"Where is this city of Omagua?" again asked the men.
"It is very far south, and is on a lake of gold. Our chief lives in the House of the Sun, and has many green stones in his shield and on the walls of the temples."
"What is the name of your chief?"
"El Dorado," answered the Indians, anxious that the white men should know that they could speak their language.
"It is all plain to me," said Sir Walter Raleigh, when told of it. "Those Spanish adventurers have failed to find the real El Dorado. We will search for it ourselves."
"The Indians say there are whole streets filled with workers in gold and precious stones," said one of his officers, "and I dare say we shall make our enterprise quite profitable." So they, too, were looking for gold, only their methods were not so barbarous and cruel as the others had been.
As they went farther into the country they found a numerous band of Indians with flat heads, and when they examined the babies carried on the backs of their mothers it was seen that they had tied a board across the forehead so that it would sink in and leave the head pointed and flat in front.
"Why do you treat your heads in this manner?" some one asked their chief.
"Because our fathers did so, and we think it makes us beautiful," he answered. In that country there are still plenty of flat-headed Indians. As the men marched along they came to trees with holes cut through the bark, and little earthen pots hanging under them to catch the sticky-looking milk that oozed out.
"Can this be something good to eat?" the men said. "Let us taste it and see."