The Guatavitas of the plateau of Bogotá, whose great religious festival probably gave rise to the legend of El Dorado and his golden city of Manoa, may be taken as representing their higher development. The Guatavita chief, according to Acosta, used on the occasion of this annual festival to smear his body with turpentine preparatory to rolling in gold-dust; then, proceeding on a barge to the centre of their sacred lake, he would cast into it gold ornaments, emeralds, and other valuables, finally plunging into the waters himself, an action which was the signal for shouts of applause from the worshippers on the banks.[1] Whether the Incas ever really held any communication with these lowland peoples it is impossible at present to say, but perhaps the legend of Amalivaca, who, the Indians say, visited them and began to teach them to write, finally sailing away to the east with a promise to return, may be based upon an actual visit of a Peruvian leader, who left on an exploratory voyage to the east, from which he never returned, at least to these shores. It is strange that there was in Humboldt’s time on the Llanos between Barinas and the River Apure some twenty miles of well-made road, elevated about fifteen feet above the frequently flooded plains, the remains of a causeway from the mountains made long before Spanish times, and apparently the work of some nation far more advanced in the arts than any living close at hand. We emerge from these regions of conjecture into the definite historical period rather more than five years after the first discovery of the islands of the New Continent by Columbus, when the great explorer, on his third westward journey, coasted along the south side of the Peninsula of Paria on July 31, 1498. He did not land there, but his son tells us that from the ships they could see men on the shore dressed in vari-coloured turbans and loincloths. When he entered the Gulf of Paria, he had expected to be able to pass out on the west side, believing the peninsula to be an island; realising his error, he turned back and entered the Caribbean through the Boca del Draco, “giving thanks to God who delivered him from so many troubles and dangers, still showing him new countries full of peaceful people, and great wealth.” On his way across to Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), he passed by an island which he named Margarita, knowing nothing, as it seems, of the rich pearl fisheries which later rendered the name so appropriate.