place of his deposed uncle, to subjugate the Musos.
The knight, now twenty-three years old, advanced confidently into the enemy's territory with one hundred and fifty men. So rapid were his movements that he assailed a fortified camp in the middle of the region before the Musos could collect their forces. A bitter war of extermination followed. Unable to repel the well-armed Spaniards by direct attacks, the savages swarmed daily around their camp, and tried to starve them out by burning their own crops. Ursua held his position and finally forced the Musos to negotiate; but when a large number of chiefs had come to him to conclude the treaty, he induced them to go inside of his tent, where they were murdered to the last man. He hoped by an act of such surpassing terror to paralyze the force of the tribe; but the war only broke out again all the more furiously, and as soon as Ursua returned to Bogotá the Spaniards were expelled and the settlement of Tudela was laid in ashes by the natives. Notwithstanding the crime he had committed, Ursua obtained the position of chief-justice in Santa Marta. He subdued the Tayronas Indians in 1551 and 1552, but he did not remain long in New Granada, for his mind had been turned toward Peru, and he went to Panamá. He waited there till Don Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañeta, viceroy of Peru, began his journey to Lima. The environs of Panama and the Isthmus were then kept in a state of insecurity by bands of fugitive negroes (Cimarrones), and the perplexed municipality of the city were looking for a capable soldier who could deliver them from the plague. The story of Ursua's deeds was known to the viceroy, and he recommended him to the officers. Ursua exterminated the blacks in a two years' "bush war," and then, in 1558, followed the Marquis of Cañeta to Peru.
Ten years previous to this the licentiate Pedro do la Gasca had suppressed the great Peruvian insurrection. Two later uprisings—those of Sebastian de Castilla in 1552 and of Francesco Hernandez Giron in 1554—had been likewise suppressed by the adherents of the Crown; but quiet was not yet fully established. A considerable number of men were living in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador who witnessed the return of order with a dissatisfaction that was well founded, because their past would not bear an examination in the light of the law. The number of this "disorderly rabble" was so large that the new viceroy did not rely upon the mere exercise of force against them, but was considering upon the ways and means of removing the dangerous element from Peru by means of a campaign into distant regions.
The unknown lands east of the Andes offered the only objective point for such a campaign. Chili, New Granada, and the banks of the La Plata were already occupied by the Spaniards, and it was desirable to send the expedition only to some point where it could disturb no already existing colony, and whence the danger of its returning to Peru would be small. Then, very opportunely, by a curious accident, the legend of the dorado again rose in Peru.
Pedro de Cieza of Leon says in the seventy-eighth chapter of his "Cronica del Peru": "In the year of the Lord 1550 there came to the city of La Frontera . . . more than two hundred Indians. They said that since leaving their home a few years before they had wandered through great distances, and had lost most of their men in wars with the inhabitants of the country. As I have heard, they also told of large and thickly populated countries toward the rising sun, and said that some of them were rich in gold and silver." Cieza was in Peru from 1547 till 1550, and his statement is fully corroborated by a contemporary, Toribio de Ortiguera, who came to South America at the latest in 1561. It appears from the manuscript of the latter, entitled "Jornada del Marañon," that these Indians originally lived on the Brazilian coast, near the mouth of the Amazon. They had started between 2000 and 4000 strong, under the lead of a chief named Viraratu, accompanied by two Portuguese, and sailed into the Amazon and up that river, amid hard-fought battles with the shore-dwellers, to the borders of Peru. Their appearance aroused great interest amongst the Spaniards. Fray Pedro Simon says of the event: "Those Indians brought accounts from the province of the Omaguas, which Captain Francisco de Oreliana mentioned when he went down the Marañon River. . . . In that province, of which the Indians told when they came into Peru, lived the gilded man."[1] Thus the idea of the dorado was awakened anew.
In the disordered condition of the country years passed before an expedition to the golden land of the Omaguas could be contemplated. The Marquis of Cañete readily perceived how favorable an occasion this story of the Brazilian visitors and the "dorado fever" it excited afforded him. After a personal interview with the Indians he proceeded energetically with preparations for an expedition to the shores of the Middle Amazon. Drafts were made upon the royal treasury for this object. The disorderly elements in the country seized the occasion with not less eagerness than the viceroy to secure for themselves an unmolested withdrawal; and thus the dorado, which had provoked the conquest of New Granada and had brought the colony of Venezuela to the verge of destruction, was this time the beneficent messenger of rest to Peru.
A campaign of this kind required a strong leader. The choice of the Marquis of Cañete fell upon Pedro de Ursua, who readily accepted the dangerous commission. Besides several other rewards he was to receive, in case of success, the title and all the rights of a governor of the countries expected to be conquered and settled.
A whole year passed before the preparations were completed, and it was not till the spring of 1560 that Ursua collected his men at Santa Cruz de Capacoba, on the Eio Llamas, a branch of the Huallaga, where he had had boats built for the voyage to the Amazon and upon it. It was really a "picked company" that met there. The scum of Peru formed the principal part of it; the majority, men accustomed to everything except order and morals; and with them were women.
To lead such a rabble with success in the face of uncertainties required an earnest and prudent, and at the same time a decided, character of moral worth. Ursua was frivolous and indolent, and often rashly bold. His preparations were incomplete. Much was still lacking when his money had all been spent, and his men were eager to embark. With the help of some officers "all doughty champions with elastic consciences," says Simon Ursua forced the priest of Santa Cruz to "lend" him all his ready money, some four or five thousand pesos. By this act he set the example of violence.
He likewise furnished an example of immorality from the beginning. He kept up a close relation with Iñez de Atienza of Pinira (near the coast), the young and beautiful widow of Pedro de Arcos. Without heeding the counsels of his friends, he took his mistress with him on this campaign in search of the dorado, and lived with her so intimately that the chronicler feels impelled to make the remark, in excuse, that "they all said, indeed, that he intended at some later time to marry Iñez de Atienza."
While the start was delayed, in consequence of the defects in Ursua's preparations, trouble was brewing in the camp. It culminated in crime—the murder of Ursua's lieutenant, Pedro Ramiro. Ursua's behavior in this affair (he drew the perpetrators of the murder from their hiding-places by promising them immunity and then in the face of his pledge had them arrested and hung) made him personal enemies. With the other elements of discontent among the men were now associated hatred and vindictiveness against their leader.
On the first day of July, 1560, Juan de Vargas was able to go forward with an advance guard in a brigantine to the mouth of the Rio Ucayali. The main body, increased by the colonists of Moyobamba with their goods, should have followed at once, but of all the fleet only three flatboats and one brigantine were seaworthy; the other vessels were unavailable. It was necessary to build rafts and canoes. The embarkation could not be effected till September 26th, when it took place in great confusion. The available space in the boats was unevenly allotted; only forty out of three hundred horses were taken; and all the cattle were left, without masters, on the shore. The flotilla at last moved slowly down along the thickly wooded shores of the Rio Huallaga. It sailed three hundred leagues, according to Pedro Simon (vi.), without passing in sight of a single Indian hut. Harmony among the men was not promoted by their getting under way. Every one appeared dissatisfied and envious of the others, while most of them censured Pedro de Ursua. At the mouth of the Ucayali they came upon the advance expedition under Juan de Vargas; the men were nearly famished in the midst of the richest vegetation. Their vessel had rotted, and it was necessary to distribute them among those who crowded the other already overloaded boats. Fresh discontent arose over this measure, and the dissatisfaction was increased by the fact that Ursua always claimed a full share of room for himself and Iñez de Atienza. At last settlements were reached above the mouth of the Rio Napo, in which were found maize, sweet potatoes, beans, and other vegetables. At one of these places the flotilla landed, and the boats were repaired and rebuilt. Some of the Brazilian Indians who had given the original motive to the expedition and who accompanied it as guides pointed farther eastward as the direction of the rich country of which they were in search. The Ticunas, indeed, on the southern side of the Amazon (between the Ucayali and the Yavari) possessed some gold, but the dorado lived north of that river. The fleet therefore sailed on, despite the murmurs of the men, who had become tired of the constant promises and deceptions.
Before Christmas of 1560 Ursua reached Machiparo, where he was near the country of the Omaguas. Encouraged by the extent of the Indian settlements he found there, and by the friendly demeanor of the inhabitants, he determined to make a longer sojourn at that place, for his crews were worn out by their labor, especially by rowing. The men were glad to resign themselves to rest on the shore, but their idleness also gave them leisure to consider and mature criminal plans. Besides their dissatisfaction with Ursua's leading, personal hatred, and many worse passions, thoughts of wider bearing lay at the bottom of their schemes.
Some of the members of the band had divined the secret thoughts of the viceroy of Peru, or had joined the expedition while realizing the improbability of the dorado legend, in order to use it for their own purposes. It is only certain that a conspiracy against Ursua was formed at Machiparo. He and his lieutenant were to be killed, and Fernando de Guzman, a young knight from Seville and the ensign of the campaign, was to be chosen commander in Ursua's place. Under his direction they would return to Peru and with armed hand conquer the country, expel the royal officers, and establish a new kingdom there. The soul of this conspiracy was the Biscayan Lope de Aguirre.
Born at Oñate in Biscay, Aguirre was then about fifty years old. He had spent twenty years in Peru, chiefly in the occupation of a horse-trainer. Involved in all kinds of violent and seditious acts, he had been several times condemned to death and then pardoned, and having become at last a fugitive from province to province, was glad of the opportunity to join Ursua's expedition. He is described as having been "small and spare in figure, ugly, . . . with black beard and an eagle eye, which he turned straight upon others, particularly when he was angry." Burning through and through with hatred against the Spanish Government, at home, at the same time, in all circles and ranks, endowed with remarkable shrewdness and great physical and mental force-a logical and impressive speaker, withal—with clearly defied purposes, he was in every respect a dangerous man. He was the most detestable character of the conquest.
Even before the beginning of the voyage earnest warnings against Aguirre had reached Ursua, but the indiscreet knight had disregarded them. The Biscayan had abundant leisure to intrigue with the men. Ursua was so blind as to allow the conspiracy to be organized under his eyes, without regarding the plainest evidences of it. On the 26th of December he embarked again and proceeded six or eight leagues farther to another village. Here a broad path led from the shore into the interior; a landing was effected, and a camp formed. "The path," it was said, "led to a large city and province;" the Spaniards had, in fact, entered the territory of the Omaguas. A strong detachment started out "to explore the new country"—by which the most faithful soldiers were removed from the camp, and the conspirators were given the opportunity they had been waiting for.
On the first day of January, 1561, two hours after sunset, a well-armed party, with Alonzo de Montoya and Cristóval de Chavez at its head, came into Ursua's quarters. He was lying in the hammock and speaking with a page. Surprised, he asked them, "What are you looking for here at so late an hour?" and was answered with a number of scattering shots. Before he could put himself on guard the whole band pressed in upon him, and with the cry, "Confessio, confessio, miserere mei Deus!" he fell to the ground and expired. The murderers hastened out, one of them crying aloud, "Liberty, liberty! Long live the king, the tyrant is dead! "The alarm brought Juan de Vargas, Ursua's lieutenant, to the place. He was immediately prostrated, and the conspirators returned to the hut that served as the quarters of Fernando de Guzman.
Dismay and terror prevailed in the camp. Those not in the conspiracy stood surprised and helpless before the numerous and well-armed murderers. These took advantage of the confusion to remove on the next morning a few other of Ursua's friends. A general meeting was then compulsorily assembled, in which Fernando de Guzman was without opposition proclaimed governor. New appointments of officers were made all around. Aguirre received the second highest place, with the rank of a maestro del campo.
The conspirators did not agree as to their further proceedings. The larger number, of whom Fernando de Guzman was the leader, would not give up the dorado. A second general meeting was called. Against the earnest opposition of Aguirre and Lorenzo de Salduendo, the view of the majority prevailed, and a continuance of the campaign was determined upon. A paper was drawn up in which Ursua's death was excused as being a necessity, and was signed by those present. Aguirre joined in the signature, and wrote with a firm hand, "Lope de Aguirre, the traitor."Murmurs were uttered audibly against this act, and Aguirre answered defiantly: "You have killed the representative of the king among us, the bearer of his power; do you think that this writing will exculpate you? Do you suppose that the king and his judges do not know what such papers are worth? We are all traitors and rebels, and even if the new country should be ten times as rich as Peru, more populous than New Spain, and more profitable to the king than the Indies, our heads are at the order of the first licentiate or pettifogger who comes among us with royal authority."
This speech was shrewdly calculated, and was based on known facts which were extremely unpleasant to most of the men. The meeting broke up in disorder; even the conspirators were now divided into two parties. Aguirre had on his side the active and determined mutineers. His unexampled audacity dazzled many and also made him many enemies, but he carried his point, for he was the only one among the reckless, disorderly adventurers who was seeking to execute a clearly defined purpose.
The first thing to be done was to divert the band from the pursuit of the dorado. When his powers of persuasion failed to be of effect in this attempt, Aguirre built upon the knowledge of the men. The reconnoitring party which Ursua had sent out came back with the report that the path which they followed led to some abandoned huts, and that the thick woods prevented further advance. The company then reimbarked and went on. The shores of the Amazon were solitary and deserted; for weeks they saw no signs of men. Food became scarce; the horses were killed and eaten, and thus all possibility of an advance overland was taken away. The spirit of license grew more and more rife under these toils and privations. Aguirre secretly made use of the demoralization to remove the most influential men under various pretexts, and to put in their places persons in whom he could perceive willing tools. Fernando de Guzman permitted these crimes, for he was himself only a tool in the Biscayan's hands, and was even so infatuated as to call the monster "father." When at length the Brazilian Indians confessed that they knew nothing of this country, and that it was not like the one they had previously passed through, Guzman concurred in Aguirre's plan to give up the dorado and invade Peru.
A halt of three months took place above the mouth of the Japura, and there it was determined at a general meeting to sail down the river to the sea. Margarita was to be secured by a sudden attack; thence Nombre de Dios and Panamá should be surprised; and once in possession of Panama, the Europeans believed that the success of their scheme would be assured. This audacious plan was so attractively presented by Aguirre that a formal declaration of independence of Spain was drawn up, from which only three men ventured to withhold their signatures. Only one of these escaped death the bachelor Francisco Vasquez, afterward historian of the campaign. Aguirre having thus succeeded in the first part of his design, it remained for him to acquire exclusive control of the expedition. A series of murders had relieved him of the officers most in his way, and the time had now come for Fernando de Guzman to fall. Knowing the ambitious character of the young Sevillan, he decided to exalt him to such a height that a fall should in any event be destructive. With absurd ceremonies Guzman was therefore proclaimed "Prince and King of the mainland and of Peru." The puppet-play did not fail of its anticipated effect. Guzman, naturally courteous and therefore beloved, after this became proud and imperious, and surrounded himself with a silly ceremonial, which was unpleasant to the men. They soon ceased to love him; he was disliked, avoided, and finally hated; and his fall became a question only of time and opportunity.
The three months' halt above the Japura was devoted to the building of two new brigantines of stronger construction for the contemplated sea voyage. When they were completed the company embarked upon them, and started, before Easter of 1561, down the river. Evidences of a numerous population were apparent on the right shore; and when the Indian guides said that wealthy tribes lived there, Aguirre, fearing that the thought of the dorado might be aroused again, contrived to change the course of the voyage. According to Simon,[2] he conducted the flotilla "through a bend into an arm of the river on the left side." Simon's account is based on the manuscript testimony of the eye-witness Vasquez, and he continues: "Therefore Aguirre determined to turn out of the direct way; and after they had gone three days and one night in a westerly direction, they came to some vacant huts." This took place above the mouth of the Rio Negro, and it indicates, as Mr. Clements R. Markham likewise supposes, that the band left the continuous course of the Amazon and went through one of the numerous bayous that form a network of channels between the Japura and the Rio Negro, into the latter river. Von Humboldt and Southey are, on the other hand, of the opinion that Aguirre sailed down the Amazon to its mouth.
Yet that station of "some vacant huts" appears to have been situated, not on the main stream, but on a northern tributary.
The forsaken Indian town, surrounded by muddy water, in which the band found quarters while it consumed its scanty provisions, plagued day and night by clouds of mosquitoes, was a sorry stopping-place in which to spend the Easter season in idleness. Aguirre thought the place and the opportunity favorable for striking his last blow. Fernando de Guzman was ripe for his fall. Few of the men still adhered to him. But his death was to be preceded by those of two other persons whom Aguirre still feared. They were his former associate, Lorenzo de Salduendo, and Iñez de Atienza. This woman had soon forgotten her lover Ursua, and yielded herself without hesitation shortly after his death to the murderer Salduendo, with whom she afterward lived. Aguirre mortally hated her. A trifling contention about the division of the rooms gave the Biscayan a pretext for a quarrel with Salduendo. The result was that Aguirre killed his comrade in Guzman's presence. Then two hired murderers rushed into the lodging of Iñez de Atienza and took the life of the young woman in the most revolting manner.
Dr. Markham, on the strength of a few verses of the licentiate Castellanos, calls Iñez de Atienza, after Madame Godin des Odonais, the heroine of the Amazon. The comparison is hardly admissible "between Ursua's mistress, who shortly after his death became so readily the mistress of his murderer, and the faithful wife who, to seek her husband toiling in the service of science at Cayenne, bravely made her way through the wilderness of the Amazon shores almost alone. It is also painful to read Dr. Markham, in his defence of this woman, a concubine in station, calling the eye-witness Vasquez, who maintained his fidelity to the Crown through constant danger to his life, a "gold-seeking adventurer," and the noble Bishop Piedrahita, of Panama, a "dirty friar."
Salduendo's death aroused Guzman from his dreams, but it was too late. Not able to accomplish anything openly against Aguirre, he determined to make an attack upon his life. Aguirre anticipated this, and speedily collected his adherents. The murderers pressed in the darkness of night into the quarters of the "prince of terra firma." The priest Henao was the first victim, six captains fell next, and lastly the simple-minded youth himself was shot. On the next morning, Aguirre, accompanied by eighty armed men, came into the midst of the camp and was without opposition proclaimed "General of the Marañon."
By this name, Marañon, Aguirre henceforth called the mutiny, of which he was now absolute commander, and it was so applied by the men themselves. Simon[3] says the word was derived from maraña (complication), and survived after Aguirre's campaign as a by-name for the Amazon. This is, however, not correct. Peter Martyr had already, in his "De Orbe Novo," applied the name to the Amazon, of which Pinzon had seen the mouths; Oviedo, who died in 1557, describes the Amazon River as the Marañon; and Gomara, whose "Historia general de las Indias" was printed in 1552, applied the name in an indefinite way to the great South American river that empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Amazon is, however, also known as the Rio de Orellano; and in view of the extremely vague geographical ideas that prevailed in the sixteenth century, no conclusion can be drawn from the application of the term "Marañones" to Aguirre's men concerning the further course or route of the expedition. It is significant that Acosta[4] says, on the authority of a witness who was in the expedition of Ursua and Aguirre, and afterward went into the Order of Jesus, that the Amazon, Marañon, or Rio de Orellana, emptied into the sea opposite the islands of Margarita and Trinidad. In connection with this the statement of Cristoval de Acuña (1639), that Aguirre reached the sea through a side-mouth of the Amazon opposite Trinidad, is of considerable importance. Mr. Markham, therefore, does not seem to be wholly unjustified in supposing that the Marañones, having sailed up the Rio Negro, passed into the Orinoco through the Cassiquiare and thence through one of the mouths of the Orinoco, and not through the Amazon, into the Atlantic Ocean. In further confirmation of this view is the mention by Pedro Simon of Aguirre's having met a cannibal tribe, the Arnaquinas. In fact, the Arekainas, thorough-going cannibals, now dwell on the Upper Rio Negro. On the other side are the facts that the Falls of the Orinoco are not mentioned in the few meagre accounts we have of the further course of the expedition, and that the torrent at Atures and Maypures, and even below, was hardly navigable for the brigantines although, according to Simon, they were "as strongly built as ships of three hundred tons." But whether through the Orinoco or the Amazon, it seems to be certain that Aguirre with his two vessels reached the ocean on the first day of July, 1561.
With the murder of Guzman, Aguirre obtained supreme authority; and the compressed narrative of the voyage down the river to its mouth and into the ocean, which lasted not quite three months, gives us but little else than accounts of the Biscayan's behavior in the exercise of unlimited power. His whole course was intended to establish this power, and since he was burdened with guilt and crime, and guilt and crime alone bound his men to him, doubt and suspicion of his own people were his predominant feelings. At least eight of the Marañones fell victims to these feelings in the course of three months; and every new crime attached the rest, by the sense of common guilt, more closely to their leader, who, like an evil spirit, led them, with an iron will, to further crimes. No one dared to speak or hardly to think of the dorado; the men were permitted to entertain but one thought—that of the conquest of Peru. The island of Margarita was to afford the first base for this enterprise. Aguirre reached it in seventeen days, sailing around Trinidad. The appearance of the two brigantines excited general astonishment. Aguirre knew how to appeal to the emotions of the inhabitants. The governor of the island and some of the other officers went down to the landing to see the new-comers. Aguirre seized and imprisoned the governor; his men then captured the fort; and before the people of Margarita came to their senses the island had passed without drawing a sword into the hands of the Marañones. The royal treasury was immediately seized, independence of Spain was proclaimed, and provisions and ammunition for the further prosecution of the campaign were energetically collected, by gentle means or forcible. Aguirre now needed larger and swifter vessels for the execution of his audacious plan, for Nombre de Dios and Panamá were to be surprised in the same manner as Margarita had been, before the news of the event could spread. A large vessel, which had brought the Dominican-Provincial Montesinos with his military escort to Venezuela, was anchored before Maracapanna (the present Piritú), on the coast of the mainland, opposite Margarita. Some of the Maranones were sent to seize the vessel. Instead of doing that, they took the opportunity to desert the standard of rebellion and surrender to the Provincial, to whom they also made a circumstantial confession of all the atrocities which Aguirre and his band had committed. Fray Francisco de Montesinos was shocked by the story, and at once sent messengers to all the settlements in Venezuela. The report of the impending danger spread so rapidly over the mainland that in a short time fifteen hundred men were under arms in New Granada. Venezuela had been so exhausted by the dorado expeditions of the previous period that it was only with extreme effort that it could supply two hundred and sixty poorly armed men.
Aguirre, who had in the meantime sunk both brigantines, confidently awaited the arrival of the expected ships at Margarita. In the excited and tense condition of his mind, delay was hardly possible without violent outbreaks occurring. Not only were Aguirre's own men exposed to his murderous caprices, but the defenceless people of the island stood in constant peril of death. Aguirre regarded their property as his legitimate spoil, and disposed of it arbitrarily for his own purposes. While the men of influence and means were robbed and murdered by him, the bad elements flocked to his party, and the reign of terror on the island increased as the Marañones gained accessions from the scum of the population. At last the Provincial's vessel came in sight, but flying the royal standard. Aguirre fell into a furious passion. Having caused the governor of Margarita and the principal officers to be slain, he proceeded hastily down to the port to prevent the vessel's landing. No battle ensued, however, for after an exchange of empty threats the Provincial set sail again in order to carry the alarm to the Antilles and the Isthmus.
Aguirre's plan for surprising Panamá having been thus defeated, he determined to invade Venezuela. Before doing so lie instigated a number of murders at Margarita. At length lie succeeded in getting a vessel, on which he sailed "on the last Sunday of August, 1561," at the head of a well-armed band of criminals, for Burburata. The people of this place fled into the woods with their property as soon as they saw the vessel, which bore two blood-red swords, crossed, on its flag. Without halting at Burburata, Aguirre marched inland to Lake Tacarigua, on the shore of which the settlement of Valencia had existed since 1555. Some of his men deserted him in the tropical wilderness through which his road lay. Valencia had been abandoned, and the Marañones burned the vacant houses. Aguirre was ill, and therefore twice as irritable as usual, and gave himself up to the wildest cruelty, even toward his own men. In Valencia he composed a manifesto to the King of Spain, and sent it by a priest whom he had brought from Margarita as a hostage to the coast. The letter, which has been preserved by Vasquez and by Oviedo y Banos, begins, "To King Philip, a Spaniard, son of Charles the Invincible," and ends with the words, "and on account of this ingratitude, I remain till death a rebel against thee.—Lope de Aguirre, the Wanderer." The document is full of reasonable and unreasonable reproaches, contains the most glaring and absurd contradictions, and bears throughout the marks of insanity. From Valencia Aguirre went southwest toward Barquicimeto. The royal party was not prepared for resistance in the open field; but the number of the Marañones was perceptibly diminishing. Aguirre's daily recurring frenzies were continually costing the lives of some of the men; the scanty population, instead of joining his party as he had anticipated, fled from before him, and his people deserted him at every opportunity.
The end was approaching. Barquicimeto was deserted, but the military force on the side of the king now appeared before the place, under the lead of the maestro del campo, Diego de Paredes. While not strong enough to attack him, it prevented Aguirre from proceeding farther. Well mounted, the royalists passed around his camp daily, cut off all access to it, and by the judicious circulation of amnesty proclamations which Governor Collado sagaciously issued, they encouraged his men to desert. The number of these diminished every day, and Aguirre's mad spells of fury became steadily more impotent. At last Paredes decided to risk an attack on Barquicimeto. On the advance of the royal troops most of the Marañones threw away their arms and met their assailants with the cry, "Long live the king!" Aguirre found himself all at once entirely forsaken. Pale and trembling, he went into the chamber of his only child, a grownup maiden, and with the words, "My child, God have mercy on your soul, for I am going to kill you, so that you shall not live in misery and shame the child of a traitor," stabbed her in the heart, and then weakly tottered toward the door which the royal soldiers were approaching. He suffered himself to be taken without resistance. The royal maestro del campo desired to spare his life, but the Marañones insisted on the instant death of their former leader, and he fell under the discharge of musketry. His head was cut off and was exhibited at Tocuyo in an iron cage. His memory survives to the present time in Venezuela as that of an evil spirit; and when at night the jack-o'-lanterns dance over the marshy plains, the solitary wanderer crosses himself and whispers, "The soul of the tyrant Aguirre." "With this closes the account of the series of expeditions which we undertook to describe in connection with the legend of the gilded man. The story justifies our comparison of the vision of the dorado after his real home had been conquered with a mirage, "enticing, deceiving, and leading men to destruction."
Notwithstanding the tragical consequences which the search for this phantom invariably entailed, it remained long fixed like an evil spell upon the northeastern half of the South American continent. Martin de Proveda tried and failed, in 1556, to reach Omagua and the "provinces of the dorado" Diego de Cerpa, in 1569, and Pedro Malaver de Silva, in 1574, met their deaths at the mouths of the Orinoco. There Antonio de Berreo, after he had fruitlessly marched through the whole interior of Venezuela, fell a prisoner into the hands of the English in 1582. The great expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595 only got as far as the Salto Carom. In the meanwhile the locality of the legend, as Humboldt has remarked, kept shifting farther to the east, till it took final refuge in Guyana, "in the periodically overflowed plains between the rivers Rupununi, Essequibo, and Branco"—but shrunken at the same time to a purely geographical myth of Lake Parime. As in the first half of the sixteenth century German soldiers were the earliest to pursue the gilded chieftain, the fact also appears like a curious fate that in the first half of the nineteenth century the German travellers Alexander von Humboldt and Schomburgk laid that phantom of the great lake, and with it terminated the last survival of the legend of the gilded man.