THERE were none willing to say "God forgive him," is what history tells us of the end of Pizarro, whose throat was cut by some of the men he quarreled with over the treasures they had taken from the Children of the Sun, and I do not believe that any one was ever sorry that he perished like a wretched outcast. Of course, one of his brothers had heard of El Dorado, and he began to inquire closely of the Indians whether there really was such a person.  
"Yes, there is," he was told, "and this chief smears himself all over with a sweet-smelling gum and sprinkles his body with fine gold-dust until he looks like a shining statue."
 
"Where does this chief live?"
 
"Not far from here, and his people are very rich in gold and emeralds."
 
This was what the Spaniards wanted to hear, and the Children of the Sun hoped by this means to get rid of their hated conquerors. We remember the visit of the Golden Hearted to the Zipa of the Muscas, and we see, by the unfriendly feeling of their neighbors, that they were still quarrelsome. 190
 
"We will go and find the Valley of the Gilded Man," said the brother of Pizarro, to his soldiers, who were getting tired of being idle. "I am told that there are wealthy regions to the north, east, and south of us, where the people go about covered with gold-dust, and where there are no mountains or woods."
 
This pleased the greedy adventurers very much, and it was not long before there was quite an army of them ready to start. But they did not know that they were going into a country where there were cannibals—savages ready to kill and eat every one of them, and that they fought with poisoned arrows. The Muscas were obliged to fight these people, but they traded with them, because there was no gold in their own land, and they prized it highly as an offering in honor of the Golden Hearted. They had quantities of salt which they pressed into little round cakes, like sugar loaves, and carried over beaten paths to market. Besides this, they wove beautiful cotton cloth, and managed to get large quantities of gold and silver and emeralds by trading with the cannibals.
 
They had not forgotten what the Golden Hearted taught them about hammering the gold, or casting it into tasteful shapes, and they not only wore it for ornaments, but used it to decorate the outside and inside of their temples. It was near the anniversary of his departure, and there were many pilgrims from neighboring tribes who had come to cast emeralds into the lake at Gautavita in 191 his honor. On the mountain tops surrounding the lake beacon lights were burning, and the sacred fires on the altars in the temples had never been allowed to go out. As each band of pilgrims came into the city, the Zipa welcomed them, saying:
 
"Tomorrow, comrades, we will go in solemn procession to the lake, and commemorate the departure of Bochica, and his purification afterward. We have made his heart very sad by our misdeeds, but from his home in the sun he can look down upon us, and see that we still adore and worship him."
 
The next day, at noon a solemn procession approached the lake. In the lead walked bronze-colored men, without any clothing, but whose bodies were covered with red paint, as a sign of deep mourning, and they wailed in a most sorrowful manner. Behind them were warriors decorated with gold and emeralds, wearing bright feathers in their gold head-dresses, and carrying mantles of jaguar skins over their arms. Some of them were singing, while others shouted joyfully or blew on horns and pipes, and conch shells. Close to them were priests in black robes, with white crosses on them, and tall black hats, like those worn by the wise men. In the rear was the Zipa riding in a kind of gilded wheelbarrow hung with disks of gold. His naked body had been anointed with a resinous gum, and covered all over with fine gold-dust.
 
Arrived at the shore, the Gilded Man and his 192 companions stepped upon a balsa gay with streamers and loaded with flowers, and rowed out into the middle of the lake. There the Zipa, who was the Gilded Man, plunged into the water and washed off all the gold-dust. While he was doing this his companions, with music and singing, threw in the gold and emeralds they had brought out on the lake for that purpose. Coming back to the shore the Zipa said:
 
"Do no more work for this day, but make merry with singing, dancing and feasting, as if the gentle, kind Bochica were with you again."
 
All this time Pizarro's brother, and his greedy soldiers, were wandering around in the mountains trying to find the Gilded Man. If they could have seen him covered with gold at the festival, they would probably have tried to skin him alive to get the gold dust on his body. One of the padres, who came to convert and teach the natives, writing to the king of Spain, said:
 
"I do not believe that the men taking part in the expeditions in search of the Gilded Man, would have tried so hard to get into Paradise."
 
Further on in his letter the padre describes the terrible hardships and suffering the men had to undergo. After telling about their failure to find El Dorado, he says:
 
"The men and officers returned to us nearly naked. In the warm rain their clothes had rotted on their backs, and were torn into shreds by the thickets they had crawled through on their 193 hands and knees. Their feet were bare and wounded by the thorns and roots in the pathways, and their swords were not only without sheaths, but were eaten up with ............