II
THE QUEST FOR "EL DORADO"
Ophir was not found in the islands, and the bands of adventurers went over to terra firma or the mainland to continue the search. Along the coast of Guiana and Venezuela they again came across the gentle Arawak and ferocious Carib, the latter making himself respected everywhere, while his poor-spirited fellow-countryman was alternately caressed and plundered. In every place the Spaniards found gold ornaments, and every tribe told them that the precious metal was only obtainable in some far distant country. The Haïtians sent Columbus to the south in search of the guanin country, and it was there he discovered the coast of Paria and the delta of the mighty Orinoco. But he was not fated to come across the treasure cities of the Indies.
Others followed to at last conquer Mexico and Peru, but even then it was generally believed that nations existed who had more riches to be plundered than those of the Inca and Montezuma. To find these golden regions the voyagers wandered in every direction, contributing much to the knowledge of the coasts and rivers, but always coming back disappointed.
The horrors of this search can hardly be appreciated nowadays. The ships were so small and ill-found that we should hardly care to use them for coasters, yet in them these pioneers crossed the Atlantic and encountered the hurricanes of the West Indies. Decked only at bow and stern, the waves dashed into the hold and wetted the provisions, while the sun poured down upon the water casks and burst their wooden hoops. The butter and cheese stank, the flour in sacks became mouldy, and the bacon and salt fish putrid. Then the hull of the vessel was unprotected, and the teredo, or ship worm, bored it through and through, until nothing but careening and caulking could save the poor craft from sinking. When we understand the privations and dangers of this navigation we are not surprised that the adventurers often came to grief, but rather wonder that any of them survived.
Living in the West Indies, we have often thought of the pain and suffering it would produce if we were compelled to walk or sit in the burning sun armed as were the soldiers at that period. We can hardly believe that they wore steel body armour, yet the evidence is too strong to be refuted. True, they gave it up afterwards in favour of quilted cotton, but before they did so how hot they must have felt! We can fancy the sentry standing exposed to the full blaze of the sun, his helmet and breastplate burning hot and his woollen underclothing saturated with perspiration. Then there would be the open boat ascending a river. The occupants dared not row in the shade for fear of cannibals shooting at them with poisoned arrows from the thicket, and out in the river they must have felt as if in a furnace. Even with our white clothing and light hats a long journey in an open boat when the sun is high often ends in fever, and almost invariably in a headache. The neck and backs of the hands get blistered, and become sore, the glare on the water dazzles the eye, and we feel faint.
In one of the accounts of such a boating expedition on a river in Guiana we read of the men finding some yellow plums floating on the water, and of their being much refreshed by them. We also have come across these hog-plums when almost exhausted by a long exposure on the open river, and when even our negro steersman was nodding as he held the paddle. Suddenly we came to our destination, the mouth of a creek, and were under an arcade of vegetation, beneath which the plums floated on the cool dark water.
The men of the sixteenth century must have been stronger than ourselves, or they could hardly have endured such pain and privation. They lay down on the bare earth night after night, and on board ship went to sleep on naked planks. As they could endure pain and discomfort, so also could they inflict it on others. The rough seamen learnt to bear hardships which blunted their feelings of humanity and made them inclined to torture others. When in the hands of the cannibals they were almost as stoical as the savage himself, their ruling passion being a desire for revenge. If cruelly treated by one tribe they retaliated on others; in the same way the Indians killed one party of Spaniards to avenge the insults of their countrymen. This led to a great deal of trouble and made the voyages of the treasure-seekers dangerous to all. However free from blame one party might be, they were liable to suffer for previous wrong-doings and they in turn left behind them injuries to be avenged on the next comers.