“In front walked wailing men, nude, their bodies painted with red ochre, the sign of deep mourning.... Groups followed of men richly decorated with gold and emeralds, their heads adorned with feathers, and braves clothed in jaguars’ skins. The greater number of them went uttering joyful shouts, others blew on horns, pipes and conchs.... The rear of the procession was composed of the nobles and the chief priests, bearing the newly elected chieftain upon a barrow hung with discs of gold. His naked body was anointed with resinous gums and covered all over with gold dust. This was the gilded man, _el hombre dorado_, whose fame had reached the sea coast. Arrived at the shore, the gilded chief and his companions stepped upon a _balsa_ and proceeded upon it to the middle of the lake. There the chief plunged into the water and washed off his metallic covering, while the assembled company, with shouts and the sound of instruments, threw in the gold and the jewels they had brought with them.” Treasures have been found in this lake, among others a group of golden figures. The chronicler Don Rafael Zerda says: “Undoubtedly this piece represents the ... _cacique_ of Guatavitá surrounded by Indian priests on the raft, which was taken on the day of the ceremony to the middle of the lake” for sacrifice to its goddess. “Humboldt saw the staircase down which the gilded man and his train in jaguars’ skins descended to the waters of the lake of Guatavitá. He also found the remains of the tunnels by which the Spaniards had tried to drain the lake.” A joint stock company in 1903 did drain the lake of Guatavitá. But its mud turned to cement before they could dig in it. The “vision of the Dorado appeared like a mirage, enticing, deceiving, leading men to destruction.” It became the name of a mythical country, where rivers ran over sands of gold, and palaces stood on golden pillars shining with emeralds. Infamous adventurers, brave as the knights of the Round Table, confronted and stormed the great jungle. Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro tried to find the glittering capital of Manoa, which El Dorado had gradually become. For these buccaneers who set out with an arrogant army to conquer the Cinnamon Country, nature became the supreme fact of existence. Famine, perpetual rain, fevers, strange insects, and reptiles attacked them. Their expeditions could but end in the murder of each other. They followed the example of all life in the jungle.