A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed in England, inasmuch as "the boar had put back that sought to lay her vineyard waste." Some time afterwards, the queen repaired in public procession to St. Paul's. The streets were hung with blue cloth; the royal chariot was a throne with four pillars and a canopy overhead, drawn by white horses. Elizabeth knelt at the altar and audibly acknowledged the Almighty as her deliverer from the rage of the enemy. The people were exhorted to render thanks to the Most High, whose elements--fire, wind, and storm--had wrought more destruction to the foe than the valor of their navy or the strength of their wooden walls. [Illustration: SIR WALTER RALEIGH.] CHAPTER XXIX. THE FICTION OF EL DORADO--MANOA--DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLENDORS--ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT--SIR WALTER RALEIGH--HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA--HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO--HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENERY--HIS RETURN--HIS SECOND VOYAGE--EXPEDITION TO NEWFOUNDLAND--HIS DEATH--MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGEND OF EL DORADO. The mines of the precious metals which the Spaniards had discovered in Peru, the wealth which they annually brought home in treasure-ships to the mother-country, together with the exaggerated accounts given by Spanish authors respecting the splendor and the civilization of the empire of the Incas, had now begun to excite the cupidity and inflame the imagination of every other people in Europe. It was known that, at the time of the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, a large number of the natives escaped into the interior; and rumor added that one of the sons of the reigning Inca had withdrawn across the continent to a region situated between the Amazon and the Orinoco and called by the general name of Guiana. Here he had founded, it was added, an empire more splendid than that of Peru: its capital city, Manoa, only one European had seen. This was a Spaniard, a marine on board a man-of-war, who, according to the legend, had allowed a powder-magazine to explode and was condemned to death for his carelessness. This penalty was commuted, however, and he was placed in a boat at the mouth of the Orinoco, with orders to penetrate into the interior. He stayed seven months at Manoa, and then escaped to Porto Rico. He gave the following account of the city and kingdom, the latter being called, he said, El Dorado, or The Gilded: