"THE SNAKE-SKIN CANOE"
El Dorado, the Golden
WE have read somewhere that "in 1492 Columbus sailed the waters blue," and we know that the big Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 was to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, but no one can possibly tell how long it was after the Golden Hearted sailed away, until Columbus came.
And nobody knows where the Golden Hearted went.
He said he was going to Tlapalla, which we know meant the Happy Island, but no one can find it any more, and there are traditions which say that the island, with all its inhabitants, sank in the ocean. This may be why the Golden Hearted never came back again. Of course the wise men and the primitive people in the Americas believed that he would return because he said he would, and they watched and waited all the long years from one generation to another. Many times bright and promising young men, just out of the universities, or fresh from victories on the battle fields, would take the vows of a priest, and give up all their hopes and ambitions to serve in the temples erected in honor of the Golden Hearted. They did not know anything more about him than we do, but they had faith in him.
They said: