SOURCE: Sinclair, Andrew. “The Quest for El Dorado” and “The Knight of El Dorado.” In Sir Walter Raleigh and the Age of Discovery, pp. 56-63; 105-12. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1984.

In the following essay, Sinclair recounts Walter Raleigh's two unsuccessful searches for El Dorado, the failure of which ultimately resulted in his execution.

When the Spaniards seized rooms full of gold ornaments from the Incas, they never found the mines from which the metal came. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada set off with an expedition to find the mines in the Amazonian jungles; most of his men died, including his brother, struck by a bolt of lightning; he survived to pass on his quest to Lope de Aguirre. Aguirre and his men did discover the connection between the Amazon and the Orinoco Rivers, the Rio Negro, before he was beheaded for treason. They both believed in the...