The quest began in New Granada, and from thence it shifted to Venezuela. The most daring seekers were German knights, the Welsers of Augsburg. They had received charters from Charles the Fifth, under which they were empowered to found cities, erect forts, work mines, and make slaves of the Indians. One of their representatives, Ambrosio de Alfinger, set out in 1530, accompanied by two hundred Spaniards, and a larger number of Indians, laden with provisions and other necessaries. On the journey the party committed such brutalities upon the poor natives that the reports afterwards helped to fire the blood of Englishmen, and make them bitterly cruel. To prevent the bearers from running away they were strung together on chains, running through rings round their necks. If one of them dropped from sickness or exhaustion, his head was cut off, the ring loosened, and thus the trouble of interfering with the chain saved. If he were to be left behind, it did not matter whether he was alive or dead. At one place on the river Magdalena the frightened natives took refuge on some islands, but the Spaniards swam their horses across and killed or took prisoners the whole of them. From their Cacique Alfinger got booty to the value of sixty thousand dollars, with which he sent back for further supplies. But, although he waited for a year his messengers did not return, and the company were reduced to such straits that many died for want of bare food. But the Indians fared much worse, for their provision grounds were utterly destroyed, and what with murders and starvation the surrounding country was quite depopulated and desolate. Even Alfinger had to give up waiting for his supplies and move on at last, for these had been utilised by his lieutenant on an expedition of his own. The party eked out a bare subsistence with wild fruits and game. If they found a village they plundered it of everything it contained, dug up the provisions from the fields, and left the survivors of the massacre to starve. Not that they themselves were in a much better plight; fever, the result of want and exposure, carried them off in continually increasing numbers. At last they got into a mountain region, and the poor naked bearers were frozen to death. Descending again they encountered stronger and fiercer tribes, by whom they were defeated, the cruel Alfinger himself dying two days afterwards from his wounds. A small remnant only returned after two years' absence, leaving a track of pain and suffering to make their memory accursed for many generations.