Compared with all this, the sun-bathed peaks of the centre and of the north breathed dreams and soft romance. Naturally the temperament of the inhabitants had tuned themselves to fit in with this. The few savage customs which had intruded themselves among the quaint rites and mysticism of these peoples had failed to inculcate a genuine warlike ardour or lust for blood. Their dreamily brooding natures revolted against the strain of prolonged strife. What measure of violent resistance was to be expected from the dwellers on the shores of Lake Guatavita? The Lake of Guatavita had been a sacred water of the Indians of Colombia before the advent of the Spaniards. It was on this peaceful sheet that the cacique and his chiefs were rowed out in canoes while the people clustered in their thousands about the mountainous sides of the lake. When the canoes had arrived at the centre of the lake the chiefs were accustomed to anoint the cacique, and to powder him with a great profusion of gold-dust. Then came the moment for the supreme ceremony. The multitude turned their backs on the lake, and the cacique dived from the canoe and plunged into its waters; at the same time the people threw over their shoulders their offerings of gold and precious stones, which fell with a splash into the waters. The lake was further enriched after the arrival of the _conquistadores_, when the natives, tortured and ill-treated in order that gold should be wrung from them, conceived such a hatred of the metal that they threw all they had wholesale into the sacred waters. It is said that some Indians, goaded beyond endurance, taunted their conquerors and told them to search at the bottom of the lake, where they would find gold. They had no idea that the Spaniards would actually attempt this, but this the _conquistadores_ did, and were digging in order, apparently, to drain the water off when the sides fell in and put an end to the attempt. It is said that even then they procured a large amount of gold and some magnificent emeralds. [Illustration: DEATH OF ATAHUALPA. The final tragedy as shown in a seventeenth-century engraving.] As may well be imagined, it was people such as these who suffered most of all from the violence of the strange, pale beings who had descended into their midst to subdue them, first of all by means of the sword, and then by the ceaseless wielding of the more intimate and degrading thong. Since, notwithstanding all that has been urged to the contrary, the average Spaniard of those days--even those of his number who had to do with the Americas--was provided with the ordinary sentiments and passions of humanity, it was inevitable that in the course of the oppression and warfare waged against the natives some devoted being should sooner or later rise up to espouse the cause of the Indians.