"Men put the jaguar out of humor," they explained. "He is a very selfish beast, and if he cannot rule alone he goes to his den and sulks. He will follow a man all day through the woods and will not spring upon him unless he tries to run or moves his arms. If you think one is following you do not look back and do not trust anything but the sharp blade of your sword. The noise of a gun only infuriates him."
As the men heard this they imagined they could see the yellow eyes glaring at them in the darkness, and some thought they smelled him.
"He is a ferocious, blood-thirsty beast," said the Indians in conclusion, "and you may well think yourselves fortunate when you leave these tropic forests and get out into the open plains."
The men would have agreed with him if it had not been for the intense heat, and a terrible sandstorm that almost blinded them for days when it did not blow so hard that they could make no headway against it. Finally, footsore, weary, and almost discouraged, they came to a wide and deep river, and here the Indian guides brought them boats, which they called pirogues.
"We are not far from the lake of gold beside the city of the Manoas," they said, and when the delighted soldiers inquired particularly, they responded readily:
"We have these things from our fathers and other men wise in the traditions and sayings of our people, but we are afraid to go any further, for the Manoans are a fierce and warlike race."
About this time Sir Walter Raleigh learned that the Queen was not pleased with his efforts in search of the El Dorado, and he decided to withdraw his men and abandon the attempt.
But this did not hinder other men from trying to solve the mystery. It was more than a hundred years before the truth was finally known, and then a scientist discovered that the location itself had shifted and was nearly as much changed as the ideas about El Dorado. He traced the legend to Lake Parima, near the center of South America, and said:
"This is really the White Sea of the Manoas, which people have long believed was a lake of gold. The reason the Indians thought so was because there is some fine gold-dust in the washings of the sand, which has plenty of mica mixed with it. Then there is a large quantity of salt dried on the grass, and when the hot sun shines, it looks at a distance as if it were a great sea of gold."
"Are the houses covered with gold tiles?" was the next inquiry.