The gold, itself, thrown up in the days of the earth agony, lay untouched for centuries, but every precept of the “golden one”[[27]] was cherished as priceless gifts over all the Americas.
The tribes had different local versions of him, where they built pyramids and teocallis in his honor, sculptured his sayings in enduring granite, repeated his exploits in poetry and song, until finally his name and fame excited the cupidity of the European adventurers who sought the Golden Fleece in crusades and voyages of discovery.
The American version of the Argonauts’ expedition for the golden apples, under Columbus, began in violence and ended in crime.
But the search for the fabled El Dorado did not end here.
Like a veritable will-o’-the-wisp, it led some into the fever-infested swamps of the Orinoco, in South America,[[28]] and finally induced Coronado to push northward into Kansas, after he had nearly perished in the desert sands of the Colorado. He pounced down upon the Zuni pueblo, and tried hard to persuade himself that he had found the land of Quivira, though he vainly tried to locate the seven cities of Cibolo.
The magic words “El Dorado” attracted another bond of gold-seekers, who have made the name and the country their very own.
In their wake are the forerunners of the men and women who will make California[[29]] a great center of occult knowledge—the alchemical gold, corresponding to her mineral wealth.
“The land! The land! O my beloved country! How art thou humbled by misfortune! I know not thy desolate bosom!” cried Yermah, springing ashore upon the island of Teneriffe, the mountain peak of Poseidon’s kingdom, his lost Atlantis.
“I kiss thy blackened and charred face! Thou mother of the white race! Thou source of all learning! Grant that thy dependencies may not forget and deny thee!”