If we examine his account carefully, we shall find two distinct matters in it. One, relating what he witnessed himself, is simply a statement that below the mouth of the Rio Negro women took part in the fighting against the Spaniards; and that seems very plausible. The other matter comprises the account by a captive Indian of a tribe of Amazons rich in gold living north of the river. Tales of that kind were often imposed by the natives upon the Spaniards. The story bears immediately on the object of this work only to the extent that the Amazon River henceforward formed the southern boundary of the mythical region within which the dorado could still find a place.[47]
Almost contemporaneously with this hazardous expedition, the starting-point of which lay south of Cundinamarca, and immediately after the departure of Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada from Bogotá for Spain, Quesada’s brother, Hernan Perez, who had remained on the high plateau as commander, determined to attempt a campaign to the west. The occasion of this resolution[48] was a report that great wealth of gold, silver, and emeralds was to be found on the slopes of a mountain west of New Granada. He left New Granada on the 1st of September, 1541, with 270 men and 200 horses, and went as far as the region which Georg von Speyer had fruitlessly traversed before him—the country of the Uaupés and Chogues in northern Ecuador. Hunger and suffering were his companions, but gold, which he sought so eagerly, he did not find. He returned after sixteen months, with his object unaccomplished. He had found neither the “House of the Sun,” of which his far nobler brother had heard,[49] nor the Amazons, although, as we have already said in “Cundinamarca,” the latter myth was also current in New Granada. We only refer passingly to this unfortunate expedition, and return to Coro, on the northern coast of Venezuela, where, as we mentioned at the close of “Meta,” the Germans were preparing for new enterprises in the interior.
Georg von Speyer had not been discouraged by the failure of his march to Meta, but his bodily strength was broken. Yet he had hardly arrived in Coro again when he sent some of the little gold[50] included in the spoil to San Domingo, to buy horses and other supplies necessary for fitting out a new expedition.[51] But he died before he was able to begin this campaign, at Coro, probably near the end of October or the beginning of November, 1540. Oviedo says: “May God be merciful to him, for truly, though I had little to do with him, he appeared to me worthy of his office, and I believe if he had lived that God and their Majesties would have gained through him. For, besides being virtuous and prudent, he was in the prime of life, and had acquired an amount of experience that would have made him a desirable leader in other enterprises.”[52]
The death of Von Speyer left the Welser grant in Venezuela without a director. Such a contingency had been, however, provided for. The Bishop of San Domingo, Rodrigo de Bastidas, had authority to act as administrator ad interim at Coro. At the end of November, 1540, that prelate, who was a man of unusual ability, went thither with 150 men and 120 horses. He perceived at once that the colony, which had never been put upon an agricultural basis, could be restored to life only through a series of brilliant campaigns. The expeditions of Von Speyer and Federmann had defined the object of these further enterprises. He could not reckon upon Federmann, who would have been a valuable aid, because he was in Spain, whence, instead of returning, he was summoned to Germany by the house of Welser & Co. to answer for his equivocal conduct. He never came to America again. Federmann, however, had left a man in his place who was in no way inferior to him in vigor, recklessness, and energy, and had besides the extraordinary gift of making himself familiar with strange languages with great ease. This man, who had gained valuable experience in Federmann’s following, was Pedro de Limpias.
We name this Spanish soldier especially because he was destined finally to play the part of an evil genius in the enterprises of the Germans. Fray Pedro Simon says that it was he who brought the legend of the dorado to Coro; but this is contradicted by the declaration of Gumilla. His knowledge and character nevertheless made him the soul of the contemplated campaign. An immediate occasion was offered for entering upon it. Georg von Speyer had sent on one of his officers, Lope de Montalvo, with a vanguard and the direction to wait for him “in the interior.” “And nothing had been heard from this captain or from his men when the bishop arrived at Coro.”[53] To seek for Montalvo and to find the way to the wealth supposed to exist in the south formed, therefore, the object which it was determined to pursue.
As leader of the expedition, the bishop, with wise regard for the Welsers, appointed the knight Philip von Hutten of Würtemberg, who had participated in Von Speyer’s expedition as a lieutenant. He was still a young man, chivalrous, noble, and frank, the idol of his men, and in many respects the worthy successor of Georg von Speyer. Beside him, Pedro de Limpias acted as his adviser; Rodrigo de Ribera was alcalde mayor; and Bartholomäus Welser was one of the lieutenants. Few expeditions were organized in South America with better guarantees in the capacity and knowledge of their leaders. The bishop assured himself of the concurrence of the royal revenue officers in Coro, as well as of that of Welser’s factor, Melchior Grubel, or Gruber, and thus combined the wishes and interests of both of the parties who were jealously watching one another.[54]
Thus enjoying every condition that could assure success, Philip von Hutten left Coro in August, 1541. He had a hundred horsemen. The route, which had been laid down in writing, was the same as that of Von Speyer, except that Von Hutten was to press farther on. From Burburata, whither he went by boat, he marched rapidly through Barquicimeto to the plain of the Apure, wintered there in “La Fragua,” and then advanced to the borders of Ecuador, in the vicinity of the mountain range of Timana, west of the cordillera of Suma Paz. Here, where he came upon the trail of the unfortunate expedition of Hernan Perez de Quesada, the Indians tried to induce him to go eastward by telling him of a powerful, wealthy tribe which inhabited a “city” in the plain called Macotoa. Von Hutten paid no attention to these deceptive stories, but followed the trail which Quesada had left; that is, he spent nearly a year of great privation, suffering, and toil, marching in a circle, and returned, at the beginning of 1543, to the same place, near the sources of the Caqueta or Japura, whence he had set out. The steadiness his men displayed during this terrible march speaks well for his capacity as well as for his character. Yet it is not impossible that Pedro de Limpias, then still true, contributed much, by his knowledge of the country and his iron tenacity, to the holding of the men together. He probably advised them to follow Quesada’s trail, if for no other reason than because he was suspicious of the representations of the natives, and did the contrary of what they advised him.
When, however, he found himself back at his original starting-place with a small company of sickly men, Von Hutten recollected what the Indians had said about the gold-rich lands in the east, and determined to go forward in that direction, accompanied by Limpias, with forty horsemen. He proceeded to the Rio Guaviare, where the Uaupés received him in a friendly manner, assisted him in crossing the river, and furnished him with provisions. Their village contained about eight hundred inhabitants. They, however, advised Von Hutten not to go farther south, for his little company was much too weak to contend with the powerful tribe that dwelt in that region. They called this tribe the Omaguas.
Orellana had arrived at an Indian settlement, the chief of which he calls Aomaguas, on the 12th of May, 1541, at San Fernando de Machiparo at the junction of the Putumayo and the Amazon.[55] Fray Gaspar de Carvajal, in his report preserved by Oviedo,[56] speaks of “the tribe or settlement of Machiparo, of which we heard from Aparia ‘el grande,’ as also of another kingdom called Homaga, which was in conflict with that of Machiparo.” The analogy between Homaga and Omagua can hardly be disregarded; and as the account continues, “After the latter had withdrawn from the Machiparo to pursue us, we went on eight or ten leagues farther to an elevated village which we judged to be on the border of the settlements and of the kingdom of Homaga”—the supposition is therefore not improbable that the tribe of the Omaguas inhabited, in the middle of the sixteenth century, that extensive tract which is bounded on the north by the Guaviare, on the south by the Amazon, and may have had the Cassiquiare and Rio Negro (partly) on its eastern, the Rio Uaupés and the Japura on its western borders. Herrera’s remark in his introductory “Descripcion” (of the year 1611) is not without significance: that “south of the province of Venezuela are the Omaguas and Omigos, with the provinces of the dorado.” At all events, the tribe seems to have inhabited a large tract, which included in the north extensive grassy plains, and in the south the thick woods of the shores of the Amazon.