This short but very informative little article about El Dorado (Eldorado) was published in a set of encyclopedias in 1878. It is the opinion of fadedpages.com that the lost city might yet be found. —fadedpages.com

EL DORADO, that is, in Spanish, "The Golden," a mythical country long believed to exist in the northern part of South America. The origin of the legend has been variously explained, some supposing that the micaceous quartz in the valley of the Essequibo was mistaken for gold ore, while others find the nucleus of the story in the fact that the high-priest of Bogotà was accustomed to sprinkle himself with gold dust, which was afterwards washed off in a neighboring lake. It hardly seems necessary, however, to accept either or indeed any theory of explanation: the minds of the Spanish explorers had been dazzled by the wealth of their earlier conquests, and the most brilliant imagination seemed to have a possibility of fulfilment. Martinez, a Spaniard, who had been set adrift on the sea, asserted that he was flung on the coast of Guiana, and conducted inland to a city called Manoa, which was governed by a king in alliance with the Incas, and lavished the precious metals on its roofs and walls. Orellana, who passed down the Rio Napo to the valley of the Amazon in 1540, also brought back an account of a land of fabulous wealth; and Philip von Hutten, who led an exploring party from Coro, on the coast of Caracas, during the period from 1541 to 1545, believed he had caught sight of the golden splendors of the city of his search. In spite of the failure of expedition after expedition, and notably of that undertaken in 1569 by Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada from Sante Fé de Bogotà, the fable continued a potent allurement for adventurous spirits, and even in the beginning of the l7th century exerted a master-influence on the schemes of Sir Walter Raleigh. Traces of the pseudo-discoveries of Martinez and his compeers disfigured our maps till the time of Humboldt, who proved that the great lake of Parima to the east of Manoa was almost as fabulous as the city itself; and the name of El Dorado remains a permanent gain to our metaphorical vocabulary. Allusions more or less direct to the legend abound in European literatures, one of the most detailed being the well-known chapter in Voltaire's Candide.

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