Summary

Preston begins the chapter with his "Fifth Letter," a report from the explorer Hernan Cortes to Emperor Charles V. Historians believe this letter, in which Cortes reported on a prosperous city near Trujillo (in Honduras), started the rumors about the White City, or the City of the Monkey God. In his letter, he asserted that the riches of these provinces were greater than even that of the Aztecs. Cortes, facing an insurrection, never journeyed to the lands he wrote about, but his story became the stuff of legend. Twenty years after this letter, Cristobal de Pedraza, a missionary who became the first Bishop of Honduras, claimed that he saw a prosperous city in a river valley. He did not enter the valley, but his letter to Charles V continued the legend.

For the next 300 years, geographers and travelers told...