Alfred Döblin’s AMAZONAS Trilogy Part 2

Volume One Part 2 : The Kingdom of Cundinamarca

Charles, the Emperor   ≈ Ambrosius Alfinger   ≈ On the Magdalena River   ≈ Trek over the mountains   ≈ Cundinamarca   ≈ The Zipa    ≈ The Zipa’s treasure    ≈ The second conquistador    ≈ The Sun is silent    ≈ What befell Nicolaus Federmann and his band   ≈ In the land of turtles   ≈ To Cundinamarca   ≈ Horsetrading among the victors   ≈ Victors’ spoils   ≈  The path through the web   ≈ Return to the wilderness  

 

Charles, the Emperor

Across the ocean lay the continent of Europe, with its high mountains and lowlying plains. Its forests were mostly long since uprooted, its rivers neither large nor raging, you could travel along them for miles. They rarely burst their banks. They emptied into the ocean and a small sea. The land was not hot, hardly ever suffered storms and tempests. On this continent, in the south, grew trees similar to those engendered by the hot lands: palms, mimosa, figs, eucalyptus. In sandy regions there were even cacti that bore flowers and succulent fruit. But trees and flowers were all small and puny, most fruited only once a year.

Here and there hares, harts, wild swine ran, and wolf, fox, beaver, badger. But no bright jaguar crept through the grass, no turtles crawled on riverbanks. No crocodile, caiman, alligator thrived here. Birds nested in the trees, their plumage was dull, no parrots, no hummingbirds, vultures seldom seen, all were demure, their singing pretty and heartfelt as if lamenting their lack of colour. And once a year, when this landmass grew cold, when the only defence of the trees against the frost was to shed their leaves and withdraw their life into the dark earth, when water fell white and solid from the sky and the earth creaked, then even the birds wearied of these lands. And restlessness stirred in them, they rose from plain and mountain, gathered in great flocks and headed south. They flew cloud-high back to their old hot homeland, to lovely wide rivers, plateaus and swamps, and returned only when they had recouped their strength.

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Men, too, lived in these lands. They had lost their colour, you could see the blood coursing under pale skin. Heaven granted them less than its full light, even the stars that came out at night did not sparkle lustily like those of the south, but hung far back in the sky. Here people could only grow wan, like ghosts. But they resisted Death. They grew strong, savage, immoderate. They were born of the struggle against Death. They roamed around in great armies. They broke out of their twilight lands.

In Brussels, the man they called the Emperor Charles the Fifth gathered about him in his palace all his counsellors, knights and nobility. He had to lean on a staff, rest his arm on another powerful man’s shoulder. On his white head he wore a round cap of ermine, his frail body was warmed by a long sable cloak, the crowned pommel of a sword jutted at his waist. He spoke, standing before the raised throne, beside him his black-eyed son who neither could nor would live otherwise than he. His voice was barely audible:

“In this hall, forty years ago, my reign began. Soon my grandfather died, and I was elected emperor. I have made numerous journeys by land and water, and many wars have been forced on me. All this has cost me much toil, and is to blame for the wretched condition in which I now find myself. A too heavy burden lies upon me. I can no longer sustain it. I have done all that was in my power to do. If it has not been more, and has not brought good fortune, then I regret it. Now my son sits at my side. He is grown to manhood. Let him take up the burden that my shoulders can no longer bear.”

He drank from a wine glass and spoke even more softly: “Be loyal to my son. Some among you I have wronged, I beg your forgiveness. I now quit this land of my birth.”

There were tears in his eyes, and in those of the counsellors, knights and nobility, it made them feel better.

After his arrival back in Spain there welled up in Charles, that pale old man, a yearning for solitude and atonement. The monastery of Yuste nestled among well-tended trees, sheltered from the north wind. There he dwelled, the former emperor, now merely an old man, listened to music, walked beneath chestnut trees. When he heard that some people he knew, not far away in Seville, held deviant ideas, he uttered a wish that they might be burned, and rued deeply that he had not burned a man who introduced many bad thoughts among his people: a monk called Luther. He felt himself nothing, a nullity. He arranged a requiem for himself which he attended, gazed ardently and with love into the open coffin that would receive his corpse. Other news reached the monastery, of dangers threatening Holland, so he wrote letters. But a dry wind blew over the land. The old pale man turned on his side and expired.

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In those days the pale people were in constant ferment, concerning nations and imaginary things in the sky. Charles had to raise armies to take part in these conflicts. For their arming and provisioning, and to ensure that they fought and died for him, he needed money.

In the German town of Augsburg lived rich people, of various families. They sent a man called Seyler to the court in Madrid, and advanced funds to the emperor. They had already lent him five tons of gold. He needed more. So he conferred on Seyler and, through him, on the Welsers in Augsburg the right to voyage to the new found lands they called the Indies, to make conquests there on their own account, and earn what profit they could. One fifth of all they might find there of gold, silver, pearls and precious stones would accrue to the emperor, and four-fifths to themselves, the Welsers, along with a certain strip of territory and its dusky inhabitants, whom they might enslave.

Ambrosius Alfinger

Where the range through which the Amazon breaks veers away from the west coast and sets its last peaks down around the lagoon of Maracaibo, there sits the town of Coro, by the sea.

Ambrosius Alfinger, a battle-hardened captain, was sought out by the Welsers and appointed governor of Maracaibo. He was to gather gold, and procure darkskins for sale in Coro’s markets.

Accompanied by two hundred Whites, halberds, muskets, arquebuses and a number of horses and bloodhounds, Ambrosius Alfinger struck out from Coro. The men had flocked together for war and adventure, rapine and murder. In the lands of the Whites, in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany they had nothing to lose. They were not bad men, they were what they were and could not be otherwise.

Alfinger came to the Perijá range. He had to cross it. His band began to go hungry.

As they climbed higher, the sun burned terribly. They had no time to make themselves understood to the darkskins. When they found the first village they stormed into huts, shoved the occupants aside. Once sated, they looked for gold. They chained the people and loaded them up. On they went.

Ambrosius Alfinger was a wiry man, already over fifty. He wanted gold and slaves. But he saw only desolate mountains. He descended into the valley of Upar. He sent envoys to the dark men and women in the villages, he wanted to trade. He was afraid they would run away. And so it was that unsuspecting chieftains welcomed him, led him into their houses, he squatted there with some of his companions. Meanwhile others of his men looted the place. Screams penetrated to the chieftain’s lodge, they stood up to investigate. Then Alfinger rejoined the others and together they cut down the chieftains and the rest.

Entering the valley of Upar was easy, leaving was hard. The Sierra de Tairona was their next goal. The path into the mountains seethed with refugees. A poisoned arrow from an ambush in the rocks above hit grey Alfinger, who always had a friendly smile and organised everything without fuss.

The poison was known as twenty-four hour poison, because it killed within twenty-four hours.

Alfinger had himself lifted from his horse, all men are mortal, they ate of the Tree of Knowledge and so are cursed. They waited for him to name his successor. But they had to lay him beneath a tree, erect a shade for him, then the dark man who was his interpreter sucked at the wound below the knee. Blood flowed, the knee swelled and turned blue. The leg grew heavy, and three hours later the lieutenant came to Alfinger and said: “If you don’t name a successor, General, there’ll be fighting among us and we’ll all die tonight.” The governor demanded hot water, threw in some herbs and drank a large jugful. He had them remove the shade, covered his head with cloths, lay out in the sun. The band’s chaplain appeared, admonished him, pointed to the swollen leg. Alfinger received the last rites. He still had twelve hours.

Then he sent three envoys out to find among the darkskins a witchdoctor skilled in healing. One of the three returned to report that the country for miles around was empty of people, the other two had gone higher into the mountains. These two were pursued for a while by Alfinger’s men, and killed. So for an hour he waited in vain. In these long hours Ambrosius Alfinger suffered agonies. He grew despondent, and did not speak. When the two envoys failed to return and his lieutenant told him they must have deserted or been seized by the natives, he regained his smile. He understood. Now he could sit up, drink another jug of hot bitter tea. His head was still unaffected. Alfinger stroked his long beard: “We were ill prepared. I had no idea they use poison in these parts. Otherwise I’d have brought along a proper witchdoctor, he’d have cut off my head and set it upon a horse.” The lieutenant, a brave man, joked along: “But would they obey you, with horse-legs?” “What about horse-legs? It’s not my legs you obey. It’s not my boots you watch.” He summoned the dark-haired interpreter and asked if he had ever heard, among his people or elsewhere, that someone could be cured of the poison by cutting off their head and quickly placing it on a horse’s neck. The interpreter stared uncomprehending at the lieutenant, but Alfinger spoke in earnest.

Then he asked the interpreter if he was prepared to hack off the leg with a sharp sword and an axe. When the interpreter gave no answer, Alfinger asked the lieutenant if he would perform this service. The lieutenant summoned the chaplain, and the chaplain admonished Alfinger not to cling to this life. Whoever dies here is surer of Heaven than someone dying back home, for he dies as a warrior for the Holy Church. Alfinger breathed easier: this was his view too, but he owed the Spanish Crown large debts, and maintained that a warrior shouldn’t be allowed to die without a struggle, and once again desired the lieutenant to hack off his leg. The lieutenant was accompanied by two soldiers with arquebuses, Alfinger knew they would shoot him unless he died soon. The lieutenant waved dismissively towards the poisoned leg that lay exposed and swollen green-blue all the way to the hip, and said: it’s too late anyway. The chaplain agreed, and set up a loud rapid praying. Now Alfinger named the lieutenant as his successor, in order to be rid of him. So the lieutenant, content, withdrew with his arquebusiers. Alfinger smiled his old smile, told the interpreter to lay an arquebus by his side, and whispered with him.

The interpreter soon reappeared at the place where the general lay and the chaplain prayed, accompanied by a mercenary skilled in ironworking. This man brought a crucible, a long stout iron bar, and tongs. He heated the bar in the crucible until it glowed red. Then he handed Alfinger the tongs. The chaplain followed all this nervously, peering over his book. Now he held the book close to his eyes, stopped praying, and his breath hissed. Smith and interpreter clenched their fists, eyes started from their sockets. Scorched flesh sizzled and smoked. Alfinger sat up straight and burned the flesh away from hip to knee. When he was done and threw down the tongs and iron bar, his face was rigid, and both thought him dead. But he pressed his back against the tree, remained upright, and his eyes blinked. An hour later he had tea brought and looked for the sun. It was about to set. His hand felt for the arquebus.

As dusk fell the lieutenant came with torches and a litter made of branches. But Alfinger was sitting upright and staring straight ahead. The chaplain was crouched at one side and the interpreter at the other. Alfinger ordered that two mercenaries should make a fire near him and keep armed guard all night. The lieutenant obeyed. In the night Alfinger, set like a stone under the tree, had hot oil poured onto the wounds. The chaplain slept by the fire, it was morning before he took up his book again and stared in horror at Alfinger sitting there rigid, then made haste to resume his prayers.

Early that morning the twenty-four hours were up. The governor had himself carried on a litter into a closed tent, chewed coca leaves that the interpreter slipped to him in the night. They helped him sleep. At noon the lieutenant stepped warily into the tent. The chaplain was sleeping by the bed. In the gloom, Alfinger beckoned the lieutenant to him and in his old mild voice asked for a report.

Two weeks later they broke out of the eastern valley of the Sierra de Tairona. They led the general’s horse behind his litter. His leg was stiff and withered, he shuffled awkwardly on two crutches. They had to help him onto the horse. Though they took men, young women and children with them and butchered the old, although they left behind nothing but deserted and burnt-out villages, news of their coming spread into the mountains and down into the western valley. But they made abrupt detours and came upon plenty of unsuspecting places. On the western slopes of the Sierra de Tairona they had several hundred captives. These they drove before them, roped together. Alfinger ordered his second lieutenant to take them to Coro. He detailed twenty arquebusiers to go along. One third of the captives reached the Catotumbo river, which flows down to the lagoon of Maracaibo. Ships from Coro met them there. Hundreds lay where they fell in the mountains.

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Alfinger camped in the hot wide valley of the Magdalena river. He calculated according to his experience: for every consignment of captives you have to catch five or ten times as many. Better to search for gold.

He sent captains with small detachments across the river. They came to hilly districts along the Porce. They were told of people who lived in swamps and in trees, there were the Nutubes and Tuhames, they were rich, tilled fields, wove cloth and had a bit of gold too. But little came back with them. So Alfinger had himself set upon his horse, chewed coca leaves and ordered a march eastward, up the valley of the Lebrija.

They came to a populated place. Alfinger had all the inhabitants seized and detained in a stockade that he ordered built. He explained to the people that anyone who wanted to be released should pay gold for himself, his wife and his children. To encourage them to prompt action he withheld food until they brought the ransom. Some of the people sent to their houses to fetch gold, and were freed. But once they were back in their houses, Alfinger sent Spanish and Italian mercenaries to seize them again, and again they had to buy their freedom. A few suffered this three times. Those who had nothing to bring were left in the stockade, where they starved.

He imposed method on the hunting of refugees. Any captured in the mountains were thrown from a cliff. Those cornered in scrub were driven thirty or forty strong into a straw house, where he had them burned. He unleashed bloodhounds. These knocked dark people to the ground, mauled and gnawed them.

Dogs chased a sick woman who was carrying an infant. They caught up with her in a village, she could not flee. She hid in an open-walled hut and hanged herself from a beam. She hanged the infant from her feet. Dogs pulled it down. Men of the cloth accompanying the band happened upon them. They found the dogs with the child, prised it from their jaws and baptised it before it died.

Alfinger’s reputation as the cruellest of the cruel preceded him. His soldiers thought it unnecessary to provide food for their dogs. They drove along, like calves or pigs, a number of game animals that they traded among themselves to throw to the dogs. Once Alfinger came to a place that seemed prosperous. Without further ado he seized seventy people, had both hands amputated, and strung the seventy pairs of hands on a pole in the marketplace so that all could see what to expect if they kept gold from him.

With fire and sword they swept onward. He crossed the mountains of Velez. At last a more copious stream of gold came flowing to him. A massive slave transport set off for Coro, over a thousand strong, the people were of different skin colours, on the heights and in the valleys the tribes were like species of parrot. His band worked at full capacity.

Who was Ambrosius Alfinger? A White, a man, a hunter, no worse than others. Belligerence was his backbone, whenever he managed to defeat someone he felt good. Fame, power and gold were his heart and blood. The dark people were sand beneath his feet.

On the way down from the cold Velez mountains he said to the chaplain: “We must return to Maracaibo. Every day they pour oil onto my wounds. But the leg grows worse.”

And as they marched in the mountains between Pamplona and Cucuta – Alfinger dry as a stick, armed men before and behind, bearers laden with looted gold as far as the eye could see – he had to be lifted from the horse. The bone had been scorched. He was carried at night into a cave. He ordered the looted gold to be piled at the entrance to the cave. His captains cursed one another, swords drawn. One captain, since he felt disadvantaged, wanted to attack the treasurer and take the king’s fifth for himself. When they heard Alfinger calling for the loot to be brought nearer, they closed ranks and explained that the entrance was too narrow. The general demanded to be brought outside.

He could no longer stand, he was holding the loaded arquebus under his arm. As they carried his litter out of the cave by the light of torches, the bearers stumbled. The arquebus under his arm fired, the ball buried itself in rock. A chunk of stone came loose, and crushed him and the two bearers.

Next morning they pushed on in a forced march. Monks and chaplain positioned themselves around the king’s fifth and Alfinger’s share, carried by darkskins under the eye of the treasurer. The captains foamed like jaguars, and hoped for a defile where they could tip the transport over the edge after first looting it.

But the mountains fell away. The land became flatter and flatter, they sat on their horses and played guard over the transport.

The place where the tyrant Alfinger died was given the name Miser Ambrosio.

On the Magdalena river

The Whites, those savage warlike tribes of men, had even more people.

Rodrigo Bastidas was granted the region from Cape Velez to the mouth of the Magdalena river. The town of Santa Marta owes its existence to him. His companions speeded him to the next world.

Garcia de Lerma was drawn into a fight with the Tairona. These were a flourishing people. After a while there was no more trace of them. Or of Garcia.

Fernandes de Lugo. As his deputy he appointed a lawyer from Granada, a man in his late thirties, Gonzalo Ximenes Quesada. Lugo died at the start of an expedition. Meanwhile Quesada had landed up in an enterprise that would draw him deep into this country.

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Quesada had a thousand foot soldiers and a hundred mounted men. They were Europe-born and could not survive there. The northern lands were overrun by ruthless kings, princes and mercenary warlords. Many, young and old, were dead and mouldering. So they thought it best to go to war in some lord’s service. Spain was half covered in fields of weed. Noblemen tramped around with begging bowls, while monks sat a hundred thousand strong in splendid monasteries. For the pale people knew nothing of sky or earth or animals or plants, only of a god in farthest heaven; but priests in their millions could not bring them to follow his commandments.

For some time a profound restlessness had stirred in them. They had to swarm out across the whole world. They had to set sail and seek adventure. Everywhere they found new lands. On and on they were driven. They could not explain it; they said: we must conquer a new empire for the Spanish crown, we must find gold, we must spread word of our ghostly god. But it drove them on only to discover more lands, seas, rivers, tribes, to find oblivion and lose themselves.

Ximenes de Quesada had a thousand foot soldiers and a hundred mounted men. He ordered one of his officers to sail up the Magdalena river and rendezvous with him in the mountains.

Captain Alcobazo climbed aboard. He had five ships and two hundred men. The chaplain blessed the ships, the men sank to their knees, prayed to the Virgin. For days from the river’s mouth they saw only marshland, in the middle of the river were large islands covered in trees. They had brought darkskins from Coro, who showed them what fish could be eaten. When the river narrowed, huts of palm thatch stood near the banks. The people were copper-coloured, had never seen Whites, were poor and gave them everything they wanted. They prostrated themselves before the Whites. They said they were Coygaba, humans, come from the mountains to fish.

They were asked about gold. They said: in the mountains are many people and much gold. The people are all born from rocks. The Whites could only laugh.

They made their leisurely way upriver, no need to hurry, Ximenes de Quesada would surely make slower progress through the mountains. On their left snowy peaks glowed evening red, the moon’s disc rippled yellow in the mirror of the water, gloomy shadows fell across the horizon, green forests became blue, black, became a great dark cavern. They sailed over a wide lake, and people they came across on an island next morning said: a river called Cauca comes from the south, it makes the wide lake, the Cauca has a long valley, many people live there. But the ships continued up the Magdalena. Sandbanks became more frequent, crocodiles lay in packs, stared at the brigantines, the strange tall ships with yellow sails.

The primeval forest around them grew taller, islands were overgrown, some were a single mat of green and grey, here and there little monkeys hung on coconut palms and fled into the treetops. The flotilla carried the white mercenaries upriver, five ships one behind the other, on the first and biggest Quesada’s captain Alcobazo, the ensign of the Spanish Crown flapping overhead. The sky was wide and open, the river broad, no voices challenged them, they pressed on unhindered. Land, river, air, nothing offered resistance; land, river, men all drew together, feeling, touching, they knew nothing of each other, all was unfamiliar. But the Whites were cheerful, the going was good. Who would raise a hand and claim: you were never here? For sure, we shall leave traces behind us.

Mountains rose higher on all sides. It grew hotter. The level plains were behind them. They were besieged by forest. But they were a flotilla, five ships, two hundred mercenaries with muskets. They sang, yelled, played cards. Alcobazo was no martinet, the men liked him, he won’t cause trouble when it comes to parcelling out the loot.

Trees stepped into the water, gnarled roots rose out of the water. Banana trees with enormous leaves, you wade ashore, clamber up to them, pluck fruit, break leaves to use as sunshades, throw them onto the water. Trees appeared everywhere, they stood in the way of the ships. The river was unsure whether to flow or become forest. At night the sky opened above them, displayed the dreadful glitter of its stars. Forest pressed in on all sides like a fortress.

The river lost its water. They began to take soundings, had to sound the bottom constantly. The wind had long since dropped. They rowed and struck bottom, dared not row too hard, too strong a pull could land them in a sandbank. Mud and sand swirled from the riverbed. Dead crocodiles floated belly-up. Whoever was not rowing or steering stood around the leadsman. But no need for a line now, you can touch bottom with a pole.

Fear gripped the officers. Captain Alcobazo was a poor dissembler. He ordered a service of rogation, the chaplain stood beside Alcobazo at the sternpost of the leading ship and held a cross over the shimmering water. The sun sucked up mists, which a breeze wafted away to the mountains. They made the ships fast to a grassy islet and waited for water. Bad days came. Alcobazo lay in a fever, the officers climbed ashore and tried to shoot game in the forest. Before they had gone far they were unnerved by the profusion of snakes.

Alcobazo ordered: wait. Then Heaven took pity. Clouds gathered one morning, the thunderstorm that broke lasted all day, it withdrew into the mountains and then raged again in the valley. They had never heard such thunder, never stood in such roaring torrents of rain. Twice in succession lightning struck, first close by, then on the captain’s ship, a mast was shattered, the flotilla’s chaplain was killed along with three darkskins he was leading at prayer. Immense torrents fell from the sky, along with cool winds. By evening they wanted to move on despite the rain, they were not bothered by the chaplain’s death, all their thoughts were of danger and rescue. But the captain and all available men went ashore next morning, and buried the chaplain at the forest edge.

Then they hauled in the lines and the ships, now riding high, glided on once more. Profoundly content they watched the forest recede and sink back. The wind that rose was strong enough to fill a sail, their ears rejoiced at the chinking of cleats and the hum of rigging. They sailed through the day. Next day, the wind having dropped, they rested. Then when they set off on the third day, the two lightest vessels in the lead became stuck. The others came to the rescue. They had ventured into a side channel. They toiled for days to drag them off, to no avail. Impatience and fear mounted again, they lacked fresh manpower. Amiable Alcobazo became angry and querulous.

There were five ships, two had to be abandoned in the mud of the side channel. The remaining three were now heavier and more cramped. There was nowhere to lay the sick. There was talk of setting them ashore for collection later, but they protested loudly: no able-bodied man will want to stay with us, and anyway the fit cannot be spared. When deaths were reported Alcobazo made no enquiries, the cloth-wrapped bodies were swiftly buried.

At last the current came faster, the banks grew higher, the river flowed through rocky terrain, there was foam ahead. Then men from all three ships confronted tetchy Alcobazo, who now never removed his breastplate, and demanded to know how much farther they were to go. He who had always calmed them now screamed: anyone who wants can quit the ship! There are the mountains, anyone who wants can climb them!

This enraged the men, and several were of a mind to use the opportunity thus offered. They wanted to leave the river and the hot valley and make straight across the mountains towards Quesada. When the captain heard of this, he too wanted to come along. He was oppressed by arguments with the sick, disgusted with the stinking pestilential ships. He set himself at the head of the men. They were pleased. He appointed a deputy to oversee the ships. They would make a foray into the mountains, be back in a week or two. Meanwhile the sick should be tended, the able-bodied could recoup their strength.

A week later they were back, the march through jungle had exhausted them, they had met no one, there were no springs of water, they were near starving, and when Alcobazo asked along the way if it would not be better to go on by ship, they turned back without a murmur.

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But back on the river in its rocky course, they suffered shipwreck. They attacked some rapids and overcame the first. Again and again they tried to defeat the second, which was higher and wider. The lofty banks were fringed with meadows and majestic forests of palm. They worked sails and oars and levered the boats along the rocky riverbed. Oars gained no purchase, there was no holding the vessels, the current swept them back. Some crewmen sat at the oars, others stood on deck and shoved and coaxed the sturdy vessel with poles, naked to their loincloths. Most of the people went ashore, coiled ropes around shoulders and chest, and hauled from the banks. These were covered in sharp stones, it was hard to keep a footing. A line broke, flinging the men on that side like berries on a twig down into the scrub. The ship lurched. It swung sideways. For a moment the haulers on the other side were relieved of the strain, then all at once the rope was torn from their hands and whoever did not let go flew in an arc out over the river. The ship was caught by the current, swept like a toy back over the lower rapids and hurtled headlong downstream with its masts and flapping sails. Above the constant roar of the rapids there was only a feeble sound when the unlucky vessel, Spanish ensign at the masthead, crashed against the rocky bank. Prow in the air, broad stern leaning awkwardly, it groaned and split apart.

Now debris swirled, screams rose unheard from the sick. Below deck, green thick water swirled up. Men could be seen clinging to masts and sails. They tried to swim, but were seized and dragged under by the current. Downriver they collected bodies and the injured.

Next day they tried again with the second ship. This time they were lucky. To demonstrate his resolve, Captain Alcobazo himself stood on deck and directed operations. And above the rapids they floated in a calm basin between meadows and palms, and rested and readied themselves to haul the other ship up next day. To give courage to those in the lower ship, Alcobazo spent the night with them.

They were startled awake when the endless roar of rapids was overlain by a terrific crash. Men screaming close by. And when torches were lit, the ship they had hauled up yesterday was listing helplessly not far off, beam-on across the current, its rigging sprawled like dead limbs. At the sight of this and the helpless men spinning in the water, and amid the din all around him, Alcobazo wept and beat his breast. They rescued what they could in the dark. They laboured by torchlight until the triumphant sun returned. The rapids roared on.

Slowly they realised that this place was evil. This is what it will look like, the place where you meet your fate, you men who came together from Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy. This is how the sky will show its face, how purple clouds will build, how water will gush when you all shall perish. Sky and water were not for a moment different from anywhere else. Fear penetrated their bones.

The river foamed and played around low cliffs, trees thrust mighty crowns into the brightness. The men clutched their amulets. They pressed around Alcobazo.

The day after the burials the decision was taken: whoever can walk will follow Alcobazo up into the mountains. The sick will remain on board with a handful of men, who must swear to the captain that they will not abandon their post. The captain will march slowly and leave trail marks in case those left behind want to follow. They were instructed that, unless the situation changed, they should sail as quickly as possible back downstream to the coast.

Alcobazo marched off with fifty fit men. From the nearest high point they looked down on two ships, one broken and one whole. They knelt and prayed: forgiveness for themselves, deliverance for those below.

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Endless rain and storms lashed the valley of the Magdalena, the men allowed the flood to drive the ship, their meagre provisions became a soggy mess. They railed against Alcobazo and Quesada and this whole expedition that had brought them here from Mexico, from the islands and the safety of their homelands. Under the vigilant eyes of the sick they steered out of the mainstream to the bank, climbed ashore with muskets. Earlier they had asked the sick: who wants to be shot? and administered a good number of coups de grace. The terrified cries of the last survivors rang out behind them as they climbed the bank. They took no notice. They knew that what lay ahead of them was just as bad.

And in truth: two weeks after Alcobazo’s departure not a single man survived of those he had left behind, whether able-bodied or sick.

In the thorny scrub where they lay motionless and no longer hungered, those who had been fit provided feasts for beetles and worms and birds. Above the silent ship flocks of vultures wheeled, rose on heavy wings, and scattered the bones of men driven here out of their dreary homelands.

In rushing water, in treetops, in dank thickets they met their end.

Trek over the mountains

But Quesada and his people marched on, those brawny intemperate men. Europe sent them across. They knew nothing of the others’ demise, and even if they had known they would have said: “Why talk of that?” and marched on.

Quesada, deputy to Lugo, governor of Santa Marta, who had meanwhile died – for here life and death are swift, things are born and destroyed, rivers fling their waters about and dry up, heat embraces the mountains and shatters their stone, forests grow tall and tree-ferns slowly decay into bog – Quesada climbed into the mountains of Santa Marta. He passed with his army through the southern part of the valley of Upar, traversed not long before by the tyrant Ambrosius Alfinger.

Who was Ximenes de Quesada? A white man, church and king his backbone, fame and glory his heart and blood, he was no better or worse than anyone else. What it was that drove him, he knew as little as the others.

The country became hilly. Two rivers flowing from the south discharged into a big lake, Lago Zapatosa. The ground quaked as they marched, horsemen, carriages with small cannon, and infantry. This was a swampy region. The two rivers drained vast amounts of water and carried it seawards, but the ground still oozed wetness. The army granted itself no rest, they were drawn on by the blue line of mountains, the snowy peaks, they wanted solid ground for their feet, for the horses’ hooves and the wheels of carriages. Here and there wide mirrors of water lay on the earth. It stank.

They had come together for adventure and violent deeds. In the lands of the Whites, in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, they had nothing to lose. Come, you new found land, hand over all your riches.

The blue mountains drew nearer, very slowly the ground rose. The troop was glad to enter the forest, leave behind stinking water and fleshy plants with their poisonous sap. They camped above the swampy plain, which still pursued them with feelers of mist. They dried out, men, horses, blankets, vehicles, cannon and muskets. They found springs of sweet water.

They camped around a fire. They had food and drink, darkskins brought unfamiliar roots from the forest, one was called cracha, it was celery, it calms your hunger and keeps you alert. Butterflies filled the air, and all around rose palm trees taller than they had ever seen. Slender as reeds are the curas palms that clump together as a bush, then stretch insatiable higher and higher into the boundless light to unfurl their fans. The darkskins knew every tree, every species, clambered up trunks, scraped them, brought down handfuls of yellow wax.

Mercenaries chatted with a monk by the fire. “You, monk, you think to fool us. You can fill your belly in Spain, what are you looking for here? You want to grab the best morsels for yourself.”

Another: “Truly, priestling, there’s no pope or king to protect you here.”

“Monk, you’re here to steal souls. What did you ever do in your monastery but sleep and guzzle and drink? A belly like yours doesn’t grow from nothing. How many girls have you dandled on your knee? Wish my dad wanted me to be a monk. But I had to cart dung.”

Another: “I tried it with my axe, the carpenter’s trade, cut posts and doors and rafters for them. By the time you’re journeyman you’re bandy and timid. And by the time you make master you’ve already sold your blood to your master, and are just an empty shell. I’d rather burn their rafters and knock down their doors. A soldier’s life is fine. You can lord it over people.”

They bawled songs. The celery they ate, the wine they drank had their effect. They wanted women. Governor and captains were pleased: such men would not be ground down.

Patrols sent by Quesada into the mountains brought bad news. The darkskins knew only narrow paths for single file, the forest was locked tight, the patrols in rags, their hands scratched to pieces. So Quesada conferred in his tent with his deputy and the monk. Amid jaunty music of drum and flute from the campfire, Quesada advised – retreat.

“I have experience of these forests. We must catch savages, but they know how to hide. They rely on thorns and undergrowth. I have staked much on this venture. If I go back with nothing gained and everything lost, I’ll never leave the debtor’s prison. The Crown will look favourably on my caution and avoidance of rashness.”

The monk nodded: “The Crown has little love for bald mice. If you have doubts, governor, turn back and preserve your money and the Christians that we already have.”

“And you?” the governor asked Barreda, his senior captain, of whom he was afraid.

“I am obliged to you for making me your deputy. I wouldn’t want to deputise on a retreat. Do for me what you did for Alcobazo: two hundred men and weapons. Wait around while I give it a try.”

“Do you have nothing to lose, no bride, no wife at home, no father, no mother?”

“All of those, sir governor. Still I want to try.”

“But why, captain?”

“I want, I want.”

“That is no answer.”

Then there was silence in the tent. In the clearing, drums and flutes played without pause, horsemen charged by, gunners fired test rounds, the Whites knew what was coming, were ready for it.

The captain: “Give me two hundred men.”

The governor screamed: “You heard what I said! You understand nothing. I’ll send you off to find Alcobazo.” When he stood up he ordered them to keep the discussion to themselves.

Two days later Barreda noticed preparations were being made to break camp without his knowledge. He went around and by evening had gathered two hundred men. Next morning, while drums and pipes sounded for decampment and tents were being struck, he set off eastwards at a fast pace with his foot soldiers.

The governor summoned the notary royal to his tent. “My deputy Barreda is a scoundrel. He has mutinied.”

“Where do you intend to aim for across the mountains, sir governor?”

He had to admit, as the notary gaped in astonishment, that he planned to retreat. The conversation ended with advice from the royal clerk to assume misunderstanding on the captain’s part, and to request his prompt reappearance at the camp together with his men. This happened, and Barreda found himself back in place. No quarrel occurred between Quesada and his deputy.

On the morning when they finally struck camp, Quesada, under duress and filled with loathing, had the whole army assembled for Mass, and spoke after the priest: “These forests and mountains are a wall, separating us from an empire of gold. You want to press through, and you shall press through. Let no one say I failed to do my utmost to bring you to the goal.”

At this point he could speak no more for rage. Barreda saluted with his sword and took over: “Some may already have asked yourselves: why did we have to leave home, why is gold so rare back home while here the heathen pick it from the sand? Heaven was thinking of us poor people when it hid gold in faraway sands. The rich are born rich, they inherit, they are kings and princes, dukes or merchants. While the soldier who puts his life on the line must stay forever poor. For him there’s only the Kingdom of Heaven once he’s dead. But it’s not so. Soldiers have fists and courage and horses and muskets. We can shoot, and take what comes to hand. That’s justice. You all know what lies ahead. You would not be soldiers if you thought that all you have to do is sit at table. It can’t be done without war. The war starts now. Holy Mary be our guide!”

Then they set off.

They faced forest, thorns, insects, worms, scorpions, heat, damp, hunger, thirst, exhaustion. They had brought bloodhounds along, to hunt savages. The quartermaster set trusted men around the hounds so they would not be slaughtered and eaten. When something edible was found it was given first to the riders, so they would not butcher the horses. The darkskins, who knew the paths and understood the forest, were treated with respect. The Whites learned like them to pluck fruit from tall trees and grub for roots with sticks. During the first two weeks there were losses to desertion. After that everyone realised they had to make it through, or else they were lost.

Away from the swamps and quaking ground and into jungle, thorn bushes and liana-hung scrub. If any were not soldiers before, they were now. They were Whites, born from the struggle against Death, they saw neither forest nor thorns, no worms or scorpions, they felt no heat, hunger, cold. The forest kept silent while blades and murder raged within. They struck and stabbed, hacked and throttled, killed and died. Quesada and his captain Barreda drove the army out of the valleys onto high mountains. They chose the high road so they could look down into the valleys. It wound up and down, from steaming heat to frost. Once the jungle had torn their clothes to shreds, leather became superfluous. They put straps, sheaths, cuirasses, armbands to good use, sliced them up to cook and eat. Sometimes Quesada had to halt for days in high places, the bleeding sickness was on them, they were too weak to continue. Wandering darkskins like charming butterflies approached, some big and strong, some of the Coygaba tribe that Alcobazo had encountered, who indicated: our people are far away, they have gold and much to eat. They were tied up, and made to lead the way.

Vultures followed their progress. Jaguars stalked the forest, took weak men from their hammocks. Many stumbled and were not in their senses, but they marched and obeyed. The soldiers had to be restrained from cannibalism. On rocky cliffs grew cacti with yellow and white flowers. They implored the Virgin of Pilar. They boiled tree-bark and tried to eat dirt. Sometimes they ascended so quickly from a valley to the icy cold of a pass that they spat blood. Not many complained. Both Quesada, now won over to the expedition, and his commander set an example. But the men needed none. Their rage dragged them through. On the steepest paths they corkscrewed their way higher. Like a wounded man losing blood and no one knows how much more he has to lose, the troop lost men and lost men and left them lying in its wake.

When they approached the highest peaks they were still three hundred strong. And as they lurched half naked through the passes of the icy Paramos, another hundred or more froze to death. Some who had become blind along the way were strapped onto horses.

All around, the endless forests wept and howled. They heard none of it. Trees that die and fall. Hurtling winds screaming their pain as they melt snow and ice to feed the becks. Suffering, all of it. And the deer and the ponderous birds. Trunks groaning, boughs cracking, water wearing away. Terrible speechless world. Through it marched the murderers and desecrators.

Up, down, week after week.

When they came to a narrow river, they turned to follow it up the valley. They set to with axe and knife. Each man received daily eighteen grains of maize counted out into his hand. The desperation brooding in them was ready to burst. Then one horribly wet morning, as they roused themselves after a stormy night to face yet another day of struggle, there on the river, the Opon, came two slender boats, rowed by darkskins. The boats stopped. They were laden with salt and bright cottons. The rowers were not to proceed, must serve as guides for a while, they accepted an axe for the whole load.

Then scouts up ahead spied fields and flower gardens. The savannah.

It was a broad landscape with lakes. Mountain streams poured down from side valleys. A slow muddy river wound across the plain.

≈≈≈

Barreda went down with a few armed men and native guides while the band waited at the edge of the forest. And as they stumbled down the gentle incline with their monstrous beards and long tangled hair, faces yellow and haggard, sunken doleful eyes, thin white arms bare, shoeless, clad in rags and leaves – a shrill wailing rose to meet them from the valley floor, endless wailing. The forest, speechless, suffering, began to ululate.

A hundred dark people, men, women, children, stood there below with arms raised, crying and wailing. Weird spirits have come down from the sky, in broad daylight, into our valley.

Barreda’s people, aided by natives, hauled bananas, maize meal, pigeons, hares back up the slope, all handed over for nothing in return. The faces of the dark locals showed amazement, disbelief, horror. Again and again bearers trudged up and down, brought cloth, exotic jackets and skirts. The soldiers smartened themselves up, and when they saw themselves in the outlandish clothes they twisted their gnarled faces into the semblance of a smile, like corpses.

The governor held them back, made them rest up for two days. The camp was a field hospital. They held a service to thank the distant mighty god who had given them knives and axes and guns and guided them through the gloomy forest. They were a hundred and sixty six strong. Sixty two horsemen, a dozen arquebusiers, sixteen crossbowmen. The rest had only sword and shield.

Cundinamarca

A horde of whiteskins, debris of an army, feverish, emaciated, their baggage a few chests, having escaped annihilation descended into the little valley with some horses and dogs and a few weapons. They were only half in their senses. And as they trudged down the gentle slope, limping even worse than in the forest, again they heard shrill wailing from the valley. Again a hundred villagers stood there with arms raised, wailed and cried as the uncanny spirits with their weird animals approached. They prostrated themselves in horror.

The limping soldiers picked up speed. They could see a big town down on the savannah. Quesada, disordered in his senses like the others, had enough presence of mind to hold back the men who still remained to him. What could they do in their wretched condition? But they pressed on, deaf to advice. Quesada himself was dazed by reports from the interpreters: this was a realm heaped with gold. Villagers said the same.

The following days brought continuous thunderstorms. They were on their last legs. Another few days and they would be done for. They lay there for a week, no more died. Then they roused themselves, moved out of this valley they dubbed the Valley of Wailing and, to the tap of the only drum they still possessed, belaboured with two sticks by a weary drummer, they stumbled, rode into the blooming savannah. People from the village ran on ahead to raise the alarm.

The river below was called Funza, as was the extensive town that lay beside it. Quesada quartered his troops at the town’s edge.

It was a happy place, you could hear singing and lively commotion. Maize fields and flower gardens stretched far into the plain, all carefully watered. Crowds of darkskinned people with placid faces came streaming from the town. Men, women and children stared at the strangers. Their colour was a deep dark olive-brown. The men wore hats of animal skin, of wool with feathers, long tunics, some wore long white gowns. They walked sedately and had a decorous, even dignified demeanour, some were solemn. The Whites were astonished to see how marvellously alike they all looked. In the throng were persons with nose rings and huge ear discs of gold, and golden half-moons at their brow.

When the Whites extended a hand to the people, they shrank back exclaiming. A peaceful convoy wound endlessly back and forth between town and camp, dark natives and Whites carried timber, cotton cloth, game, fruit, maize, yams, potatoes, and huge jugs of maize beer. The warriors in camp began to guzzle and swill, drank and drank. There was no holding them back. They groomed the horses, made a horrible din sharpening swords, cleaned muskets and the mighty skull-smashers, wooden macanas they had fashioned on the native model. They patched up remarkable breastplates they had cobbled together in the forest after their cuirasses were gone and they had to throw their armour away because they could no longer carry it. They had trimmed thin slats of wood, tied them together and hung them between scraps of cloth; these ugly cages were supposed to stop arrows.

The men, stuffed full and brains on fire, played cards and tried to calm down. With one bound, avarice had seized them. The expedition was over.

When these men close to death first spied the savannah, they saw it as a bed, it was blissful not to have to drag themselves on any farther. Now they were themselves again. Meat, maize, beer, fruit had done the job. They were once again the Whites that Quesada had gathered around him on the coast. Blood surged in them. And now it had come true.

They were in the land of dreams. They were in the land of gold. Truly in a heavenly land.

Mine, all mine!

They danced in the camp.

Hey dear Mother, you bore me, and I grew to a rogue and ran away, hey, dear Mother, thanks for my life. Huzza huzza, I’m rich!

Hey dear Father, you sired me, let me grow to robber, churl, rogue. I damned and despised you. Hey dear Father, thanks for my life. Huzza huzza, I’m rich!

Hey dear Sister, you grew to serving girl, milkmaid, fat and dirty, never found a husband, threw yourself away on good-for-nothings, no makeup or baubles, no shoes or ribbons, and I, I had nothing to give you. Hey, dear Sister, you can have anything you want. Huzza huzza, I’m rich!

Hey dear Bride, hey dear little bride, Lucinda Dorinda Teresa Camilla, with your ruddy cheeks and your pale arms, you sit at your window and scorn me, waiting for a fine man, a knight. Now I’m a fine man with money and gold, all of us have ten thousand in gold, you’ll all lick our boots. A whole town fell to us, a golden land fell to us, I’m a nobleman, a count, a marquis. Hey dear Bride, I’m coming to fetch you, today and tomorrow and next day, wait for me just a little day. We’re dancing for you, my new little bride, the golden bridegroom is coming to you. Huzza huzza, ten thousand huzzas.

≈≈≈

Small groups already sworn to plunder roamed the camp singing insolent songs.

They waited for the signal to attack.

When the governor’s tent was up, the flag of Castile hoisted, he summoned his commander, the elder of the two Dominicans (the more cheerful man of the cloth had been left lying on a high pass), the notary royal and some officers. He shook their hands laughing, something he never did, babbled, thanked, complimented them on the coming victory. He was intoxicated like the rest, tried to gather his wits. He was even giddier than the officers, the ground swayed beneath him. A tremor rippled across his smiling haggard fever-yellow face that ended in an untidy goatee, as if his avarice was seeking to break through. Heedless of his status in their company, he treated them to one of his hypocritical speeches:

“I intend to set an example of peaceful conquest. The Crown appointed me governor of a province, not a wasteland. We shall place a prosperous new region at the disposal of the Empire. I would hear your opinion.”

All concurred. The commander with reservations. The governor saw how none dared gainsay him.

“This is no conquered land. The defenceless natives will surely offer no resistance. By proceeding with prudence, all will fall into our hands: gold, slaves, precious stones.”

The order was given to confine all troops rigorously to camp. The governor would initiate the necessary negotiations. Outside the tent, commander and officers eyed one another, notary and priest hurried away. The officers lifted their hands in a gesture of helplessness, the commander looked grim: “We’re led by a shopkeeper. The men sweated blood for a glorious venture. They’re denied what they were promised.” The officers: “The governor summoned us in secret, he wants accomplices. He daren’t set foot outside his tent. Why doesn’t he address his fancy words to everyone? He dare not.”

An hour later they found that the governor had strengthened his bodyguard to ten men. The soldiers were glad: it’ll start soon. Officers whispered together. Soon officers and functionaries were summoned again to Quesada’s presence. Quesada begged their pardon, but something had come up, of importance for him and the whole band. He paced furiously about the tent, kept his voice low, you saw how he struggled with his agitation. He unrolled for the officers and functionaries to see – how fortunate that it was preserved! – the deed appointing him deputy to Fernandes de Lugo, governor of Santa Marta. He showed them the baton, long familiar to them, emblem of his rank: “What lies ahead goes, of course, beyond the agreed objects of this expedition. I have no authority for the relevant measures. Appointments from home are not possible. The troop must now choose its own leader.”

They were taken aback. He concluded by urging officers and functionaries to confer and nominate a chief for the coming activities. Would they make their choice known to him within the hour. They huddled together in a daze, Quesada had placed his tent at their disposal. “Of course we must choose him,” said the notary. “Surely he won’t abandon us, just at this moment.” They asked one another: “Has someone annoyed him, upset him?” The notary suggested: “He is terribly aware of his responsibilities. For this place will become nothing less than a Viceroyalty.” A shudder ran through them, and quite involuntarily their faces, those wizened wrinkled folds of skin, twisted beneath their tangled beards into smiles: flames licking beneath a sheet of ice.

Barreda, stocky little commander, daredevil and man of iron, would have liked nothing better just then than to shoot the governor down. He saw through the manoeuvre. The fox just wanted to make himself independent, unconstrained by any governor in Santa Marta. Barreda marvelled at the governor’s greed and effrontery. But Quesada had the wind at his back. Barreda swallowed his opinions. Ximenes de Quesada tugged his little beard as Barreda, on behalf of all, conveyed to him the request that he retain command. He embraced the notary, embraced the commander – his comrade in arms and companion in adversity – and clapped him on the back. Quesada had lost all measure.

≈≈≈

Late in the afternoon, the air still hot, gawkers at the camp gate drew back. Out of the seething encampment poured the whiteskinned bearded host, many barefoot, some in native pantaloons, some with feet and legs bandaged to the knee and higher with rags. The damnable enchanted forest had ripped their flesh, hundreds and hundreds lay dead back there, never forget. They walked and rode in caps and shirtlike garments that came from the natives, over them the clumsy wooden chest-cages. Many still spat blood from scurvy and mouthrot. They spat too at the dark people who ran past them towards the town. They dragged their bones along. They were on their way to shake gold and women out of the natives. Near the town a crowd of dark people joined up with the whiteskins’ train. They imitated every movement, strove to comprehend the strangers. In the van, surrounded by armed men, the governor. An envoy had gone ahead to announce him.

The town had paved streets and wooden houses, wide roofs shaped like shallow cones, small low windows and doors, only a few had doors of wood, most had curtains of long bamboo slats tied with string. Narrow streets. Everywhere olive-green men stood around, drew silently back into the walls and dappled shadows. Some wore big gold discs at the chest, glittering armbands, some wore nose rings. Young women stood outside the larger houses, wearing dainty caps seemingly of spun gold, and girdles of similar stuff. Hooves clattered on stone, bloodhounds bayed.

They came to a round sunscorched marketplace, where a large house of stone stood between others of wood. The place was hemmed in by a dense silent mass of people, dark heads above bright clothing. Quesada’s troops entered the plaza. They found themselves at the wide low house of stone, its roof made of slates, facing almost a hundred men and women, kneeling or prostrate, elderly and very old, hands bound behind their backs. Horsemen formed a semicircle around the governor, who wore a tunic over his shirt of mail, and a heavy gold chain. Several men flanked by spear-bearers stepped from the stone house, their garments dazzling, colourful designs embellished their cloaks, their tall round headgear was of gold, plaques on their brow flashed rays of light.

The governor’s dark interpreters came to him. The Indian leaders bowed low and stood in silence, kept a distance. From his horse Quesada asked if these men had something to say to him. Let them approach. After a lengthy conversation between interpreters and leaders, they reported: The cacique of this place presents these trussed people to the emissaries of heaven, and prays for mercy.

Quesada asked what he was meant to do with them. If they were hostages, and what sort of people were they.

The interpreters returned: The Whites are gods, or like gods, these men and women are given to the Whites as sacrifices to be killed and eaten. The interpreters spoke quite openly and, only moments after the soldiers heard this, the plaza echoed to a gale of ribald laughter. Sober Quesada kept a straight face. He bent down to the priest at his side. “They think us cannibals.”

Then he dismounted, took from one soldier a sword and from another a flag with a likeness of the Holy Virgin. Then the notary royal read from a scroll:

“Long live the illustrious King of Castile! We make known to you that there is one God, one Pope and one King of Castile. In the name of the King of Castile we take possession of this land. And if any ruler, whether Christian or heathen, should assert any claim to this land, then we are resolved and prepared to contest such claim and defend the rights of the King of Castile.”

The interpreters translated. The banner was planted firmly in the middle of the open space. As the discussion proceeded, the drum sounded and Quesada ordered that the plaza and surrounding streets, and also the route back to the camp, be secured. He himself sat with his bodyguard, some officers, the notary and the priest in the shady portico of the stone house.

The Indian chieftains, who called themselves usacs, informed him that their overlord was the great Zipa, they were his servants and must await his instructions. The Zipa’s kingdom was called Cundinamarca. Everything to the east between the two mountain ranges, from the mighty Magdalena river to the mountains of Merida, belonged to the Zipa. The town was called Funza, a long way off lay the town of Muqueta and the town of Sogamoso. They were called Muisca, People.

They reported, as the notary began to write: This is the seat of the King of Tunja, whom the Zipa has just now subjugated. The Zipa pursued the vassal king with a huge army. Now the High Priest of the kingdom has brokered a ceasefire, for twenty moons.

Quesada asked uneasily: where at present is the army of the great Zipa? With satisfaction he learned that on the High Priest’s advice both the great Zipa and the unruly vassal had disbanded their armies. For politeness’ sake Quesada uttered a few more remarks. Then, with an eye to what was to follow, he asked how the Muisca counted and reckoned. The reply was curious, but unlike the notary, who lent half an ear to the conversation, he did not smile. They counted on their fingers, then their toes, that made twenty, and so on, quite reliably as Quesada discovered, even though they named their numbers strangely: one was frog, two a nose with its two nostrils, three was two eyes open, four, two eyes closed, five, two faces joined, nine, two frogs embracing.

During this conversation the delighted notary memorialised as never before in his life. As he wrote he glanced enraptured across at the governor. Who should we thank for this. He rejoiced for all the Indians who had gathered in this place and built this town. Wonderful how they allowed themselves to be discovered by our band. Governor, notary, commander and priest set their names at the end of the memorial. It was superfluous to exact a signature from a plenipotentiary representative of the late government, since the natives had no writing. Anxiously they followed the mysterious movements of the notary over his scroll. What magical signs is he making there. With growing dread the people glanced back and forth between Quesada and the little notary. One of the uncanny beings spends a long time making marks on the flat sheet, now other men make strokes on it, now the first man stands and forms the sheet into a tube. The usacs on the portico could no longer stand upright for horror, they sank to the ground and stretched out their arms, begged for mercy. Quesada turned aside in disgust.

In order not to be caught in the town at nightfall, Quesada ordered the leaders on the portico to bring to the plaza, without delay, all items of gold or of the value of gold, whether public or private. He wanted a first glimpse of the riches of this place.

The order was obeyed without demur. Riders formed a circle around the enormous heap that rose under the banner of the Virgin. The clamour and excitement of the soldiers at this sight was brutal. Quesada’s own agitation mounted. The sight exceeded all expectation. The circle around the heap had to keep widening as shields, head plates, neck rings, arm rings, ear pendants, figures large and small of people, lizards, frogs, suns, moons were piled onto it. The heap grew, people ran like ants hither and thither. The heap overtopped the horses, so that riders on one side could no longer see those on the other. And all of gold! They sampled some pieces: heavy gold. Sometimes silvered, a lot set with emeralds and rubies. For these people, it seemed, gold was what copper or steel were elsewhere.

Quesada could not take his eyes from the heap. He spoke with those around him, but it was mere jabbering, he did not even know himself what he said. Governor, officers, even the two Dominicans, everyone was stunned. This truly was the land of gold, Eldorado. Soldiers on horseback in their chest-cages, these untamed greedy beast-men, victims of misfortune, robbers, vagabonds, pardoned gallows-birds, all giggled, jostled, laughed in derision and delight. If only we could set to. Blood, sturdy women, strapping women, a waist to grab.

Before sunset, in the seething plaza – dark people still ran whispering hither and thither, urging each other on – Quesada gave the signal to move out with the goods. Neighbouring streets were already in uproar as soldiers slipped away on their own initiative, invaded houses. Protected by his bodyguard, Quesada supervised the transport. Cart after cart moved off, darkskins hauled them and shouldered sacks. Quesada was glad to have given the signal in good time, it seemed the massive heap would never shrink. The horde of darkskins laboured in silence, an endless caravan stretched along the road out to the camp. Soldiers looked on, yelling and laughing their heads off. They were in a madhouse, the whole world was crazy. As darkness fell, Quesada moved out of the plaza.

They were stupefied. It was almost beyond bearing. They arrived here naked. Now kingdoms, dukedoms!

A raucous mob of soldiers came on behind. They were offended by the withdrawal. Quesada heard them shout: “Give us some savages to eat, at least!”

Having set a strong guard around the camp and undertaken by torchlight an initial division of the spoils, after first subtracting the king’s fifth, Quesada thought the camp would calm down. But the tumult grew louder by the minute. This was the moment of crisis.

Barreda conferred with some officers, spat: “We are subject to the orders, not of a governor but of a shopkeeper.” With any of them at his back, he would murder Quesada. He saw that the others, the whole camp, were ripe for anything.

Quesada, profoundly uneasy, tasted the air, summoned the officers: “I will not acquire the reputation of a butcher. Castile, indeed all Christianity, is watching us.” At this fancy prating the officers lost all control, they shouted across each other: “Our men waded through swamps, hacked through forests, died. People and town belong to us, it’s the rules of war.”

Quesada (what will become of us, we must hold back) nagged: “This is not war! Until now no one has given us so much as a hostile look. We have no grounds to attack. Our task is to take possession of the land, secure it for the Crown.” Commander Barreda, hands and knees trembling, gazed wild-eyed at the others. All had the same thought: shall we strike him down?

Barreda boasted: he has ascertained that a number of musketeers have remained behind in the town on their own account. Quesada bristled: “And are still there? And you knew it only now?”

The governor could not restrain himself, he saw the danger, he feigned desperation, flung back the tent flap: “Listen to the tumult! Is this an orderly camp? It is not my doing. No one can demand the impossible. If you persist in your plan, I can vouch for nothing. How is your authority over the men?”

“Governor, we give no guarantee that us officers and you yourself will survive this night.”

Quesada closed the flap. He drew the commander aside. “But for you, this whole dreadful excursion that has cost so many lives would not have succeeded. You know that.”

“Others would have come.”

Quesada nattered away to this subordinate who wanted to murder him, said anything that came into his head, he sought to flatter Barreda, make him accomplice to his shabby intentions, Barreda won’t come away too badly. Barreda was sickened. Since he did not yield, Quesada put on airs: “You officers lack sense, you’ll ruin everything.” He almost wept. “In any case you share responsibility for all this, and for the state of the men, which is not seemly for an army.” Barreda waited for the conclusion. “I wash my hands of all that’s coming. You have deserted me. It is a disgrace, but I am powerless.”

“We must find the musketeers.”

Quesada’s smile was full of loathing: “Find, commander? In the middle of the night?”

Uproar surrounded the tent. The men demanded town, plunder, women. Quesada cocked an ear. He clapped the commander on the shoulder and beckoned to the priest: “Just listen to that! They want to eat people after all.” The commander concealed his disgust at this duplicity.

≈≈≈

Black night. A drum sounded the alarm. The mob assembled by torchlight. They made a riotous departure. They took along all the hounds. A small detail guarded the camp.

All mine! Gold! Women!

They ran. Could not be held to a marching pace. Officers swore. Only when they reached the houses did they close ranks and quieten down. The hounds in their midst bayed furiously.

The town stirred. Streets filled with confused anxious people, who followed the procession. You lot’ll pay, every farthing, every penny, if there’s a door I’ll break it down, my belly, my guts are rotted, I keep vomiting and you must pay. They brought wood to the marketplace, it gave warmth and light. No natives were there. In some streets they drove old men and women from the houses to witness the sacrifice and feast that was to come, people ran and knocked on doors to fetch them. An officer at Quesada’s side in the plaza raised a banner, the drum rat-tatted briefly, a soldier shouted towards the silent houses illuminated by the flames:

“Know there is one God, one Pope, one king of Castile, and the Pope has given you all to the king to be his slaves. We order you to obey. If not, we’ll make war on you with fire and sword.”

They camped in the marketplace. The hounds kept up their beastly furious baying. The Zipa’s palace and a temple were placed under guard. A search was made for the soldiers who had remained in town. A rumour spread that they had been murdered. The troops, raging, were beyond restraint. Quesada stumbled on his lanky legs from one group to another, he could not believe they wanted plunder, they could have all the women they wanted, but to squander and fritter away such riches…

He wandered here and there, at his side the merciless villain Barreda, the spoiler. There they lurked by the fire, ready to leap, panting, a pack straining at the leash. He tried to implore this one, that one, but they just stared or ignored him, he could not speak.

During the third night watch, a trumpet sounded.

A tremendous roar erupted. A salvo was fired off. They ran with torches in hunting packs through the streets, bellowing wordlessly. Doors were burst open with shoulder or axe or halberd. Rapine began. Hey, dear mother who bore me.

Men overpowered women. The town was a single blur of shooting, bellowing, crackling, screaming, wailing, panting. Old people in the street suffered what they expected: they were knocked down and trampled by horses. Hey, dear father who sired me, you let me grow to robber, churl, rogue.

All mine!

Horror throughout the town. Panic on a sinking ship at sea, fear amid the tumult of war. Overpowering all thought, all feeling. Demons have alighted on our roofs, they run about our streets, the weird strangers are tearing us apart, hear how they strike and scream, there they are, hey! dear bride, little bride, Lucinda Dorinda Teresa, who sat at your window and scorned me.

Patrols tried to stop fights among the plunderers. Fires were started. Men looted, grew sated, slept far into the day. From sunset to sunset the town belonged to the soldiers. The natives offered no resistance. It was all the same to the soldiers: resistance or no resistance, they slew or spared at whim.

The town was large, home to some ten thousand dark people. The Whites could not possess it all in a night. Drawn now to left, now to right, giddy, ecstatic over the loot, they rampaged from house to house, stacked piles of gold in the lanes, left them, ran off, drank, forgot everything, stayed indoors with women. I’m coming to fetch you today, tomorrow, next day, the golden bridegroom’s on his way.

That night packs of jaguars appeared in the streets, roamed the town, busied themselves with corpses, leapt into houses. The bloodhounds of the Whites confronted them. Hideous baying. Their drunken masters joined in, suffered wounds. By daylight dozens of jaguars lay in the streets, torn to pieces by the giant hounds. These were jaguars that had been tethered by order of the magistrate at the doors of recalcitrant debtors, they had torn free, dragged chains and sometimes half a door.

Next morning the Cistercian monks came into town, summoned by haggard defeated Quesada, who had stayed all the while in the plaza. Sometimes he was alone, cursing at flames and shadows, even the notary had deserted him. When the monks arrived they invited him to pray. He mumbled bitterly with them, hollowed out by his impotence. The monks dared only a brief look around, it would not take much to trigger an assault, the men thought they’d come to steal. They tried to baptise the dying. In the streets they found jaguars busy with human corpses, mauled beasts, bloodhounds running loose, outside many houses were household implements, sacks of food, heaps of gold, no one guarding them, the owner snoring somewhere. Alleys slippery with blood. The town lifeless. Officers were courteous to the priests and guided them around. On advice from the priests, crowds of darkskinned men – trembling slaves now, unadorned, clad in rags – were driven from houses and assigned their first task: collect the dead of their people and throw them into graves east of the town.

The Zipa

The Zipa’s palace lay at the edge of town in an extensive park, his wives’ houses behind.

It was a round building. The roofbeams were of precious wood inlaid with gold. In the big open space in front of the house stood the Pillar of the Sun, by means of which priests measured shadows and determined the time, and the calendar for feast days and harvests.

Late that afternoon Quesada, abjectly shuffling, exhausted, liverish, was led to the palace. The huge round building amazed him, its centre rising in a slender pyramid high as a palm tree. Before the gate they saw a gigantic carved pillar which aroused their revulsion: on a square plinth of stone stood a rectilinear carving of a wide-mouthed idol with retracted head and tiny body. The idol’s cheeks were painted garishly, heavy gold chains hung from the chest, the girdle was sprinkled with precious stones. Then they were led in by men with nose rings and a half moon on their forehead.

Their amazement did not abate. The corridors they were led along were endless, they went through empty rooms, came to more and yet more corridors. Corridors zigzagged, some led in a semicircle, they traversed bare lofty halls. Quesada looked around for his commander. They were in a labyrinth. It was a trap. But they had swords. All the Whites had been transformed by that night. It was as if they all went around with a dagger clenched between their teeth.

Suddenly they stood at a little door, in no way distinguished from others they had passed. But now the guides halted and turned their backs to the door, knocked on the floor with their tall staves until a signal came from within. Then, without turning, they opened the door.

In a low wide room, the fat old king sat against a bright wall and kept his eyes closed. A row of low gold-chased chairs had been placed some distance from the throne.

The dark courtiers who accompanied Quesada and his retinue walked backwards into the middle of the room. Then one crawled right up to the king’s feet and spoke without lifting his head. The conversation lasted a long time. The servants of the Zipa too, all in sumptuous garments, and at their breast golden shields of varying sizes – on the heads of some, above their long black locks, swayed great gaudy feathers alongside a golden half-moon, others were adorned with little caps of spun gold, everywhere big emeralds sparkled – all of them, olive-green noblemen, vassals, courtiers, stood with eyes downcast. Quesada was asked to repeat what he had told the cacique regarding the purpose of his mission. As Quesada spoke – along with his retinue he had meanwhile sat down, sword in front of him, apathetic, and here in the deep calm slowly felt his way back to the role of governor that had deserted him – the old man regarded one by one governor, priest, commander. His eyes were small and bloodshot, a little white beard sprouted from his chin, he wore a red headband, his strong face showed no expression. His head was set low between his shoulders, with his short arms and legs he was the very picture of a giant turtle.

He asked about the country and the gods of the Whites. The priest stood, advanced closer, held up the cross. He challenged the Zipa to renounce the shameful idolatry indulged in by him and his people, and accept baptism. After some crawling to and fro and translating, the old man murmured something. The Whites learned that the highest god is called Bochica. He bestows protection on the Chibcha people. He carries the world on his shoulders.

The priest, when he heard the translation, smacked a hand indignantly on his book. Then the Zipa murmured something else. They learned that he wanted to be carried to the marketplace, to see the band of white men and also the big animals that they sit on, not to mention the tame jaguars and thunder tubes. Quesada, impatient already, nodded, and they stood up.

Outside, a handful of soldiers were swiftly drummed into line. This was no easy task, but there was no hurry. Hours went by before the Zipa was properly attired and borne forth.

Officials with little drums and trumpets ran ahead of him through the devastated streets and, as if nothing had happened, ordered everyone to stay indoors, for the Zipa was venturing out of his palace. Accompanied by several dozen lancers and archers, preceded by a little orchestra blowing on conches, horns and flutes, ever so slowly the old king’s purple-curtained litter moved through the wide open palace gates. It lingered a while by the huge stone idol, at whose feet the Zipa laid a string with stones.

In the plaza soldiers had again piled up logs, for evening was approaching. A small group of riders sat on their mounts, which were still mere skin and bone after the terrible privations and exertions in forest and mountains; the riders only reluctantly and with some nervousness imposed any load on them. Nearby, under a mat awning, menaced the five small cannon, only two of them serviceable, rust had destroyed the other three. Behind them, feet apart, presenting musket, halberd, arquebus, stood the few foot soldiers rounded up at such short notice. Most were still snoring indoors, and many were drunk. Even among those available for this honour guard, the majority were drunk.

And so it was that, as the Zipa and his curious solemn train proceeded to the endlessly slow tempo of the orchestra into the plaza, and the governor and officers sat on their horses, the Zipa was greeted by roars of laughter. Some of the riders positioned at the entrance to the marketplace fell off in their excitement that the king himself had come to visit them, and their efforts to remount drew ribald comments from the foot soldiers. The musketeers were dirty and bloodstained. They looked like a troupe of mummers, for they had grabbed whatever garments and cloths came to hand in the houses, to celebrate their victory most wore the colourful woollen shawls of women, splendid necklaces, on their heads the fine spun-gold caps of women. Even the big hounds they were feeding with pigeons had enormous bright ribbons around their necks.

The Zipa’s train proceeded with unchanged slowness and solemnity. The excited mercenaries yelled: “Tcha, tcha, giddy up! On you go!” Governor, officers and priests made not the slightest effort to dampen the noise and high spirits, they too were infected.

At the stone house, residence of the town’s cacique, the orchestra stood away to one side, still playing. The Zipa’s chair was carried towards the horsemen. The chair halted, and as the whole plaza looked on in mounting suspense, the old man with the purple headband climbed out with the aid of his entourage, and stood in front of an emaciated nag. He inspected the piebald beast from the front, thrust his head close to the beast’s nose and eyes. He stepped sideways a couple of paces, looked at long bony legs, ribs, tail. The rider was grasping the bridle, laughing and jesting as he tried to set foot in the stirrup, it kept eluding him. Then the Zipa, to jeers and raucous laughter, bowed awkwardly to the animal, which stood there following his movements with big dark eyes.

Now the Zipa stepped across to the musketeers. Since the governor feared mischief from this unruly band, an officer took an arquebus and blocked the way. The old man dared not move. He murmured something. A translation: The Zipa would know what one says to the thunder tube when one wishes to do magic with it. At Quesada’s word the officer took aim and fired into the air over roofs. The bang caused the old man to fall to his knees, the entourage threw themselves to the ground. The mercenaries hopped and squealed in delight.

After some minutes the Zipa stood up, looked about him in a daze, the drunkard on his horse gestured at him with both hands. The entourage led the old man back to his litter. Before climbing in he bowed deeply to governor, mercenaries, horses. The governor raised his sword in salutation, seething with rage. The behaviour of his troops was beyond all bounds. Amid halloos and mocking shouts from the mercenaries, who were already dispersing back into town, the Zipa withdrew, preceded by the gentle tootling of the orchestra, at the same slow stately pace. A guard of mounted officers protected the train.

On his way back through the devastated town – Quesada, possessions now so great he forgave the soldiers, they were his companions in fortune – the governor encountered scenes that he accepted and gathered like a bouquet for a reconciliation.

Here and there one of his soldiers ran along a row of houses, behind him another carrying a sack, from the bamboo screens that served as doors they were ripping away the little gold plates that jingled to announce visitors.

In one street he comes upon a disturbance. As he rides up he sees that a patrol has detained three people. The guards, like all the rest, are not sober, the weakened bodies of the men are unused to native liquor, they laugh and babble: These are suspicious, they wear women’s clothes but they are men. And it’s true: the three dark people are wearing long female skirts and girdles, but their hair is cut short, and they have deep voices. These are men, the drunkards want to show the governor right now. The governor summons his interpreter. One quick glance at the prisoners and they report: Yes, they are men, bad people, they ran away during the recent war, they had their heads shaved and were sentenced to wear women’s clothing. “Let them go,” Quesada orders, and rides on. They have the customs of humans, these heathen.

He arrives at the edge of town, where big houses are set amid palms and mimosas. Outside a burned-down house one of his captains has halted and is gathering objects passed to him from the debris. Quesada with his retinue greets and questions the captain, who shows him figures of gold, big as a hand, and with astonishment several small golden whips inset with emeralds. He hands one to Quesada. “What is this? Do they ride animals?” Only one of the interpreters knows what it is, and he is reticent. “This house belongs to a prince. Even a prince can offend. Somebody has to punish him. It must be one of his wives. That’s what the whip is for.” Quesada keeps the dainty little thing, the story pleases him, he’ll put it in his report, his mood improves.

And when they are out on open ground in sight of camp and Quesada spurs his horse to a gallop, he hears a commotion from a grove of bamboo. They push their way into the grove, Quesada waits outside. Then the commander beckons him. Quesada dismounts and follows. A crowd of women is gathered around a fat man who has been tied to a laurel tree, the women have beaten him severely with sticks, torn his clothes. But the man seems not to care, he’s elderly, he trills and sings. The commander points at him: there’s a merry fellow. The women prostrate themselves. Quesada: “What are they doing with him?” The interpreter bends down, whispers to a woman, she makes no reply. He turns to the man, who lets fly at once, jabbers, laughs, spits and threatens. The interpreter’s face is impassive. “White men came into his house, he gave them everything they wanted, then he became drunk and behaved indecently to his wives.” Quesada shakes his head in astonishment. “Indecently! Let them beat him some more.” He rides off. Barreda at his side is agitated: “Those are rebellious women, we should make them pay.” Quesada yawns, exhausted: “Whatever you like, my son.”

It was all so wonderful, overpowering, he would become marquis.

The Zipa’s treasure

At nightfall the soldiers left town and moved back to camp. Patrols guarded routes out of the town.

And at the very moment when the last soldier with the last ruddy torchglow had disappeared and the drumming and roaring had faded away, in every street and on the marketplace people emerged from their houses. They knew the streets, dared not make lights. Great Heaven to whose stars they prayed took pity on them and drove away the thick clouds, a half-moon sent bright rays down, the enormous canopy of stars pressed over them, heavy and near. They were still alive. They went outside to wail, and to mingle their wailing.

This was once a town of priests and warriors, tax gatherers, merchants, artisans and farmers, creditors and debtors, of wealthy and downtrodden. Now they slipped by one another as equals. They recognised each other, man or woman, by voice. Most were naked. Although they shivered from cold, they went out into the streets, sobbed, wept together, clutched one another.

From some houses, men and women who had become mad ran screaming. They were led back indoors and made secure.

Young men had sent bolts of cloth to the parents of the bride, the father had accepted the cloth, the young men sent a second batch together with half a deer and some of the hayo they chewed like coca leaves. That was yesterday. This morning the suitor was meant to sit at the door of the bride’s father’s house and make just enough noise to be noticed. The father calls through the door: “Who sits there? Who are you? A robber? I owe no debts. Go away! I haven’t invited anyone.” The daughter comes out with a jug of sweet drink, offers him some, tastes it first. Where was the door? What had become of the one he was to wait for?

There were some who had been awaiting the coming day with dread. Adulterers, who on this day would be made to eat pepper and allowed no drink. They had no need to fear the pepper.

In many houses young women had cowered in corners, hidden under dark rugs, they were pubescent, the ceremony was already planned where they would be led through an avenue of relatives and friends down to the river for their first bathe. No relatives, no ceremony. Young Ipakes wandered through the streets. Assassins and rapists had come through the forest, trees had submitted to the blades of the alien murderers, human flesh was weak, and lamented.

Everyone thronged to the edges of town and saw that there was no escape, watchfires were burning, weird strangers sitting around them. They pressed back to the marketplace. Debris and rubbish. They averted their steps from hazardous ruins, milled around outside the Zipa’s silent palace. Bats flitted overhead. From the Zipa’s garden came sweet delicate music, his wives were singing, they still had no idea. The crowd, several hundred strong, silently seething, thronged through from the street, sank to the ground by the stone pillar, and waited. A cacique came out from the palace, gaunt priests beside him in black robes, black caps. The cacique knelt at the pillar, the priests burned a strong balm in censers, one paced around the pillar, sang in a low voice. The crowd responded.

The cacique, protected by men with spears, said: “Uncanny spirits have attacked us. They were sent by Heaven. They are evil beasts, shameless spiteful devils. We have no magic to counter them. You must try to flee. The demons with white faces will fade away.” Already that night a few managed to slip past the watchfires, escape into the mountains.

≈≈≈

Next day when the governor came with a small escort into town, his beloved town, his hometown, he pointed his horse at once towards the Zipa’s palace and demanded entrance. He required the handover of all gold and silver. No more theatre. The Zipa, in the same room as yesterday, glowered. He said, according to the report of his servants as they crawled back and forth, that in a few hours they would find all the palace gold and silver in this room.

At a hint from the notary, the governor also demanded all gold and silver and precious stones in the Zipa’s houses and gardens, even that belonging to his women and servants. The Zipa nodded. He explained that some items were for religious use, no one could touch those. The priest’s face expressed outrage, the governor raised his hand angrily: “Precisely those items will be removed.”

After a long pause the Zipa asked the alien chief to inform him again what mission had been assigned to him by his country and his god. Reluctantly Quesada asked the priest to do so. Then the Zipa insisted more vigorously on knowing more about the country they came from, and how they had reached here. Impatient and irritable, Quesada let priest and notary report on their country, church, pope and king, and their voyage by sea.

Meanwhile the first gold vessels, engraved discs large and small, countless moulded figurines of gold and silver were brought in and heaped on the floor near the Whites. The old Zipa, motionless, regarded the gloating faces of the Whites. Once he asked: “Do you or your horses or hounds eat gold and silver?” The Whites laughed, they weren’t here for conversation. The governor ordered two musketeers who stood behind him to take down from the wall on either side of the throne the great round golden discs showing the sun and loathsome visages. But when the two mercenaries reached for the discs, the people behind them prostrated themselves, pressed faces to the floor. And the ponderous old man too opened eyes and mouth wide, fell from the throne onto his knees. And it so happened that, tangled in his flowing robes, he lost his balance and toppled. He fell to the floor in front of the throne, thrashed about like a fish in a net, tried to raise himself on one arm. Failing in this he lay there snuffling. To the amazement of the Whites not one of the servants sprang to help the groaning man. Some lay there not looking round, others ran out from side doors. Then at a sign from the governor, two musketeers set to. They had to invite him by signs to put his arms around their shoulders, since when they just tried to lift him he fell back again, tripping on his great long red cloak embroidered all over with heavy gold brocade. They plumped him down roughly, like a doll.

Then the courtiers hastened back in through side doors with two old men. These did not proceed backwards like the others, but to protect themselves from the Zipa’s gaze held their left arm across their eyes. The Zipa sat timidly, mumbled and nodded, they approached him, he murmured to the priests. The interpreter explained: the Zipa must retire. The Whites made no objection, this audience was meaningless, they didn’t like the Zipa, the rascal seemed to be sizing them up.

The governor departed, leaving the commander with the notary and two musketeers in charge.

In the palace, priests initiated rituals for purification of the Zipa. The weird strangers, those wicked demons, had upset him. To remove the influences from him, they made him vomit and fast. He spent the day in a dark chamber, the priests wanted to keep him there the following day, but he was distraught and declared that all this was not enough.

Next morning he concluded the interview with Quesada. The interpreters extracted two sentences from his mumbling. First: whether the Whites had no land and no towns in their own country, and therefore came here. “Why do you not stay at home, sowing and reaping? Why do you destroy our country?” Barreda whispered to the governor: “The Zipa spouts empty words. He misprises the situation, or pretends to.” The governor shook his head and replied: “The Zipa has never seen Spain.” He did not know the might of the Castilian king, in whose service they had come here. The great king accounted to no one for his actions.

Then the Zipa: “Your pope and king live across the sea. Nobody here has seen them. They know nothing of us and our country. How can the pope give the king a country that he does not know and does not belong to him, and how can the king accept such a present?” The interpreter did not translate the Zipa’s next scornful remark: “Pope and king must both be idiots.” The governor borrowed the commander’s words: “The Zipa prates empty words. If all he wants is to make conversation with us he is welcome, but this is not the moment. We have work to do. Furthermore I have some advice for him: if he wants an answer to his question, he should fit out some people as the King of Spain fitted us out, and should order them to journey across the sea. They’ll have the answer.”

The Whites burst out laughing. The governor also made clear to the Zipa that he was under suspicion of withholding property of the Spanish crown. He was granted until evening to deliver the remainder of the required goods, after which forceful measures would be taken. The Zipa, his face quivering, murmured that he planned to leave town next morning and travel north to the holy place Irica on the Sogamosa river.

Before the governor could express a view on this astonishing remark from his prisoner, loud voices and footsteps could be heard from outside, Spanish voices and others. Of course no one was allowed in. Barreda stood up, flung open the door, shouted into the maze of corridors. The footsteps came nearer. Captain Manzanarez came up to Barreda, he was agitated, asked for Quesada, entered the hall. The governor was already on his feet, the captain reported: there’s a gang of savages outside the palace who claim that a huge glittering procession of Whites is on the march, they have the same animals and thunder tubes as us.

The Whites in the hall stood perplexed, exchanged glances, the governor adjourned the conclusion of the conversation and with a curt nod left the Zipa sitting there, still awaiting an answer. Outside he questioned the native messengers. Their testimony was explicit. Quesada rode uneasily back to camp with his retinue.

The second conquistador

A few hours later all doubts dissolved. Into the camp, which they had begun reinforcing with tree trunks, familiar sounds drifted across the plain: drumbeats and trumpet blasts.

And it was true, an army of white men was on the march, more magnificent and better disciplined than they, a most improbable sight, with many sturdy horses and a great train of Indians, up from the south past maize fields along the high road. At the head they could see one of Quesada’s sentry details: two riders, and musketeers wearing native caps.

Governor Quesada was an educated man. He trotted slowly with a few officers towards the glittering procession. Ever since their luck had changed, everything was different between Quesada and his officers, even his shadow Barreda: now all were well-disposed. So immersed were they in fact in their rapture and bliss that none was in condition to feel alarmed by the new arrivals. What did these knapsacks want? First come, first served. Quesada twisted in his saddle and offered reflections: “Captain, you’ve no doubt read some of those absurd romances that enthral people these days, the Knight of the Sun, or Bernardo del Carpio who killed Roland at Roncesvalles, the Knight of the Flaming Sword who with one sweep of his blade sundered two enormous giants? Well, it really seems to me we are now in such a romance, and here is a frightful travail we must overcome. If I didn’t look around and call to mind that foolish impudent Zipa and observe our people erecting earthworks back there, I could believe these are armed knights riding towards us to conquer the King of Trebizond.”

Barreda, his arrogance ever growing: “Do you recall our conversation before we climbed into the mountains? You wanted reinforcements, I warned you we had no time, I was ready to move without you.”

Quesada smiled amiably at his subordinate: “I vetoed your march.”

“I was right about the danger. See, there they come. That’s them.”

“But too late,” crowed Quesada. “Anyway, they are just a rabble. What do they look like! Who have they been robbing? What do they want here?”

Barreda: “The villains will tell us soon enough.”

The great procession came to a halt. Drums and trumpets fell silent. Five men rode towards them on strong sleek horses. Quesada whispered: “Holy virgin, just look at them. Where did they acquire such horses? They’ll ride us into the ground.”The five riders halted, saluted courteously with their swords. Both sides waited to see who would speak first. The governor, who had but a feeble voice, signalled to his commander: “Speak to them. Don’t let them take the upper hand. We are here.”

The commander stood in the stirrups and called across: “Who are you?”

At once came the expected reply: “Who are you?”

“On my right is the governor of Santa Marta, Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada. I am Barreda, his commander and captain-general. We hold the king of this country, the Zipa, captive in his palace. The governor has taken possession of the town and this country for the King of Spain, and secured one fifth for the King.”

“Then we are surplus to requirements.”

“Who are you?”

A powerful full-faced man dressed in scarlet stood laughing in the saddle, he wore a tall pointed hat with feathers, his arms and legs were splendidly armoured: “I am Sebastian de Belalcazar. And these with me and behind me are my people. We came upon a savage in Quito who told us about his king and his homeland and that the king, before he bathes, sprinkles gold dust on his body. This impressed us deeply, for we deem it a misuse of gold. We thought, the king can change his bathtime habits. So we set off, Whites, many Indians, bearers, strong horses, and came here through the Magdalena valley to make changes.”

“Mister Sebastian de Belalcazar, we rejoice at your visit. We shall place a number of houses in town at your disposal, where you can recuperate from your journey.”

Belalcazar thanked him cheerfully: “Don’t put yourselves to any trouble. Thank you, captain, but we have brought tents and axes and spades. We have ample manpower. By the grace of God we shall be a burden to no one. I notice you have a camp, and are erecting defences. Ergo, the country is not secured. Just as I thought. So you will understand if we prefer to camp outside the town, hereabouts or a bit farther down. I’ll give the order right away to set up defences, so that we may be secure before nightfall and have no need of your protection. Tomorrow we shall show the savages our brand new arquebuses and five powerful cannon and investigate this story we were told which dismayed us so.”

The commander screamed red-faced: “You come too late, Mister Belalcazar. You heard me.”

“Why so exercised, commander?” Whereupon the big jovial man saluted, his retinue doffed their hats. They rode away slowly.

Quesada and his men stayed rooted to the spot. “Are you bold enough, commander, to attack these villains before they dig themselves in?” The commander stared in astonishment: “They have five cannon, better than ours. Only two of ours are usable. Of our forty muskets and arquebuses, barely twenty-five still fire.”

“Well well. Not half an hour ago you were boasting to me how this expedition was your handiwork, and if you hadn’t pressed on then others would have got here first.”

But the commander wanted to return to camp and speed up defensive works in case of an attack by night. They galloped off.

The newcomers settled themselves two arquebus shots lower down, and without asking sent armed men into town to fetch provisions. Quesada’s sentries, alarmed, came seeking instructions. The commander ordered that all gold, silver and precious stones that had been gathered be brought away from the town; otherwise the newcomers were to be left alone. The guard at the Zipa’s palace was reinforced and provided with serviceable weapons. He agreed a signal with them in case any newcomer should venture near the palace. Quesada’s camp was greatly relieved when nothing happened that evening or night.

≈≈≈

But next morning as they conferred in his tent with Quesada, who could not conceal his dismay, news came from the entrance to the camp that envoys of the newcomers had arrived. During the night the commander had caused decoy cannon to be fashioned from logs, and covered by mats. Quesada had the envoys taken past these menacing artefacts, and awaited them full of wrath. He had thrown his hat, taken from a native, to the ground, his sword lay on the rough table in front of him, he sat on a splendid chair from the Zipa’s palace. He assumed his cold severe official’s face, only the warhorse, his commander, was in there with him. In addition they had concealed ten men behind the tent, who were to burst in at a signal from the commander and take the envoys captive. They were ready to stake everything, the soldiers were with them to a man.

The tent flap was thrown back. Six white men in colourful feathered cloaks and with gleaming weapons stepped in. Quesada stared ahead frowning, and waited to be greeted and addressed. But how astonished he was, he and the commander both, when the leader of the Whites sank to his knees at the entrance, buried his face in his hands and wept openly. The other five stood in silence, heads bowed. Quesada and his commander exchanged glances. They suspected a trap. The governor leaned forward: “What message do you bring?”

The leader opened his hands, raised his damp face, a memory jolted Quesada. The commander jumped to his feet, ran to the man who slowly stood up, the commander and the man in the feathered cloak stared at one another, then fell into each other’s arms, and Quesada even heard a gentle sob escape the commander. Quesada slowly approached the two men, sunlight through the tent flap dazzled him. The commander released the stranger; Quesada recognised Alcobazo, leader of his river flotilla. He stood there transfixed. He extended a hand towards the man with the bushy drooping moustache, speechless seated himself again on the Zipa’s golden chair. Everything was clear.

The other five men in feathered cloaks came forward behind Alcobazo, the commander shook hands with them and had them wait outside. Alcobazo was back in their power. He must make his report. But as soon as he began, reporting that those five men in feathered cloaks from Peru were all that he had saved from the five ships and two hundred men who had set out with him, yes, from five ships and two hundred men, his voice failed.

And for several minutes, for the first time during all those terrible events, the other two men lost composure at the thought of what had happened here, and the memory of the cruel months they themselves had endured. For the first time a subtle tremor ran through them, profound darkness in which one lives and strives.

They gathered their wits. They were once more governor, commander, captain. Alcobazo told of the initial fair voyage, the grounding of the first ship, the silty side channel, the struggle against rapids. He reported how they had lost the first ship in the rapids. He wept in hopeless outraged fury: they had met no enemy, had not even fought forest and mountain as the others had done and they themselves did later on, they had merely fallen ill and starved. In the end they had no way out but to make an assault on the mountains from the rapids where the last vessels lay. He reported at length on their desperate struggle with forest, mountains and hunger. When only ten of them remained some natives took pity on them, cared for them a few days, finally the same Indians mentioned a great band of white men marching through the mountains. They thought it must be their governor. It was Belalcazar. He took them in, he had plentiful provisions and enough equipment for an army. When Belalcazar heard that they belonged to the governor’s band, he speeded up the pace. And now they were glad to see that the governor had reached here first. But again Alcobazo’s voice broke.

The governor soothed him: Did Alcobazo now regard himself as Belalcazar’s man? The captain shook his head vigorously: Why, because Belalcazar rescued me? No. He asked the governor only that he treat graciously with Belalcazar, who had been sent here to stay.

Then Alcobazo and the others were taken to lodgings in the camp. Quesada and the commander sat facing each other in the tent, baffled.

They were in the New Indies.

To the south the Amazon surged across its plain and drew rivers to it.

They had heard the voice of Sukuruya, jubilant river spirit.

The Sun is silent

Dark people moved through the streets of Funza. The few children running around were naked, the men and women clad in rags. They were hungry, needed to go to the fields. The white men tolerated this, they themselves required fresh produce. The fields in which the dark people toiled were their fields, they had been assigned to them, tools lay undisturbed where they had left them, the sun shone as harsh and big as every day, but the Sun, the great Father in the Sun, kept silent about his decisions. The Sun had sent the Whites, fearsome as jaguars. So the Father wanted to destroy his people. In the plantations they climbed trees to pick fruit, but they were afraid of the tree, why should it hold still, perhaps it would shake and break and throw people to the ground? The Father in the Sun had sent the white jaguars, who knew what lay concealed in the fruit, could you eat it, was it poisonous? O great Father.

They toiled in the fields, those who survived that night and day, fed grain to doves. They were allowed down to the river to fish. But the paralysis never left them, the Father had sent these white jaguars to destroy them. They feared they might pollute fish or fowl and suffer some new calamity. There was no one to give advice. Doves in their big cages fluttered and eyed them, pecked as usual, their droppings looked normal, their cooing was unchanged. But what would happen to these lovely creatures if they were to peck grain from their hands? And after all that had happened, how could they cast net or line, the fish would sicken.

Looms in the houses were smashed, rags of the Whites lay beside them. Having no priests they had no idea what to do with these malign items. Covering their faces, groaning and praying, they used sticks to drag the Whites’ refuse into the street, burned it, buried the ashes.

In the houses were women and girls who had been assaulted by Whites. Their husbands and parents avoided them, fasted and cowered in corners, called fearfully for priest and sorceress. The Whites out there disputing Belalcazar’s arrival had no idea what was happening in the houses. They were surprised how many savages starved to death over the next few days, and were carried out of town. These were all women and girls who had suffered molestation by the alien demons. Many were killed out of fear, and could be moved only by using sticks in the same way the Whites’ rubbish had been cleared. This was really a job for priests, now they had to manage by themselves. Even more awful were cases where girl or woman lay down in front of brother or husband or father and begged: “Kill me,” and where fear, desperation, horror, love wrestled together. Sometimes Spanish soldiers surprised dark people at such deeds, which they labelled beastly, and sometimes the woman, once a nobleman’s spouse or daughter, survived, and was abducted away to the camp.

Town and surrounding countryside were disturbed by the throb of alien drums, sending mysterious instructions into the air so that no one knew how to go on living in the town. The governor’s sentries outside the Zipa’s palace saw ever more people gather around the idol pillar with flowers and fruit, the only offerings left to them. Darkskins came out of the palace and spoke to the throng. On the second evening following Belalcazar’s arrival a big discussion took place outside the palace. The soldiers, who found the cowardly stupid savages ridiculous and repulsive, paid no attention to the nonsense and endless chatter going on at the pillar.

Just then the people received happy news from the palace. The Zipa would depart from the town in a few days and make his way to the holy place Sogamoso. He was even now making preparations for the journey. Whoever wished to purify himself must leave town.

≈≈≈

At the first blush of dawn the imperious commander appeared with a contingent of troops, marched across the marketplace and along the main streets, sent patrols into side streets and had more than a thousand able-bodied men herded into the plaza. There they were loaded up with provisions. A few hours later he marched with them back to camp, where they were set to work digging defences. There was still no direct contact between Belalcazar and Quesada, but quarrels and provocations between the two bands of soldiers were becoming frequent. It was clear that Belalcazar would not delay much longer his preparations for a showdown, for ever since the initial division of spoils the governor’s soldiers flaunted their golden rings, chains, discs too openly and gave themselves lordly airs.

But there came no attack by the governor on Belalcazar, nor by the latter on the governor, and no local disagreement led to an outbreak of hostilities. Instead something happened that neither Quesada nor Belalcazar nor anyone else in their camps had expected.

The volcano called Europe had begun spewing out its people. They fell to earth on every coast. They were on the hunt for gold, discoveries, they wanted war, dominion, fame. They stormed across the earth, like autumn birds surplus to requirements in their native lands, flying in inexorable masses to their tropical home, cloud-high, thousand upon thousand. Their desire: to die, or be transformed.

Across the savannah that Quesada and his half-dead troops had been the first to glimpse from the terrible mountains, and over which magnificent Belalcazar had ridden with his glittering train clad in colourful feather cloaks of Peru, together with a great quantity of coloured people, cannon and muskets – across this abandoned landscape of maize fields and flower gardens, on the same day as the first mustering of slaves, dark people came loping, they had been hunting game in the eastern forests, and at the gate of Belalcazar’s camp conveyed news which spread to his soldiers and from there to Quesada’s soldiers: white men are hastening down from the mountains to the southeast, a great train, many wild animals, two who went close to look have already been shot.

And soon they came storming up, white men, a considerable horde, following their darkskinned scouts but lacking other auxiliaries. They must have assessed the lay of the two camps from the heights above the savannah, for without hesitation the new arrivals came to rest beside Belalcazar’s camp at the southeastern exit from town. At once a small detachment separated from the horde, half of them swarmed out across the fields, the rest marched with arquebuses into town.

They had the shape of men, the corpse colour of the sickly northern lands. But they looked like animals in their skins of jaguar, lion, deer. Like animals they hurled themselves on field and town, seeking food. Whites and darkskins kept out of the way. The newcomers croaked: “Move!” and devoured whatever food and drink they found, many at once vomited. Then they gathered sacks and baskets and jugs and began to carry provisions to their camp, and returned to fetch more. Clearly most of the horde was too weak to seek its own food.

What befell Nicolaus Federmann and his band

This horde was led by Nicolaus Federmann from Ulm. At first they were a merry crew, eager to stake all. They wanted the same as the others: a journey into blissful doom.

Federmann sailed from the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda in Andalucia. He had a wonderful voyage. They came upon an island of birds, no humans lived there, only birds. They lived so densely packed you could kill them with a stick and carry them away. The noise was deafening, and when the boat sailed into a bay the birds flew up in such clouds the men were frightened. On another island they found dark people, but there were already Whites there, with sidearms and small cannon.

When Federmann and his people went ashore, a soldier fell in love with the daughter of a white trader. And as the ships prepared to hoist sail again, the soldier went with ten accomplices to the girl’s house and stole her away along with her old nurse and a quantity of possessions, and brought her on board. A few hours after they set sail a violent storm arose, the ships struggled against the tempest and had to return to port during the night. But many of the island’s inhabitants, Whites and natives together, torches flaring, were thronging the beach. They made a great noise and sent a boat to Federmann: he was to deliver the girl and the nurse and the possessions and hand the soldier over for punishment, or else they would all be helped into the next world. Federmann refused.

Now the Whites of the island brought up their cannon and fired. The first ball brought down a mast, the second hit the stern, the third wounded a number of people and destroyed some rigging. At this the flotilla’s crew demanded that the lovesick soldier and the girl be handed over. They had not ventured here to gamble away their lives on account of a romantic attachment by one of their number, and since he had not asked their opinion he should carry his own skin to market.

Next morning, the storm having abated, Federmann invited some of the Whites to come aboard the flagship for talks. He at once conceded to the negotiators that they had been wronged, and declared himself ready, as an upright man, to deliver the girl and all the rest. But when he had the girl and her companions brought before him and the others, an insuperable difficulty revealed itself. In the interim the flotilla’s chaplain had formally married her to the soldier. What on earth was to be done? Federmann asserted that he was powerless. The girl’s father tried to force her to go with him. She refused. He wept, had to give in. The aggrieved islanders disembarked. Federmann magnanimously declared that he would forego punishing the island or demanding compensation for the damage, there was no time. But when they arrived at the town of Coro, he dismissed the soldier, his bride and the servant because of all the trouble they had caused the flotilla.

Coro, on the gulf of Maracaibo, had once been ruled by cruel Alfinger. The town swarmed with white adventurers, bandits, deserters and slaves, Alfinger had bequeathed his brood. General von Speyer and Federmann his captain-general augmented their forces from this resource and ventured inland with them. They agreed to march separately, Speyer to the east, Federmann to the west. They would rendezvous on the coast of Barquisimeto. They marched together for a while along the line of mountains. Then Federmann left the mountains and made his way into the savannah.

Black jungle clung to slopes. They came upon a huge deposit of salt in a river bed, it was a high bank covered with earth.

Federmann was a big broad-shouldered man with a flowing red beard and bright blue eyes. He would bawl out a song when he was in the mood. He had found the voyage irksome, because of the need for strict discipline. On the march he sighed with relief and laughed. They fell upon the country like a flock of blithe young birds.

The plain of the llanos stretches away uniform, endless. Grass stands tall and dense, a green and yellow sea, the hottest of suns burns overhead, the grass stands unmoving, now and then cloud shadows flit across. The grass stands so tall it closes over the head of a man on horseback. Slowly clearings begin to open up, little watercourses trickle, muddy lagoons appear, red ibis step in the water, the garzas are snow-white, complaints rise from blue waterfowl with long-toed feet. Down through glowing air, shimmering in the heat, huge white storks descend. They wear purple throat rings, and jab their strong dangerous bills into the mire.

The band wanders, wanders. A marvellous journey begins.

They trip over tree roots. There are no hills or mountains to afford an overview. But they encounter forests of chaparro trees, which they climb to look for smoke. The chaparro groves are shady and refreshing, the horses graze, soldiers remove their doublets and stretch out, trousers rolled, they don’t mind the scratchy grass, but insects bite. They are thirsty and must be stopped from throwing themselves at muddy puddles. As they march off they break big leaves from the chaparro trees to cover head and shoulders, some make a complete cloak, but let it fall, the leaves too heavy.

At last they find smoke, a village. These are poor dark people, they have a banana plantation, offer fruit and fowl and game as well, but cannot be persuaded to serve as bearers. They are nervous. The horses in particular frighten them. When the general has the horses led out of sight the chief relaxes, and the gift of some red bonnets and iron fish hooks secures forty bearers and some guides. Their docility does not last long, half the guides vanish in the long grass, and the general has no option but to rope the rest together. For the grass is so overwhelmingly dense and the people so nimble that they vanish within a moment of leaving the train. The remaining natives tremble and are scared out of their wits. Native interpreters, tasked to find what is bothering them, report that it is the horses, just the horses that walk along beside them and sometimes whinny. “Why don’t they like the horses? They are tame, eat grass, drink water.”

“You sit on them. They carry you wherever you want. You are in league with the horses, but later all the people, or the best of them, will be given to the horses as a sacrifice.”

“Tell them that is stupid, they are our horses, our beasts of burden.”

“They won’t change their minds.”

“The devil with them!”

The plain of grass is endless, rises and falls gently like waves. In one night all the bearers are gone and only three guides remain, who act like lunatics, weep and implore. The general watches the drama, he sympathises and at first, irritated by their unhelpfulness, is prepared to release them, but he needs them. He has them whipped, threatens them. They move on to the south.

He addresses his people: “We promised Georg von Speyer we would march west. Here’s an enormous plain of grass. It extends to the coast. The chief and the more sensible people from the village we passed through have told us: it goes on and on but then reaches the South Sea. So what should we do: march west and meet Georg von Speyer at the coast? Or head for the South Sea? I think we should head south and discover new islands. In the west people all run around like dogs chasing the same bone. Let them crack each other’s skulls for all we care.”

He laughs and sings the evening through while the men confer, and not one wants to desert him. And what would Georg von Speyer think and would he punish them and should they leave him there waiting on the coast. That, boomed Federmann, is my business. Men who discover the South Sea cannot be bullyragged like little girls.

There are two bold captains in the troop, Sandoval and Lopez, both of noble blood, impoverished warhorses from families whose pride they are. Sandoval is a short man, powerful, has bandy legs, grizzled beard and hair, chestnut brown. He has lost his front teeth, and lisps. Lopez is pockmarked, blond, broad-chested, he killed a man in a duel, he is a wanted man. These two, bosom friends who huddle together in endless palaver, are fervid backers of the South Sea plan. The darkskins annoy them with their stupidity and cowardice. The monk execrates the idolatry of these heathen. When they come to a new place all he does is look for water so he can consecrate it and baptise the heathen. He can’t do much by way of instruction, there’s no time, and he finds their painted faces so abhorrent that all he does is utter a few pious words and throw a bucket of water over their heads. Then he has a good wash, and curses this profession that has driven him to strange lands and beasts like these, while others sit comfortably in their cloisters and gorge themselves. Gonzalo and Roman, the two noble captains, want to head for the South Sea, the captain-general has named the goal, they will indeed reach the South Sea and these mules, these donkeys the darkskins are impeding their progress.

If these obstinate donkeys wanted, they could just let themselves be baptised without further ado, and then gratis and for nothing would become good Christians, just because they’ve been discovered, while all around them thousands of their fellow savages still run around like beasts of the forest. And what do we ask in return? Not even gold, for these forest creatures have none, or conceal it. Only food and bearers and guides, and an interpreter for the neighbouring tribes. For these brown forest beasts lack even the wits to speak the same language, but after a day’s march they speak a different one, and there’s another good reason not to fall in too deep with them. If not for the food that can be had from them, the best thing would be simply to kill them. They should make an honest decision to clamber in the treetops like monkeys, instead of pretending to be human.

Little lisping bandy-legged Gonzalo would prefer to fling them all over a cliff. He is coarse and direct, he always has the best horse in the troop. He importunes the captain-general: “Isn’t it enough that we drown here in this sea of grass, shrivel in the sun – not to speak of hunger, snakes, pests – but we must also suffer the company of these heathen?”

“Then what will you live on, Gonzalo?”

Gonzalo advocates surprise attacks. Alas these are not always practicable, drums transmit reports from village to village, there are refugees who spread rumours. This enrages Gonzalo: “We baptise them, let them share in God’s mercy, and they run off to spread rumours. Wipe them out, general, wipe them out, it’s the only way.” The general utters soothing words.

As they pull south the sun is always overhead, but on every side there is tall grass and the ground underfoot is hot. If you wear a cuirass you cannot remove it on the march, under the cuirass everything dissolves and becomes a sponge. Horses find food, but not the men. They pray: if the South Sea’s going to come, let it come soon. Who can go on like this. Oh for a breeze, a breeze. There are not many villages, who would want to live here, and when you do stumble on a village it is unaccountably empty, the people have left their rubbish lying about. So you do what you want, and out of aggravation burn down huts and houses. Federmann warns: the enchanting South Sea surely lies not far off, but if we have no guides we might walk round in circles and find ourselves one day in the mountains with Georg von Speyer. The soldiers see the sense in this, but what good are empty houses. The general replies: “We must show the heathen that we are men of peace who treat them kindly, then they won’t run away.” But he has to listen as a monk explains: “It is not because of us they run away, but because of the horses.” The general joins in the soldiers’ bellowed laughter.

At last they come upon a settlement on a riverbank behind a lagoon, and the red-brown people who live there are – dwarves! The tallest reach only to the chest, the women are even smaller. Three brown guides are still with them, a certain understanding is achieved. They know nothing of a South Sea. But when gold and silver are mentioned, they point to the south and mention a very wealthy people. “Ah,” sighs Federmann, “how often have we heard that. And when we tell them to guide us, they run away.” Food is brought, and they are astonished to see what can be made from just one tree. This murichi palm, the chief explains, is the ancestor of mankind, and when a great flood, a deluge, covered the whole world, only this was saved of all living things, and people came from it.

At discussions of this sort with the little people, who showed the usual fear of horses, the two captains were in their element. Truly, they said, you eat the fruit of the murichi tree, which is sour-sweet, you drink beer made from its juice, which makes you merry, timber from the trunk makes huts and houses, and its fibre serves for hammocks to sleep in. But for God’s sake, when all’s said and done you must drive out of the skulls of these dwarves the ludicrous fancy that this tree is their ancestor. You simply cannot let such nonsense loose in the world. During their rest days in this village of dwarves the two captains keep two educated men at their side. They gnaw away at the topic. They recruit soldiers to help reveal the surfeit of idiocy, stupidity and ignorance of these people. Once they go so far as to ask the chief of the dwarves to show them their burial sites, to prove that the skulls of the heathen contain not brains but flesh or some kind of weed. The chief told them a funeral would take place next day. So now they experience something remarkable, and the world grows even madder.

Next morning a number of dwarves have assembled behind a house, from which an ostentatious singing and wailing had come the previous night. The soldiers think someone is sick. Then in the morning people line up outside the house and more line up at the back, and after lots of speeches and shilly-shallying some take up spades and begin to dig. The whole village is now in great commotion, the little people have smeared themselves in gaudy colours, lounging soldiers see fantastical figures emerge from an outlying house. They carry huge trumpets and blow into them, they leap about in the most comical fashion until they reach the small open space where many people, including women and children, have gathered. The Whites near this house – Federmann is there with one of the captains – observe a grisly scene. At first they did not understand the purpose of the natives’ digging, and were puzzled that they were allowed to watch the unearthing of a treasure, or they thought someone has died and soon they’ll bring the corpse along.

But two men with feathers waving about head and chest climb into the hole and lift out a tall painted pot. They place it on a mat of palm leaves. Loud cries erupt from the bystanders. They prostrate themselves in reverence. And now the two men with feathers remove the lid from the pot and tip out something dry and black. It is a corpse. It is quite naked. Its head is pressed onto its chest and the legs are tucked up to the chin. They lay the bundle, which does not seem heavy, on the mat beside the pot. They are surrounded by cries and lamenting. And now the masked figures and trumpeters dance away from the open place. The people behind the house have lit a big fire, and the Whites see how the corpse that has lain so long in the pot is being burned on a stack of logs. The masked figures leap endlessly towards each other with curious movements, and all the while the trumpeters blow their long hollow notes. They drone and bleat, sometimes just one instrument, sometimes several together, sometimes all at once in their different registers. The nervous general asks the interpreter what it all means.

“It is a funeral.”

“But the man has been dead for ages.”

“He died fifteen years ago. He was a chief.”

“And why do they not leave him there?”

The interpreter, a darkskin, answers: “They keep the custom. The dead demand it.” He gives no more information, Federmann already knows he keeps many things to himself.

The corpse burns on the pyre, they bring a fresh pot, throw the charred bones into it and now, after filling in the hole behind the house, they all traipse back to the open space. And only there do they witness the biggest horror, which had escaped their notice at the pyre: the corpse was not completely burnt, one of the masks carries the little shrivelled black skull in his hands, a ball on a short stick. Surrounded by the ghastly trumpeting, he proceeds solemnly at the head of the other masks, they leap, stamp, slide away to the outlying house. At this point the open space grows merry, cooking fires are lit, the people who were gathered behind the house squat around, they have the pot with the charred bones. You see them pound the bones, heat the pot over a fire, keep pounding and grinding, and now huge gourds of cashiri are brought, the festive drink, they add it to the bonemeal in the pot, strain it, the chief drinks first, then the others in the centre and then it goes around.

The white general has seen this, he says to the captain: “If we’re not careful they’ll offer us some of that.” The monk speaks to the captain: “You are right, these are not people, they are beasts, they eat their dead. Those over there in the middle, I know them, both are his sons, they quaff beer containing the ashes of their father.”

Pockmarked Lopez, big and blond, mocks: “Padre, you baptised the whole lot yesterday, all your mercy has gone for nothing.”

Federmann quits the festive scene in disgust, but the two captains wait until the happy noise abates somewhat and the people start to mill about, then they draw the chief and a few others to one side. Coarse Gonzalo, through the interpreter, asks the chief: “Do you know, wretch, that you are baptised?”

“Yes.”

“What have you just done, dog? Guzzling on a corpse.”

“He was a great man. He has lain there for fifteen rainy seasons and dry seasons, now he is our great ancestor and will help us.”

Exasperated, Gonzalo asks his friend: “Can you understand this, Lopez? Should we not break their heads right now for such shameless nonsense?” He roars at the priest: “And you saw it all, padre, you baptised these people.”

The priest frowns and lifts his arms: “Better ask the general.”

“Break their heads,” Lopez roars at the chief, who shrinks back, “translate that, interpreter.” The interpreter too is frightened, but Lopez draws his sword, the cacique understands this. He and the others run away, Lopez can barely restrain the rabid bandy-legged captain, who froths at the mouth, it must come from the sun’s terrible glare. For it burns relentlessly from an immense bright blue sky directly onto their heads, the sky a single blue crystal, sea of blue fire, the sun a ray streaming from it.

The village is in a panic, the feast has dispersed in haste. Federmann rushes from his tent, what’s happening, hurries to the open space, it is empty, he questions the captains who come up to him, they shrug, but the general at once suspects the bandy-legged cavalier, Gonzalo, whose face is still red with anger and who reports on his encounter with the chief.

Then Federmann, downcast, returns with them to his tent, and swallows his rage. Wearily he urges moderation on Gonzalo: “We shall never reach the South Sea. Look at the sky: an abyss. Look at the plain: an abyss. We thresh around between them. And you concern yourselves with what these heathen eat. Let them rot, so long as they provide bearers and guides.”

“They are Christians, believe me, general, they are false lying wretches. General, if we don’t show these donkeys that they must abandon their idolatry and we do not relish their games….”

The general interrupts: “You are a good captain. Now let me warn you in earnest. Look at my face, captain Gonzalo, so you do not mistake me. Remember the soldier who caused that scandal on the island: I brought him along as far as Coro. If he had been more than a mere soldier I would have executed him at sea. The only one who gives orders here is me. The natives are to be well treated. Do you understand this order, captain, yes or no.”

“General, I treat them well.”

“Yes or no.”

“Yes, general.”

So he shakes the little bulldog by the hand. Next morning they break camp, luckily they have caught a good two dozen people for bearers and guides.

In the land of turtles

They are well laden with provisions, they have dried maize in quantity, they come upon bananas, the sky is veiled, the plain a burnt yellow, wind lofts clouds of yellow dust.

One day the clouds are strangely thick and hot, and now they see and smell that it is not dust but smoke. They have long feared this, the plain is burning. The horizon above the clouds glows red. Flames leap and fall. But it is remarkable how calm the bearers remain, they nod at the sight and keep on. The wind drives smoke towards them, they evade it, the black fire-filled world moves away to the north, a crackling roaring heat-emitting force, at its edge birds of prey swoop down on fleeing creatures: hares, lizards, snakes.

Now the sky is changeable, sudden gouts of rain pour down. Then cicadas start singing, the shrill song sounds from trees and bushes, by evening it is like a seething cauldron.

The march heads southeast, they are glad of the rain, it refreshes and then stops. Life with the dwarves indeed proves possible when they are left unmolested, they are harmless and gentle, horses and bloodhounds are kept out of sight as far as possible, they hand over what they have and sigh with relief when the strangers leave. The country becomes swampier, lagoons are as big as lakes.

Plants with shiny green leaves grow in dense bushy groves. Horses nibble at them. Then the troop must halt, to the consternation of their riders the horses sink to their knees one after another, their heads droop, they cannot move. Finally some fall over. For many hours they remain motionless. They sleep. No amount of prodding puts them on their feet. Then one after the other they become lively, prick up their ears, swish their tails, their skin twitches in the thorny scrub, and at last they stand up. They are thirsty, drink what they can, and plod sluggishly on. That was the guacamacha bush.

The region becomes more enchanting. There are no mountains or forests. Much is stirring on the plain, in swamps, which rain has turned to actual rivers. They cross rivers in dugouts, horses are driven across, hounds wade and swim. Enticing green-fringed water. The soldiers would like to march in water all day long, they can proceed slowly beneath foliage, it’s shady. And then a sleek snakelike creature shows itself, breaks the surface, on its belly a finny fringe undulates, it is yellow-brown like the mud it wallows in, long as an arm. Woken from the mud it approaches a man’s legs, his belly and back if he is swimming, he screams and jerks, has to be helped up, he’s had a shock. It takes time to calm him down. That is the electric eel. When they wade through deep water they hear blood-curdling screams from horses, and if they are not quick enough the beast is dragged under and swept away.

This world of swamps, plain and grass comes to an end. Wild swine run grunting over burnt ground, the earth shakes under their short legs, they run in herds a hundred strong, leader at the fore, big and small together. They charge along, black and bristly, close to the ground, best to keep out of the way.

And here at last are rivers that wend their way to the South Sea. Water builds in the sky and on the earth. Weeks ago the sky was a single glowing blue crystal, they were enveloped in drought, trudged along between the abyss of sky and the plain. Now, in the cool damp night, flocks of big bats dart overhead. They make camp on little hills. And as they gaze out at night, there over the swamps and nearby stretches of water a blue fire appears. The flames die, flare up somewhere else. When later they ask dark people about this they are evasive, they make a secret of countless things in their land. The soldiers are nervous, and press on.

Such rain. Rivers swell. If only they could divert to higher ground. But they are the band of Nicolaus Federmann from Ulm. They are aiming for the South Sea.

Progress slows. They fall hostage to raging torrents of rain that force them to seek shelter wherever they stand, under trees, tents. Sometimes half the band sits in trees to wait out the storm, so as not to be swept away by the rain. But afterwards all their provisions are wet, and disgusting vermin have penetrated everywhere. They stand on the banks of rivers grown wide as lakes. Always there are villages of coloured people. But even they are migrating north, away from the rain. You could believe they are fleeing the llanos and leaving it to the Whites, who mean to drown here. When will we see the South Sea and its new isles of gold? It won’t be easy to find. For if it was, others would already have scrambled there from all sides and plundered it. But we shall come through under our captain-general Federmann.

And there is no more thought of the King of Spain and home and being a wealthy man at home, whether in Castile, Andalucia or Italy or Germany. On, on to the South Sea.

And now they awake at dawn, which lasts no time at all, and the red fireball erupts straight from night into the sky and hurls grey shreds of night away behind it. The sun sits in the sky and calls out: It is time, see there the paths, rivers, mudholes, I grant you a handful of new hours for the South Sea.

So they go on. Water surges across lagoons, small fowl strut on the shore, they puff themselves up, bob and whoop in front of their females. They are messengers and pathfinders for the South Sea.

And when you climb into boats with the dark people and they shoot fish, you are grateful for the fish and the dark men, fish nourish you for the journey. And you look around tranquilly, and go to sleep under the vault of night sky decked out in all its medals for a magical ceremony. You know you are nearly at your goal.

And so they come to the Otomaco people. The wide river is called Apure. Apparently this flows only a short distance before joining a huge stream that empties into the sea. This is called Orinoco.

Along with the rivers, forests appear. Spreading mimosas stand at the water’s edge, and when you touch them their leaves snap together like living creatures, it runs along the branches, a marvellous sight. The Otomaco live here, they have no murichi palm but some other tree. They peel its bark, so soft they use it for clothing. The Whites seize on this, happy to throw away their disintegrating rags. On the general’s orders a load of bark is gathered and packed securely for the march. Fine hopeful days follow. You must protect yourself from leeches that cling to your legs and suck your blood. The natives live among a thousand species of animal that they distinguish and have a special name for, some they do not name, and you know this is because they are guarding a secret. Hummingbirds fly, you have never seen so many, and how they flit swift as lightning through the air no bigger than a butterfly and, hovering, stick their beak into a flower. Parrots, fiery orange troupial, crowing loros.

The brown people show the Whites their enemies – but they do not call them enemies, they speak carefully, respectfully – termites that live in field and forest in little mounds that look like clumps of soil, they keep guests in their cells, beetles and spiders. They are so numerous, explain the brown people in wonder, that no human tribe can compare with termites. They themselves have taken to the river to avoid them, their houses stand on piles in the water and so are safe.

But termites are strong beings, even though small and blind. The natives point to old huts they have preserved, they knock on a plank, a finger goes right through, it is like sponge, the tiny termites have devoured everything.

Now they are surrounded by jaguars. The big cats slink around the band. No one knows what they want. They come in packs, never attack anyone. But the band of Whites attracts and unsettles them for some reason. As always the darkskins say nothing.

But one night the Whites are awakened by their sentries. They seize weapons, wonder why no alarm is sounding, but the darkskins make signs to keep quiet and follow, weapon or no weapon.

The broad rushing Apure lies below in the gentle light of the moon. Nothing breaks its rippling surface. Reflecting stars and moonlight, the river runs swift, the Apure, heading for the Orinoco. A cool breeze blows from the forested banks. No birds call. But as they step cautiously down from the forest to the river they hear a strange persistent noise, a rubbing, scraping, scrabbling. Sometimes a clacking and creaking. Sometimes a dull heavy crash, followed by the same general scrabbling. They realise it is not in the water but on the bank. A broad smooth high beach of white sand and mud extends along the southern bank to the east. In the moonlight a low dark mass is moving and shoving, it is many yards long, sometimes it seems to rest, but keeps coming at a steady slow pace. It is a huge dark blanket being drawn across the beach. They whisper to one another and marvel: these are turtles. They come to a halt. It’s a whole army. Hiding by day, at night they go wandering, and now you can pick out individuals on the edge, brown-black chequerboard shells, a little sharp point like a sign, the triangular head stretched upward, hemmed in. They proceed, shell hard against shell, a huge movement of giant dark moonlit shells marching in their myriads. They halt in a clump, some are forced over the backs of others, the ones on top keep moving, the double-decker keeps on until a gap opens and those on top clunk down again. And behind them slink big wild cats, jaguars that encircle the moving mass, lunge at the scrabbling edges and try to pick something off. The turtles toil in the moonlight, the whole mass stops, loses itself in sand and mud, they bury themselves, this is their breeding season.

The Whites ask about the nightly procession of turtles, the brown people know all about it, they pay grave attention to the lengthy discussion. One indicates that he wishes to tell the Whites something of the turtles. The interpreter translates:

“The turtle has no malice. It is a good person. Once a turtle settled under a tree to rest. The tapir came, stretched its snout and said, ‘Go away turtle’. The turtle closed its ears. The tapir nudged its head with his snout, huffing and puffing: ‘Turtle, go away.’ It poked out its head, scratched with its legs, said: ‘You snuffled at me, that’s rude.’ ‘Turtle, go away.’ It pulled its head back into the shell. ‘This is my tree. You are rude, tapir.’ The tapir has horny feet, he steps on the turtle’s legs, the turtle goes away saying: ‘I’ll see you when the rains come.’

“Rain fell, the turtle set off. It came upon a spoor, the turtle bowed and said, ‘I have come a long way. Here’s some grass for you.’ The spoor said thanks. The turtle asked: ‘How long is it since your master was here?’ The spoor said, ‘A long time.’ The turtle set off again. There was another spoor, the turtle bowed: ‘I come from afar. I met one of your sisters here, I brought her reeds and bamboo.’ The spoor: ‘It’s lonely out here. What is my sister up to?’ The turtle replied: ‘These are leaves from the forest where your sister lives. How long is it since your master came this way?’ The spoor looked up at the sky: ‘Stay till sunset, tell me about my sister, you’ll meet my master in two days.’ The third spoor: ‘I have heard about you, turtle. The ants reported it.’ ‘Here’s a flower from the forest. When did your master come by?’ ‘Today. Stay with me tonight, I’ll make myself pretty for you.’ The river surged angrily. The turtle dared not speak. At noon it crawled down. ‘Where is your father?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘You are angry with my father.’ ‘He kicked me.’ ‘Leave me alone.’ The turtle dug itself in. The tapir came out of the water, the turtle confronted him: ‘I have found you. You huffed and puffed and trod on me. Now we shall see if I am a man.’ The tapir turned his back, the turtle bit his testicles and would not let go. The tapir turned round and round and cried for mercy. The turtle would not let go. The tapir jumped into the river, the river foamed to protect its father. The turtle would not let go. The tapir climbed on to the bank and died. Then the turtle let go. It called to the ants: ‘Tell the spoors I have killed their master, because he behaved rudely to me.’ To the tapir it said: ‘Your son the river shall mourn you. I killed you. My relatives await me in the hollow, I shall summon them, we shall eat you.’

When the soldiers heard this tale they laughed. The brown people took this as a sign of gratitude and laughed in turn. Later they often believed it best to laugh loudly when the Whites said something to them. But the Whites misunderstood this sign of great courtesy, and behaved coarsely to the bewildered natives.

And in truth the deluge of rain makes progress impossible, days become weeks and weeks months, during which for better or worse the Whites are at the mercy of the brown people. You trudge on for a few hours, have to turn back. If the brownskins who happen to be around were more warlike and courageous, they could destroy you. But they see how the Whites want to move on, the rain prevents them, the rain is more powerful than the Whites, so they help and give.

And so as days become weeks and weeks months and the Whites come no nearer to the South Sea, a yearning grows among Federmann’s troops to march and discover the South Sea and sail on great corvettes and sloops and brigantines to marvellous islands where they will become viceroys or gather gold and return home as knight or marquis – but others lose all such desire. Rain falls, thunderstorms rumble, you sit or lie in the damp heat in huts of palm, in the native rain-huts, you exercise the horses so they won’t go lame, polish your guns. As you clean the little cannon you’ve dragged along you hear from one or another the tale of a seafarer and his crew who set out from Spain to find the mighty Amazon and sail up it. He had cannon on board, two or three. And when he came to the mouth of the river there were many islands and side channels and they got lost, and then a terrible storm rose, the anchors dragged. Then the people regarded their lovely cannon and said: “Before these ever fire a shot we shall drown and float in the water. Why carry them along.” And they lashed anchor trees to the cannon and threw them overboard into water and mud. And there they stuck.

You watch the brown people, how they fish and do nothing, hunt and do nothing, sleep, eat, dance, love. You see how they prepare for the hunt, you are puzzled, you go with them and then do as they do. You learn to use a blowpipe, observe the trees, listen to the waterfowl. The Dominican and captain Lopez are concerned and vexed to see this, they curse the endless rainy season, sent by the Devil to be their ruin.

“If we stay here much longer we’ll see a pretty state of affairs. We were sent to win the heathen over for the Holy Church. But perhaps – I cannot say it.”

The Dominican, coldly: “Our soldiers are becoming heathen. They are so already. We must urge him to move on. No one should be led into temptation. We shall find ways to deal with sinners.”

The captain-general is in a cheerful mood and lends no ear to their complaints. At last the storms abate, waters recede, the time of waiting is over.

How hard most of the soldiers find the parting from the brown people. How they load up the bearers and themselves and mount the horses. Some sick men ask to be left with the natives, they are not afraid, and if Federmann’s or some other troop come by they will tag along. The priest opens his mouth: “It has come to this already.” Federmann orders the sick to be placed in boats, he presents gifts of fine glass to the brown people, and bids a sincere farewell. He wants to head south. You march off, say goodbye, give and receive presents.

Many of the Whites have actually painted themselves in festive colours.

To Cundinamarca

Now the two captains Gonzalo and Lopez, one bowlegged, the other pockmarked, urged on by their spirituality, can no longer resist and must settle one last score with the brown people.

With a handful of men they turn back, ostensibly to fetch a forgotten item of provisions. Indeed they do demand provisions, assault the astonished people and at last give vent to their heart’s desire with curses, threatening that they have a dozen bloodhounds with them. The brown people are gentle but not cowardly. The captains sport with them as the stupid brown creatures deserve. Now they have to fetch something. As the clerics advised, they go to the mask hut and bachelor house, overturn the stupid wide-mouthed wooden idols, hack them to pieces, the masks worn for idol worship are shredded with a few dagger thrusts. They take possession of the disgusting black skulls that hang there, painted black and yellow and hung with feathers. One shot from a crossbow brings them down, a blow from a club smashes them, the fragments are trodden into the earth. They have a little wooden cross that they fix to the wall as a replacement. Then it is the turn of the villagers. No brownskins are to be seen, a few are caught fleeing and tied up. As they approach the village a hail of arrows greets them. The dark people flee from the gunshot blasts of their enemy. The captains set fire to the huts, but the fires only smoulder and are soon extinguished by the rain.

From this sortie, Federmann realises that the cunning brown people suddenly show themselves hostile when they find themselves facing just a small number of Whites. He is mistrustful. But mistrust is useless. There are swollen rivers to cross. Now villages they come across, which ought to promise boats, are empty, the old dreadful scene. Federmann berates the captains, the men of God hold their tongues and dare not intervene, at last the general asks: “Are you trying to bring disorder to our band?” Now the priests accuse him openly of provoking the excessive actions of the captains: “We are subjects of the Catholic king, destruction of idols is one object of the expedition. Instead the soldiers have become savages, many wear secret amulets given them by the heathen.” Federmann declines to laugh, he foresees complaints in Spain. He thanks the priests for their information, the soldiers probably wear the amulets only as keepsakes, a joke, he’ll confiscate them. He needs the priests’ help. But he cannot tolerate sedition or division within his small troop.

What a rampant landscape they now find themselves in, bursting with steam and heat. Swamps filled with tall luxuriant plants. Dense towering groves of bamboo climb the hills. Then forests, now with broad clearings, yellow and full of fallen and rotting trunks, now shady and overgrown. Creepers climb high up the trunks of palms, drop from aloft like snakes and then twine back up. Deathly silence.

The wind wafts fragrances, the soldiers think: if only we had stayed with the brownskins. They wear their amulets concealed. Curious beards hang down from trees, long and grey. Once these forests seemed bewitched, now you listen out for bird calls to know how the day will be, check branches and the ground, and your thoughts and desires are those of an Indian. Hanging grasses make whole swathes festive, they twist in garlands between crown and trunk and dangle to the ground – what do the natives see in them? You see roots, snakes, kill a few and roast them. When a kind of typhus breaks out in the band and they come to a large, recently abandoned village, they make a halt. Everyone senses a decision is near.

You feel torpid. You want a sacrifice. Federmann the captain-general is here. You saw him throw spears with the brown people and shoot arrows, the brownskins liked him. But when the capricious captains, friends of the priests, are sent out here and there with a small detachment, they never fail in their rage to set fire to any village they find empty. Yes, they even fetched masks and skulls from one hastily evacuated village and pursued the people, and those they caught were forced into masks and made to hack the idolatrous skulls to pieces themselves. This is told later among the troops, who hate the officers. As the band rests in the empty village and rumours of this heroic deed circulate, the captain-general shuts himself away in his hut and ponders. Next morning when he summons them – officers, notary and priests – to council, and orders Gonzalo and Lopez to appear before him, they are absent. Soldiers report that they rode out in the night and are not back yet. Federmann condemns their behaviour. Then the stern commander explodes: when the captains return they are to be brought to him, he will clap them in irons and hand them over to the governor in Coro for sentencing.

The horses of the two captains turn up that afternoon close by, but no bodies are found. It is never clarified whether they were murdered and quickly buried by Indians or by their own soldiers.

The camp is silent. The sacrifice is made. Homeward march.

From the huts of quiet gentle tribes into whose secrets you have forced yourself, the way leads back to the familiar desolate sea of grass. They are in the region between the Apure and Meta rivers. To the east flow the Cunaviche, Capanaparo, Arichuna, Caicara. You pass through the territories of the Otomaco, Guamo, Quiva. The troop is no longer a troop, although it has a captain-general on whom it depends, and a field-captain, quartermaster, notary royal, priests and a monk. The priests again seek a way to reach the men. But they find to their horror that they are greeted with bored faces. The men avoid them, frowning. Nothing is said out loud against them. They complain to Federmann: we drag depraved semi-heretics back with us.

They reach the first foothills again. And though Federmann says nothing he knows that loyalty lies with the brown people the soldiers live among, a life with animals and on the water, and the priests are right, the men seem enchanted by the natives. Mountains, separation, will do them good.

But these forests, mountains, valleys, gigantic peaks that tower up ahead of them green and sombre, they are filled with brown tribes. And this time the captain-general agrees with his comrades: we must do battle! The men still sing songs from the llanos whose words they do not understand, you mock them but they won’t be dragged from their way of seeing and questioning. They believe they must preserve themselves from danger with pigments and signs, they paint chest and arms and hips. Faces they dare not paint. Such strange huddled conversations they engage in. When a priest or officer approaches they fall silent.

You trudge through mountain forests. The air quivers with butterflies, fish in the rivers crowd so thickly that the water ripples over them as if over rocks.

Horses have done good service everywhere, now in the mountains they become a burden, they stumble, have to be unloaded. So you must revert to the old search for native bearers. Federmann is happy to take the offensive, captains and priests are on his side. A captain sets off with fifty men, returns to camp with a hundred and fifty dwarves, soldiers look on encouraged, they know there’s nothing for it but to fight these people, many dwarves were left lying and some soldiers were wounded, as you march off again the train is attacked by furious midgets trying to free the captives.

When you surprise a big village of dwarves, the chief, to whom you speak in friendly tones, offers himself as guide. He honours Federmann with some bows and arrows, and the biggest surprise comes three days later as you march off: the chief brings to the red-bearded captain-general a lovely young brown girl, she reaches to Federmann’s armpit. The girl weeps, like all the others she takes the Whites for evil spirits, but Federmann delights in her, and the whole camp rejoices as the general, ignoring the headshakes of the priests, hugs the girl and keeps her at his side. She becomes the troop’s mascot.

The trek over the mountains degenerates into a savage hunt. The men’s mood is of unfocused resentment. They are belligerent, disappointed, enmeshed in their rage. The priests note with satisfaction that now they behave like proper soldiers. The troop refreshes itself in an appalling way. Among the Cagantuo they find lovely valleys, the people plant, dig, trade, they are proud and warlike. They do not deign to go with the Whites, the soldiers make violent assaults on some villages, then Federmann reins them in, they meet him halfway, a hundred and fifty Whites, four thousand natives, they hand out fishhooks, knives, axes and stay for weeks in the villages, the troop still cannot leave well alone. The villages are regular fortresses with palisades of wood. But living there you are already lord and master, the scornful white man, staying aloof from the games of the savages. It happens that a fever afflicts the Whites, and when more than half the troop fall sick Federmann sees it as a sign and decides to break camp, for no white man must be allowed to die here. The sick are strapped onto horses in pairs and led away, the rest are carried on litters bedecked with feathers, for these are great lords, you tell the natives, they don’t go on foot.

There are surprising finds of gold in houses. You prick up your ears. Where was it, who was there, what, what?

Now every last shred of weakness disappears. You are ravished by the old lust for booty, glowering avarice is back, you are your old self again with your craving. Brown, red, turtles, jaguars, forget it all.

They came upon a large village, men with spears and arrows were standing on the heights beside it. Federmann walked down to the place. In the empty square they had put two stools with gold. When no natives appeared and Federmann entered the chief’s house, it was barricaded from within. The general made it known to those inside that nothing would happen to them, he wanted to reciprocate the gifts, and was placing them on the ground. Then a hundred armed men came out with the chief. And when without preamble Federmann asked about gold, the anxious natives relaxed and brought a great quantity. The soldiers erupted in cheers. The general too was happy, and soothed the natives. They complained that he had treated neighbouring tribes badly. He stroked their hands: That was not his fault, just the anger of the horses after one of them was wounded.

The natives told of Cundinamarca in the mountains, of a city called Funza, the great Zipa.

Now the final stage of the march. The soldiers had given up on natives, turtles, jaguars, lakes, had lost them all, scarcely a tremor left in them of all that. They scrambled for gold. They must grab it all. This stage of the journey turned them into savages. They went over icy passes. No bearers with them. They ate horses and hounds that froze to death. They hunted bear and jaguar. They were clad in animal skins.

And there, down below, lay the savannah.

 

Horsetrading among the victors

When Quesada heard how the new arrivals conducted themselves and that they were almost naked and clad in jaguar pelts and deerskin, once the first shock had passed he felt – he did not know why – a warm glow. He would help these have-nots. Clearly, they had endured many hardships. It reminded him of the lamentable condition in which he himself had arrived here. Yes, these poor devils turn up thinking to inherit something, and the table is full. Sad, but alas that’s how it is. The newcomers released Quesada from the incubus laid on him by Belalcazar the Magnificent.

And as the commander and all his troops laboured at the camp defences and considered a surprise attack on one of the other two groups, Quesada’s thoughts ran on quite other lines: namely, that he now had lots of gold and could do something with it, and how to keep poor Johnny-come-lately in his poverty. For the poverty of the newcomers pleased him more and more. He observed the miserable sick rabble from afar, that’s how we looked once, we were like that, and thought with the equanimity of a marquis and a viceroy: what a dismal condition men can fall into. And he confided to Barreda his intention to preserve his men from the folly of joining forces with Belalcazar.

“For me it will be a mere bagatelle,” he explained to Barreda, “to reach an understanding with Belalcazar on my own account. You don’t believe me? I tell you, Belalcazar fears that the newcomers will take away what’s left, or that I will ally myself with the newcomers against him. But I shall not do so. Why? I think that despite all the torments the newcomers have undergone, they are still merely in training, and we should not spoil them. In the end Fortune can bless only one man.”

And with a sangfroid that won the hard savage commander’s respect, the former functionary Quesada despatched two officers to Belalcazar to invite him for a meeting. Quesada, already wearing viceroy’s boots, proceeded with all the assurance of a sleepwalker. How he blossomed under Fortune.

And Belalcazar came. The discussion took place in the open between the camps. Belalcazar exuded cordiality. They shook hands, and had mutual acquaintances in Toledo. Belalcazar’s brother in law almost married a niece of Quesada’s, they were engaged but the girl preferred the convent. These were happy tidings.

They arrived at a general regulation of relations. Neither side would bring the natives joy by undertaking military action against the other. Quesada urged fervently: “With what these savages have, two such as us can live well.” A large party of natives, escorted by numerous soldiers and surrounded by bloodhounds, was driven past to Quesada’s camp, they made way for them. As they rode on a little, another train of people, a double chain tethered together, all dumb. Then the governor began to explain his plan to the other white man, in view of his solidarity. He offered enraptured Belalcazar an enormous amount of gold, to be weighed on the spot. A further quantity would follow. Belalcazar was moved: “I expected no less of you. The times when men kill for gold are over, thank God.” They shook hands.

Awkwardly suppressing the urge to embrace, since this could cause them to fall from their mounts, they rode into Quesada’s camp. “Peace, peace!” Belalcazar called to the suspicious soldiers. The men did not understand. When it was explained to them they said: “His gold comes out of the king’s fifth.”

At the weighing, it occurred to Quesada that he might have reached this agreement at the first and without the newcomers, since the magnificent man with his feathered cloak and sleek horses and well nourished men at his back seemed disgustingly lazy and out for easy pickings, and if you gave them some they’d be content and go off to find new hunting grounds. Who Belalcazar was showed itself in the ugliest manner shortly after this brief smooth encounter. The magnificent man, once masks were allowed to fall, initiated a lively commerce between his camp and Quesada’s. He sold a number of his horses to the astonished governor, at a stupendous price. As for his weapons, of which Quesada showed particular interest in relieving him, he proved reticent. The Peruvian was exceedingly happy when the governor made an astonishing offer for the cannon and some arquebuses, and afterwards the governor himself laughed with the Peruvian in his tent. For it was obvious: if the Peruvian sold his armaments, the governor would have him cornered and could retrieve everything at his leisure. Belalcazar laughed tears: “What an affair that would be, governor! You are a clever chap. If I were King of Spain and had to decide whom to appoint to this new province, I would say: you and you alone!” This was one of the few moments during the expedition when the governor laughed aloud with others.

At this meeting, where everything went so happily and they put all travails and troubles behind them, mountains, poisoned arrows, swollen rivers, quagmires and hunger, Belalcazar began to prate and recount something of himself, especially how he had seized the city of Quito in the south by means of a surprise attack, and indulged himself extensively on the topic of his brilliant lieutenant, Ampudia by name: “Those colourful people will not forget my bold lieutenant. His chaplain has told me how Ampudia proceeded: like lightning and quicksilver. Like quicksilver he extracted all the metal from the houses, and like lightning he reduced the houses to ashes.” The Peruvian’s laughter rang out again.

Quesada coolly uttered a few compliments: “As long as this lieutenant makes no difficulties for you with the Spanish Crown.”

“Oho, my good man. We bring gold. What problems will the Crown raise?”

Later that evening, over Indian beer, the wily Peruvian again spoiled his pleasure by broaching the matter of weapons. Quesada must provide something more before he can hand them over. He has not received enough for them. The governor lost his composure. But why? He feared a trap, perhaps the Peruvian had heard about his decoy cannon and was indulging in blackmail. And indeed his opening gambit is: he knows Quesada’s arquebuses and cannon are unusable. Quite different from his own case. Then he paused, and his tremendous laugh rang out at the dismayed governor: in point of fact his own cannon are really just for show. Yes! The barrels have long since rusted away inside. But on the outside they are cleaned and polished, he insists on that. Quesada is an innocent. All these savages need is a bang and a flash. The guns can manage that at least.

With heavy heart Quesada (oh the shame) asked: “And in what condition are your arquebuses?” Now he was furious, felt like a gullible wretch, and intended as soon as he could to wring his contractual partner’s neck. Observing this, the latter said:

“The arquebuses, thank God, are all in good order and skilled hands.” And if Quesada doubts it, they can fire a demonstration volley at fleeing prisoners.

Quesada smiled sourly and sipped his beer. You can’t believe a word the rascal says, he’s a scoundrel, a blowhard, how to be avenged, you’ll taste my vengeance. Truly, phlegmatic Quesada has learned to hate.

After this Belalcazar remained affable, and engaged on a grand scale in his horse-selling business on the savannah, which at least for him had turned out to be no battleground. His horses proved to be like his guns: they looked good on the outside, but were rotted away inside. When confronted over some horses, Belalcazar made no denial. Why should horses carry loads here, where there are so many heathen! The only thing a horse has to do in this country, he explained, is to live, show signs of life, really just keep standing on its four legs. It is enough that it breathe and keep its eyes open. Once – and this was attested by his men – he had a sick horse carried on a sort of wooden litter by several dozen natives. The savages had sooner or later shown reluctance to carry every other kind of load, but this they took up without a word, they made no attempt at all to escape. And when the horse died they flung themselves down before the bier, and were ready to follow it into death.

≈≈≈

Meanwhile Quesada attended to the leader of the savage newcomers, whom he referred to as his dear beggar. He sent him soft clothing and food, but it was no easy matter dealing with the newcomer, who to his astonishment revealed himself to be captain-general Nicolaus Federmann of Ulm, deputy to Georg von Speyer. For the newcomers were not after gold, but gold and pillage! Women and war! Just like him!

Quesada was flabbergasted. This place produced no end of surprises. A blind man scrambles up here and explains that he cannot accept charitable gifts, he wants pillage. A starving robber captain makes demands, as if anyone were in a position to make demands here. But Federmann explained in complete guilelessness as they rode together on an outing: a payoff will not serve my turn. There was no meeting of minds. We must think about it further tomorrow. But then it poured the next day, and the next. And then Quesada rode up to Federmann’s camp, the general came out, they rode off side by side in conversation, and Quesada requested permission for his commander to ride into the stockade with a small detachment, to see Federmann’s people. Federmann saw nothing amiss in this. He said: “He wants information about our strength. Let him. My soldiers are good, they have hair on their teeth. I’d advise no one to trifle with them.” Quesada’s commander had the same impression. Barreda met his leader an hour later and quietly made his report.

“Whatever shall I do with you!” confided Quesada – the chess player, the merry cozener – with a laugh to Federmann, “do we really want to slaughter each other, and then perhaps my friend Belalcazar will wade in for the kill once one of us is lying there? Hand over your soldiers, give them to me! I like them. I shall pay them, and you, handsomely. And afterwards your soldiers can pillage to their heart’s content.”

Federmann was astonished, and growled in disgust: “A monstrously simple solution.”

And after Federmann had thought over at length what it meant for him and his troop, he acceded. For though Federmann saw all the gold round about them, the journey had drained him, he had no stomach for fighting, he was a German and homesick. He admitted his suffering to the governor: “Say a good word. Say how we can manage this without loss of honour.” There was nothing Quesada wanted more.

So they reached an accord. All three of them, Quesada, Belalcazar, Federmann, today, tomorrow or the next day, would set off for the Spanish court to report on their deeds and receive honours and distinctions. Meanwhile Quesada, given that Federmann felt himself too weary, would lead the troops who were under Federmann’s command on a first reconnaissance march to the south. The rest should be decided back home.

Federmann insisted on the same sum for himself and his soldiers as the Peruvian. The jubilation among his men was tremendous. They considered it a down payment.

And that night the town belonged to them.

And the remaining natives – there were still some thousands there – suffered another round of death, violation, horror.

And this time it was thorough, without frenzy or drunkenness. Rage and destruction were the watchwords of Federmann’s men.

That night the town was annihilated.

And now fire gained the upper hand, spread through carelessness, started out of spite by Barreda’s soldiers, who disagreed with Quesada’s orders. A night of peril. Whites fought each other in the flickering streets. Federmann and Quesada put in an appearance to calm things down.

In the morning over two hundred Whites – shot, many of them charred – were hauled from the rubble.

≈≈≈

On the high plateau the governor ordered slaves and his soldiers to erect a dozen big straw houses and a straw-roofed church. It was August, long months since they had set out, he from the mountains of Santa Marta, Federmann from Coro, Belalcazar from Peru. The three leaders rode past the low houses, Quesada pointed them out, the other two gentlemen congratulated him. The magnificent Peruvian said: “Surely the place is big enough already, the Indians have run away into the mountains and to the south, what do you plan to do with these houses?”

“They’re for the soldiers.”

“What soldiers?”

“Ours.”

The gentlemen were greatly puzzled, and Federmann tugged his chin and said: “You must not think, governor, that our men came from Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Germany to dwell in a barn and keep guard over your church of straw in case the heathen try to burn it down.”

“And what is your view, general? What? What will our soldiers do here?”

The two generals regarded each other. The Peruvian, on Quesada’s other side: “You can’t be serious, governor. Our soldiers sitting in these huts! Look at me. My father was a woodcutter in Andalucia, I ran away from him, now see my weapons, my gold trim, the hat on my head, and see me riding at your side and now we’re off to the king of Castile where we can secure our rights. Holy Virgin, I’d like to see the fellow who could make me or my soldiers sit in such a house.”

They trotted over the silent savannah, behind them the town lay dead, the river wound muddy and slow.

Quesada: “In my native land there’s a book they read about a knight with the same name as me, but they say it Quixote. I was telling my commander Barreda about it not long ago. This Quixote is a serious fellow, he rides out with lance, targe, shield and squire, engages in all kinds of silliness. Back home they laugh over this book. We consider Don Quixote mad. Can you believe that any man who rides around the open roads of Spain bearing arms and doing heroic deeds has his wits about him?”

The others asked him to continue. “Our heroes of the hour will quieten down. A few will have gold and return to Spain. Not many. And the gold will soon be gone. They won’t want to be peasants over there. The only solution: let them live in my houses.”

“To be peasants here?”

“If they want. If not, there is much more to conquer. But in the end every general must have troops he can trust to hold a place, so that no one can attack his rear.” Now they saw the light. Quesada went on: “They can live in comfort here. They can catch savages whenever they want and put them to work tilling the soil. Martial ardour fades with the years.” The other two liked this as well.

Belalcazar confided: “We need terrain such as this. Maybe they’ll even send food over to Spain sometimes. For if there’s no change it is possible that people over there really will starve. Monks are good, but so many monks! If only they would fast, at least.”

Federmann relished the joke: “No, they don’t fast, those monks, they don’t fast.” Quesada fixed them with a hard eye: “They pray. In the better monasteries they fast. Never forget, gentlemen, that we have two tasks to fulfil here: to conquer provinces for the Spanish crown, and to spread Christian doctrine.”

Federmann sighed. Belalcazar whistled. The governor stared sternly ahead. Federmann stood in the stirrups and plucked bananas from a tree for himself and the others.

≈≈≈

Next day the generals came together with their staff on the open ground in front of the new church, and formed a circle in the thick grass. The Castilian flag was hoisted in the centre. Riders dismounted.

The governor bent down, plucked some grass, and augmented the previous provisional declaration by taking the country definitively into Spanish possession.

The country, wrote the notary royal, shall be called New Granada, the town Holy Faith, Santa Fe. Then, hats in hand, they entered the new church. Las Casas, Fra Bartholomew, said the first Mass.

Victors’ spoils

They did little more up there on the plateau. It was enough to have arrived. And their soldiers were of the same mind. They came into the land like a sickness into a body. They were there and observed the decay.

They learned of the exodus from the town of Funza. Riders from south and west brought reports of new wonders. Then Belalcazar and Federmann, accompanied at first by the governor, set off for the coast, and Spanish honours.

They proceeded sleek and happy, the vultures, fifty armed men as escort. The route led westward.

The savannah persists for a while, then the mountains close in, the Funza forms a small lake, and here the god Bochica took up his magic staff and hurled it through the mountains. The Funza dashes wildly against cliffs, the little river thunders as it nears the sacred fissure, bursts through, drops a short distance over a ledge, and only now sees what lies before it after the tiresome savannah: nothing, a broad endless emptiness, sky and abyss. This is what the god decreed. And it does not hesitate. It hurls its swelling waters over the ledge and surges open-eyed into the deep empty vastness. Sky and abyss and death and life. A broad sweep ahead. A drop that is sheer joy. Then sizzle and hiss and over we go. And it surfaces again in a cloud of mist and celebrates the leap with a multitude of rainbows, acclaimed by birds and lianas.

They rode to the Magdalena river. Cold fog rose over rocky passes. They descended at a trot, it grew warmer, the chest felt constricted, the sun reappeared from its foggy concealment. And below you could see the river, languid after its breakthrough. A fertile landscape all about. Round peaks visible across the valley, blue lines of mountains. The valley floor was hot. They came to the wide plain of the Magdalena and made halt. They began at once to build boats to take them downstream. Quesada gazed about with his companions and realised: this valley with its coconut trees is a good base for despatching the riches they have collected. A small detachment of Whites was summoned from Funza, and across the river, on its left bank, they built the settlement of Honda, designated a transhipment depot.

Here the Guali flowed foaming into the mighty river, formed seething rapids, and thundered downward. And this river was the Magdalena, upon which Quesada had embarked with five stout ships at the start of his expedition. The plan was a good one, and if only they had reached this spot and climbed into the mountains from here, then everything would have gone without a hitch. This is clear. At Quesada’s side is Alcobazo, his ship’s officer. They look at one another. Fortune smiles now. They continue downstream a short way. The rapids are no obstacle. Here are the narrow banks, cliffs, the loathsome forest. They stop, look around. Here the ships with the sick moored, over there was where they climbed up one morning only to become lost, nearly die, and then encounter flamboyant Belalcazar and his doughty train. High above they see condors and vultures, ahead the rushing waters. No men, no spars. Heat drops from the sky. They search along the banks, forest edge for traces of men. Rattlesnakes coil down from trees, rustle through the undergrowth. An army of ants marches from forest to river, a marvellous tribe, each carries a leaf bigger than itself like a green wing, and pulls it into their nest in the riverside gravel.

Quesada took leave of the two generals.

≈≈≈

He set off to take possession of southern Cundinamarca for the first time.

The conquistador horde had grown strong. The first frenzy of pillage was over. They had what they had, wanted more. It was the chance of a lifetime. Plunge everything in blood. Their throats still growled: hey dear bride, Lucinda Dorinda, Theresa with your rosy cheeks, white arms, you wanted a knight, a fine man. Their eyes were bloodshot, their rage never left them. Many had gambled away their loot, some lay in chains after robbing their fellows, it was all the same to them, dozens had set about each other with dagger and warclub, inflicting blows and serious wounds.

On it went. They wanted to fulfill their frothing, puling destiny.

At their head behind the tambour sat Belligerence, with helmet, cuirass and real human legbones, its weight borne by a horse, it swung its sword and made not a sound when it hit true. You couldn’t see who it was behind the closed visor. If you pulled it from the horse and stripped away the cuirass, then oozing mould and stinking puffballs would spill out, it would implode and smear itself over the ground as thick sticky slime.

Behind marched Misanthropy, halberd in hand, a little round shield at the left breast. Gay feathers drooped from hat to forehead and shaded the hard white-grey face. But it had no flesh or skin or blood, it was a skeleton. It could not stay in its myriad graves, it had heard that men still lived and breathed, and as long as that was the case it would wield its halberd and thrust them into the next world.

In wide peasant costume with an enormous skirt, someone waddled alongside and crouched down and stretched both arms out over the ground. The coarse woman walked crooked in her heavy garments, she sweated and couldn’t move, a kick to the bottom and she fell down, filled her apron, gathered and wheezed. Avarice.

And behind these three the soldiers, howling to the crashing music of the band that marched among them, drums, trumpets, conches and flutes.

They blared and pounded, they were the fathers who sired them, the mothers who bore them, the sisters, brides who awaited them.

≈≈≈

They aimed for the southern capital Muqueta, or Bogota. They came to empty villages, their approach still engendered horror. In the villages they found whole storehouses stuffed with food, cloth, even gifts of gold. Trying to buy them off. But such gold! Such gold! They wanted more. They wanted death, for themselves and others.

The Funza affair repeated itself. They found old people tied up in open spaces, piles of wood beside them: sacrificial offerings. During the trek through the mountains events occurred which they had not understood before, but now regarded with equanimity: frightened people hastened from villages towards them, and hurled their living children over cliffs. The people sought to soften their rage. And truly it did, it calmed them.

In villages south of Sorocota other rumours had spread. They met resistance. Behind Sorocota there was a gorge to cross. As they approached they were attacked by natives from the opposite side, using slings. It was evening, they were jittery as they made camp. But in the night a lovelorn pair of horses broke loose from the trees, and fought. The stallion escaped the maddened mare and in the dark galloped down the slope, the mare at his heels. Neighing they leapt across the whole breadth of the gorge and raced up to the Indian camp. Panic ensued. The horses spread terror. The natives fled, panicked by the wrath of these demons. The Whites hardly noticed what had happened. When they assembled next morning and prepared for an assault by the natives, the gorge was already clear. The two horses were grazing calmly on the other side.

An act of judgement by Quesada helped to enlighten the natives. He was no Alfinger. He wanted no murder or burning. He wanted to rule a civilised country, and furthermore wanted all property for himself. So when a soldier called Juan Gordon stole valuable goods in Suzuka, he had him hanged. Let that be an example. But there was an unexpected effect. For the first time the natives saw a dead white man. These uncanny beings can die. Shortly thereafter, the white rearguard behind Suzuka was set upon by a horde of Indians. The southern prince, carrying the embalmed bodies of his ancestors with him, had come forward for the decisive battle, blocking the road to Muqueta, the capital, to any Whites from wherever they might come. The darkskins were despatched by firearms, horseback assaults and swordthrusts. The battle was horrifying in its desperate savagery even for the Whites, who for the first time suffered many dead and wounded. The capital could not hold. The empire of the natives was doomed. Cundinamarca was gone, gone, could not but be gone.

Everything fell into Quesada’s hands. Even in Funza, during the first horrors, some hundreds of native warriors had placed themselves at his disposal. After the breakthrough at Suzuka thousands came over to him, and he had a tidy army. He came to Bogota. The Whites having now been thoroughly unmasked, the capital was abandoned, the fleeing populace evacuated along with all foodstuffs and every trace of gold, silver and precious stones.

Then governor Quesada turned back. For the duration of his absence his captain-general took charge.

≈≈≈

Quesada was fortunate. He reached Spain. He was honoured like the old conquistadors Pizarro and Cortez.

He returned to his realm of Cundinamarca, land of the Muisca.

Fighting had reached a desperate level. The ballad of Zaquezazipa circulated for a long time, about the general who fought and when he could fight no longer threw himself from a cliff. Barreda, Quesada’s merciless field commander, had pounced all over him, hemmed him in. The dark prince promised gold, his servants brought gold in the morning and at noon Barreda’s men stole it, out of mockery and greed. And when the field commander returned after fourteen days there was nothing there. The prince knew: they are our ruin. The Whites had the prince flogged. Barreda screamed: “Where is your gold?” The prince said not a word, and died.

The cacique of Tandama defied Barreda, he concealed himself with his people in a swamp. Horses could not reach him, fire-tubes lacked the range, they sat behind tall palisades, the Whites searched for the paths by which natives carried maize and water through the swamp. Then someone betrayed the path. Horses rode across, riders stabbed with steel swords, guns roared. But by the time they secured the fort the Whites were almost annihilated. The usac sued for peace. The Whites made a treaty. The usac brought gold. Barreda picked up a hammer and said: “You have not given enough gold, so I cannot keep the peace. I take this hammer and smash your gold.” The usac begged for time. Then Barreda swung the hammer and smashed his skull.

Quesada undertook the repression with pride and joy.

On the coast leprosy raged, soldiers from the Moorish wars had brought it in.

Leprosy took to the governor in Santa Fe, and carried him off.

≈≈≈

When magnificent Belalcazar had traipsed around the realm of Cundinamarca for long enough and appeared on the coast at almost the same time as Quesada, to his shock and indignation he found officers of the court awaiting him. He was accused of brigandage, outrages, disobedience, the usual, from his earlier days in Peru. No doubt he had Quesada to thank for the investigation, he brought it on him out of spite to avoid the inevitable falling out. He was right, this was revenge. The haughty man lay humbled in Cartagena gaol. The great ocean stretched before him, Spain on the other side. He worked on his defence. How could they play this trick after all his successes. He started a fever. He grew thin. Before an answer came from Madrid he was dead.

≈≈≈

Nicolaus Federmann, captain-general, wanted fame and honour back home. He also wanted to defend himself against the greedy rich men of Augsburg who had placed him at the head of his troops and now, like the tradesmen they were, accused him of excesses. He embarked as proud and cheerful as ever. At his side was the dwarf woman presented to him in the grassy plains of Venezuela. He had decked her out like a Spanish noblewoman, a princess. On board she strutted beside him in purple satin brocade, under it a bulky satin dress with a train, at her belt hung a cedarwood rosary, a bushel of green and blue feathers drooped from her wide hat. During the voyage she sat beside him at table on a raised gold-chased stool that he had made for her in Coro. Oh, she cried, she was afraid of the water and the spirits of the storm. He had to let her paint herself under her clothes with protective pigments she had brought with her, every day she smeared new circles, lines, spots on her skin and even on her little brave face, each mark protecting her from some particular danger. And perhaps they did. But against one danger they were powerless: the ship’s wine store.

Federmann was still in celebration mood. He advised all his companions, captains, quartermasters who had starved and suffered with him in the llanos and on the high passes to behave likewise, for soon the moneybags of Augsburg will clap open their books, Herr Seyler and Herr Pegner, they’ll perch eyeglasses on their noses and start lecturing, and you’ll stand there like a little boy and suck your thumb. Keep up your courage! With toast after toast they wished the sly scribblers in Hell, and ran competitions in cursing and execration. The little woman had to repeat the ripest curses, and was drilled like a parrot until she learned them, so that as soon as they reached Spain she could fling them in the faces of those Knights of the Iron Backsides. The thought of this caused the company delirious amusement every day. She was their queen.

But the little woman had an enemy on board: the chaplain. He had tried to prevent her coming on board. When this failed, he harassed her by making her sit still every day among hawsers and chains while he prayed at her, and to her grief wiped the coloured marks from her face with a sponge that he carried in his cowl for this purpose. Now one day she came promenading amidships after a hearty luncheon, painted as always, and for fun had taken up her rosary and was swinging it merrily through the air, all the while trilling curses the company had taught her that day. The black Dominican encountered her, heard her thin little voice and her folderol and was scandalised to see that the tawny creature was painted again and larking with her rosary. He waited until she was close by, she failed to notice him behind the mast, and he gave her a couple of resounding slaps that knocked her down. As she lay there he snatched the lovely rosary from her hands. Hearing her screams, some came running from the messroom, heated, full of Dutch courage, lips unwiped, hats flopping at their necks. They pulled the bawling little thing to her feet, she screamed for her rosary, the wild men demanded it from the monk, he stuffed it in his girdle and retreated.

Finally Federman himself arrived, tipsy. When he had surveyed the scene and learned what had happened, he set the princess at his hip and ran after the monk. He would, he should be punished at once, the stupid blackrobe, he would, he should carry the Indian princess on his hip just like this, five times around the ship as punishment. The monk, seeing the state of Federmann and his company, ran to find the captain, the helmsman. He climbed to the quarterdeck. It was a stormy day, all the sailors were busy. Federmann, the dwarf clinging to his neck, climbed up behind him, hard on his heels came his mob of table companions, conquerors of the savannah and high passes, his men. He would and should catch the wretched monk.

But he did not catch him. For what the savannah and the high passes of terra firma could not accomplish, the sea did all of a sudden. A wave, not especially big or strong, broke over the deck. Federmann and his bride slipped in the wet and lay against the rail. Were he not drunk he could simply have regained his feet and moved away. But he threshed around to escape the water, still gripping his lady’s legs, but in the wrong direction, slid across the sloping deck and overboard. They saw him come up, the little creature on his shoulders clinging to his hair. She hampered his swimming, in her fright clamped hands over his eyes so he could not see the lines they threw to him. The men stood there, sobered, filled with horror, waited, eyes starting from their heads to see what their lusty captain-general would do. They lowered a dinghy. But he was already a good way astern, tossed up and down by the waves, the heavy red-bearded man. The little dwarf had let go and was bobbing behind him like a pretty ball over green-white crests. Both were dead. Nothing more could befall them.

The monk, no longer hunted, knelt with some people at the ship’s rail. He raised his wooden cross over the water in the direction of the floating bodies.

≈≈≈

This was their end, the generals and governors who had rampaged so.

They had no father, no mother, no children.

They had no ancestors or descendants.

They were stones spewed into the air from a volcano, that fell to earth, and shattered.

The path through the web

White soldiers swarmed over the land.

From Coro, Cartagena, Quito, the lure of new Eldorados brought fresh supplies of Whites. They were the same species as the earlier ones.

To the south, by the source of the Cauca and Patia rivers, on the high plateaus of Tuquerres and Pasto lay wealthy villages, often a hundred families to a house, the most pacific of the dark people. Spaniards came from the north with horse, arquebus and bloodhound. As a branding iron burns the skin and causes blood to flow, so they came into this happy land, a few hundred men, outcasts from savage Europe. The natives saw their ruin draw near. They could not name it, but when it arrived they had to flee or die. Ahead of the white horde, thousands of dark men, women and children fled in a mile-wide stream leaving behind homes, fields and animals. When they left a village where the graves of their ancestors lay, they dropped pebbles behind them and swept the ground with branches so that the ancestors would know the way and follow them. Those who could not escape barricaded their houses and hanged themselves from the rafters in their hundreds. In the forests they had no food. White demons were on the march. Again and again children were thrown from cliffs so that the Sun would accept their blood and show mercy.

And as the Whites came along the Popayan road in the high valley of the Cauca, they faced the menacing volcanoes where the earthquake god dwells. But the long road as far as the terrace of Tuquerres was sown, as with blossom falling from a tree, with people who had been abandoned by their god and from whom life had drained away. It was not war or plague that murdered them.

Now the Whites could take all they wanted of gold, silver, emeralds and cloth.

≈≈≈

In the valley of the Iraca, near the Sogamosa river, stood a temple. The high priest of the country lived there. He was known as “He who makes himself invisible”.

The Zipa made a pilgrimage to him. White spies followed at a distance.

The dark people divided their days, these for the service of deities, these for labour, these for repose. Three days were for the service of deities. Now the procession did not move. Three days for labour. Then it crept forward along the road. Three days for rest. Then it did not move.

With the Zipa came a host of priests, gaunt men in black skirts with black caps who spoke little, fasted a lot and kept awake so as not to miss at any hour a call from their Heaven.

More than a hundred of the Zipa’s wives were carried in curtained litters. His sickly young son was surrounded by priests. They had taken him from the temple, and protected him from the awful sight of the Sun. His litter was closed tight. When they brought him food, the priests placed thick blindfolds over his eyes. He wore heavy ear discs and a big nose ring.

When the three travelling days came, the road ahead of the Zipa was swept clear with brooms and covered with cloth upon which flowers were strewn, so that when he left his litter he should not disturb the earth.

There were large and small settlements along the way. Fortifications had been erected against enemy attack. They were ringed by a double palisade, the poles lashed securely together, stout awnings stretched between them to protect the defenders against arrows. So as to be remiss in nothing when they built the settlement, into the holes dug for the kingposts they threw pious young maidens of noble family, who had begged for this honour. The sharpened ends of the kingposts pierced the pious bodies, to the glory of Heaven. From every place people came out to join the pilgrimage. People even came from the lowlands, to which terrible rumours of the White demons had penetrated. They carried dried food in baskets on their backs, and small gold and silver figurines in their hands.

The sacred way began at Chalcha. The lake of Guatavita is called “Fire of the mountains”. It lies on a height, surrounded by thick forests. The summit of the mountain flattens itself to a little plain, and a cone rises from it, its base a circle, the summit encloses the clear lake, which is as round as the mountain that embraces it. The wife of a great king threw herself into this lake, the spirit of the lake took her to wife, in times of need they call to her as well. Extensive temples, dwellings for priests and laity sprawled around the foot of the tree-covered holy mountain. To the east, the sunrise, the plain had been cleared, and a broad avenue lined left and right with stones led to the sacrificial circle.

Sugamuxi, the high priest, cacique of Irica province, received the guest in his dwelling.

Sugamuxi, black markings on his face, in a loose black cloak, grey hair over his ears and down to his shoulders, a low golden mitre on his head, as old as the Zipa but lean and sharp, with black expressive eyes, sat across from the Zipa. The bamboo screen at the window was hitched up, a cool mountain breeze wafted in. The Zipa sat with heavy rugs across his knees. No one else was there.

The Zipa glanced at his host. “Sugamuxi, I have no gifts to bring for your temple.”

“Thysquesuska, you are welcome here.”

Zipa: “Whiteskinned bearded men have fallen upon Cundinamarca. They have fire tubes and strange beasts. Funza, the town, is destroyed. Many people are dead.”

Sugamuxi kept quite still.

Zipa: “You advised me, Sugamuxi, to make peace with the king of Tunja. Peace came. I meant to thank you at the festival of Huan.”

Stern Sugamuxi closed his bright eyes for a moment. “It is a good day for the Zipa to journey here, at Huan, the festival of kings. In ancient times Ramiriki rose to Heaven at Huan and entered the Sun.”

“The bearded white men are criminals. Their king is a creature of no understanding. He makes a gift of Cundinamarca, which does not belong to him and which he has never seen.”

Sugamuxi fixed the Zipa with his big eyes. “We learned of a bearded man from long ago, who taught the people of our country many good things. They called him ‘the Man who Disappears’. He wandered through the mountains and his cloak hung from one shoulder, his beard reached to his waist, an animal with two humps went with him. He died in Boza. Do the bearded white men look like the Man who Disappears? What do they teach?”

“They kill and take gold from all the houses. They have beards. There is a black man with them, he carries a black box with a cross and says this is their highest spirit.”

“Have you spoken with this man, Thysquesuska?”

The old man shook his head: “I spoke with the leader of the criminals, to find out what they are. They forced their way in to me.”

Sugamuxi: “Cundinamarca is well appointed with priests, warriors, craftsmen, peasants. Priests perform their office, craftsmen toil in the settlements, peasants in the fields. What do the warriors do?”

“My general Zaquezazipa advised me not to go into battle. When the fire tube bangs, people fall down with holes in their bodies.”

“Does blood flow?”

“Yes.”

They were silent. Garishly painted vases stood along the walls of the low square room.

The Zipa leaned forward: “Sugamuxi, has Bochica abandoned us? Has the pillar of the people left us? The white criminals make slaves of his children. Many died and cannot be buried.”

“Thysquesuska, I shall enquire.”

≈≈≈

Two days later, early in the morning, a ceremony of supplication took place.

Once the world was shrouded in darkness. Bochica contained light in himself, he created great birds, black in colour, he tasked them to fly all through the universe and carry light everywhere, the birds were filled with light. And every place that they pecked at with their beaks became light. People appeared on the earth, from a mother who came out of the sea.

Next day the Zipa allowed himself to be massaged with the juice of a plant called trejelon. They puffed gold dust all over his body. The procession wound from the little plain up the flank of the sacred cone, along a narrow path. At its head were priests in black, they blew on conches and trumpets. The mountains responded with tremendous echoes.

Behind them leapt figures in pelts of jaguar, lion, bear, conveying the homage of powerful beasts. Behind these a crowd of people who wept and cried and filled the air with their laments, sought to move Heaven. Behind them others who rejoiced, laughed, danced, wanted to thank Heaven.

And then the Zipa’s entourage, with sumptuous fabrics they swept the path clear for the Zipa’s chair. It was carried by six noblemen.

They arrived at the summit, before them the dark blue lake Guatavita, above and around it and them the dome of great purple-flaming Heaven, light, emptiness, cool wind.

The lake was ringed by people. Their blowing, wailing, singing, crying, laughing, the echoes from the mountains, rose up to Heaven.

Two naked crones squatted at the entrance. They wore nothing, for Death robs a person of everything. One, eyes downcast, blew gently on a flute. The other held some webbing. A person goes into Death on threads as slender as spider’s silk.

A wide raft was moored to the lakeshore. The priests and the Zipa, that ponderous gold-glittering man, together with his entourage climbed onto it. The raft floated to the middle of the lake. Endless wailing, trumpet sounds, rumbling echoes.

In the middle of the lake, nobles poured water over the Zipa, the gold washed off. Priests, prostrate on the ground, eyes closed, packed shoulder to shoulder, sang to Bochica who climbs with his rays into the depths of the lake and rejoices in the gifts. Robes were draped around the Zipa, he dropped his golden discs and vessels into the water.

≈≈≈

Sugamuxi, the high priest, lay for hours alone in the temple on the black prayer mat. Above him stood the huge Sun-disc, image of Bochica. Sacred pottery vessels, painted, of many different shapes, stood along the walls, in them sacrificial offerings, golden supplicants with rays around the head and a staff in each hand on which a little bird perched, worshippers and supplicants from the animal kingdom, insects, lizards, snakes. This was the priests’ chamber.

The high priest’s soul left his body. It came out of his mouth and wandered to the middle of the earth. It came to a river. There were spiders. They span him a web and led him across.

The priest’s soul saw some who had just recently arrived, they still looked proud, they wore ragged clothes, and many were naked. The priest questioned them. They said: we died at our own hand, there is no one to care for us and clothe us.

“And why did you lay hands on yourself?”

“White demons came.”

The high priest asked, asked ten, asked ten, asked ten. The same reply. He pretended not to understand. He was seized with great fear. I want to go back, I must leave, too many have come. The flood of souls continued unabated. A swarming heaving tumult surrounded him. He asked: “Are many more coming?”

“Many more, so many, look around you, oh look around you.”

The throng was endless. And there came a long line, with men in the lead wailing and women behind weeping. It was the litter of Thysquesuska the Zipa.

The soul returned to its body, felt its way over the chest and into the mouth. When Sugamuxi opened his eyes it was night. He was lying on the black prayer-mat, priests crowded around.

In the morning the Zipa spoke to him: “Sugamuxi, did you enquire?”

Sugamuxi: “I passed through the spider’s web into the Underworld. Many spoke of the white-skinned men. A litter was borne along, surrounded by wailing men and weeping women. Wailing men and weeping women followed it. The odour of Mocoba was around the litter. He had emeralds in his eyes, emeralds in his ears, nostrils, navel.”

The Zipa was frightened: “Where did this dream find you?”

Sugamuxi: “In front of Bochica’s image.”

After a long silence the Zipa looked across at the implacable priest: “Summon your assistants. Let me prepare.”

≈≈≈

For five days they prepared the Zipa in the temple. He prayed, fasted, and did not sleep. The people learned that he would go personally to Bochica.

Before sunrise priests led the Zipa along the dark stone-edged path to the sacrificial circle. The dense forest was black, the sky blue-grey, the air was icy.

The priests, faces to the east, knelt. The old Zipa, painted black and red, in the regalia of a king, stood on the stones at the foot of the huge column of Bochica.

As the vault of Heaven began to lighten and the first weak rays of sun struck the column, Sugamuxi thrust the sacrificial spear into the Zipa. The priests laid him on the stones, opened his breast, cut out the bleeding heart. The high priest showed it to the Sun. Flutes and conches sounded, the priests sang.

≈≈≈

When the band of Whites came up from the south, along the Suarez river from the region of Velez, the host of desperate refugees was surging westward into the Cocuy mountains. The mass of corpses they found in their path horrified the Whites.

Temples and all the other buildings at Iraca were in flames.

Return to the wilderness

The way to the north and west was blocked. From the south new bands of Whites moved up with bloodhounds. Ships came from Europe, anchored off Coro, gathered coloured people, sailed up the Magdalena to Honda, climbed into the mountains.

The broad Amazon plain was free.

Mountains stretched in chains, two or three side by side, fell sharply to the west, in the east merged with the lowlands. So many volcanoes in the south, Minchinmarido, Corcovado, Tronador, in the north Llaina, Callaqui, Antuco. Maipo was the highest. In the region of Aconcagua two chains parted, one led to the coast, on the other rose hot-mouthed volcanoes, Copiapo, Antofalla, Llullaillaco. Huallago and Marañon flowed through longitudinal valleys. These, the Cordillera, were ancient mountains, sandstone and shale rested on basal crystalline rocks, volcanoes spewed lava on top.

Palms, cacti, reeds stand erect, all they can do is cast their seed and turn away.

But people do not have to endure heat, floods, annihilation where they stand. Although they cannot rise into the air like birds on happy wings, they can use their legs to move, the mountains proffer gorges, the world spreads itself out, no eyes can see so far, no horse or hound can track so far.

Across the mountains and the ancient wide plateaus, the human throng descends into the lowlands. They follow the northern rivers and those that merge with the Marañon.

The pampas were there, near the Pastaza river lay the big lake Rimachuima. Tribes from north and east sought safety here. They paddled along unknown rivers, each day and every night brought them farther from their homes. They no longer bothered to leave stones and branches on the ground or let branches be carried by the current so that the ancestors would find the way, the ancestors must stay behind, it is not possible for them to follow, and if they follow they will only be angry because we cannot worship them. The refugees had no help, no succour from the fields, no succour from the animals, no succour from the trees. Mountains and animals and trees were unknown to them, and did not know them. Many refused to go on.

Just as hundreds lay in the valley of the Cauca river on the Popoyan road, so hundreds – dispirited empty husks – sank down here in the eastern mountains, in the valleys of the Napo, Iça, Pa, Pastaza. They waded through swamps that swallowed them, paths led through primeval jungle, along clifftops, on bridges across gaping abysses. For as long as they could they drove their llamas with them.

Terrible mountains. Clouds billowed up from the valleys and lay like white caps on the peaks. It thundered all around the people, rocks hurtled down. Then torrents of rain. Their own country had dried up, the dead in their graves desiccated into mummies. Here water formed pillars joining heaven and earth. It burrowed and churned the ground.

≈≈≈

Groups of survivors gathered in the south, on the Marañon. Dark people lived there, who gave them support.

On lake Rimachuima groups from the lofty Inca realm squatted in wretched palm huts in hot steaming air, groups whose blood still pulsed, men, women and children of the race of long dead Cuzumarra who had tried to rouse the dark tribes, even the Women People, to make war against the white barbarians. They no longer wore feathered cloaks, there was no distinction between princes, overseers and subjects. Elders preached revenge, the young inherited the hatred, and everyone had to hunt and fish with neighbouring tribes. Epidemics of murder broke out, for a belief spread among the young that the Sun God had turned away from them because of the crimes of their elders. Already on the trek here there had been murders. In the lowlands the young men, and women too, little by little did away with all elders, princes, officials and overseers.

To the west of lake Rimachuima there settled groups who were of the dying race of Cuzumarra, who had journeyed here to find help, the Amazon queen Inti Cussi beat him and gave him away, his companions died among the Women People, at the feast of the New Moon the great armadillo invited him to dance and he was felled by spears and sacrificed.

The men built a village. At evening, flutes accompanied the lament that Cuzumarra’s companions had sung:

My mother bore me in rain, in mist, so that I weep like the rain and vanish like  mist.

You grow in a cradle of sorrow, my mother sang as she nursed me. Rain and storm kept me awake.

When I seek friends I wander through the world and find misery.

Cursed, the day of my birth.

Cursed, the night when my mother conceived me. Cursed, forever cursed.

In the meeting house a middle-sized statue stood on a plinth by a wall, a male figure of wood with short angular legs pressed tight together, the body dumpy and square, broad face, square mouth, long nose, right angles painted on the cheeks. There was a pointed cap on its head; it held its hands in front of its body. People from the sacred high valley of Tiahuanaco and Ac Capana had carved the statue of Virococha from the hard wood of the forest.

“See Virococha,” said the very dark strong man of the Inca race, still young, who had been baptised up there with the name Cristobal Paillou, to those sitting with him in a tight semicircle, “we have kept faith with Virococha. He is protector of our mountains. Our fathers hesitated to worship him, they were willing to bow down only to the great Sun. They prostrated themselves at his feet too late. Now they destroy his house. He waits for us to gather and for those up there to grow weak, then he will lead us back.”

The young men shouted out the mighty name.

Paillou told them: “Cuzco is a throne over the land. A blue lake lies there. A royal road led past it towards Potosí. Our great Inca Huayna Capac was born there in Tiahuanaco, in a side valley. Oh, that hardly any of you have seen the house, the house of Ollontai, above the valley of Vilcamayo. Thousands of our men toiled more than ten years to build it, carried stones from the mountains across wild rivers, threw bridges across chasms, cut blocks and polished them, laid pantiles of granite under the ground. It was an enormous building with circling walls and a courtyard, broad pillars. Within stood statues of our people, women sat there with children at their hip, men drank from a beaker, some people crossed the river. These were our people, our poor people, who protected Virococha. Whites destroyed his house. Woe to them.

“Know this: Virococha dwelt in Tiahuanaco from time immemorial. The terrible god of heat betrayed us. Before new adepts arise among us, we must devote ourselves to him who is more. Virococha is the one who lifted us from the ground, he made the muscles of our men strong, took them by the shoulder and led them when the path grew perilous. He stood behind them and showed them how to plough and weave and build.”

“Why did the white men come to us?”

“We do not know. When the time comes, Virococha will again send to us a man to destroy the Whites. Who are these Whites? It is our greatest torment and desperation to think who these are who fell upon our country and spread murder and devastation. We found out too late. We took them for spirits, for gods even. Some prostrated themselves before their horses. Our parents believed that Whites cannot die. Oh that we were so befuddled! What sins did our parents and grandparents commit that no one stood by them and opened their eyes? What they saw was so far beyond normal that they believed in superhumans. The crimes, the lies were without precedent. A particular country was created for these ravening beasts on the other side of the ocean, a wide sea was placed around it to protect peaceful beings from them. Their demonic spirit gave them strength enough to break through the barrier, they found their way to us and will find yet other peoples. They are evil demons, yes indeed, no one has weapons to oppose them. We have no weapons against them, but we shall make some. And we know: they will destroy themselves. It will be fashioned, the spear that fells them. Who was the captain who murdered our kings and princes? A swineherd, a wicked soldier, Pizarro, in his own country he was nobody. What kind of warriors did the swineherd have at his back? A mob of savages, half as many as this little village on the Huallaga, and thirty horses. And so he came ashore at Tumbez and lied and murdered, and our fathers were stupefied and took the ravening jaguar for a god.”

Another: “This is what I heard them say among themselves: their greatest care is for weapons that they can use to rob and kill. In their country everything is in disorder. No spirit looks out for them. They have fallen under the spell of great magic, wicked sorcerers have gained the upper hand. They will destroy each other. Good people keep silent and no longer know what’s what, they dare not denounce the others. The wicked do their deeds in broad daylight, make laws, rule kingdoms.”

A low moaning came from the crowd. “Tell us, Cristobal, ask Virococha if he too no longer wants us. Must we perish? Pray to Virococha in his mercy to tell us if we are to perish. We toiled underground for the ravening white jaguars. Was it not told that jaguars and dragons would one day be set over us and that all that lives would be destroyed? Once Virococha rained fire, now he rains white jaguars. We can slay their horses and hounds, we can even wipe out an army of them, but they are so much stronger than us, like a jaguar against a turtledove. They will penetrate to every inhabited region. We are finished. Pray, Cristobal, and ask Virococha if we are to perish.”

Others called from the crowd: “Yes, ask, Cristobal. Why wait. You see how we sicken away. How damp it is here. Our fathers and mothers, as they lay down in the road and took leave of us, they knew everything. They understood the commandment. The earth will be laid waste, the Whites are the ravening beings who take away life so that a new world may be born. We are of no account: ask Virococha. We shall submit.”

A long pause before Cristobal’s response. “A murderer is not destined to enjoy a long life. He is a fruit hollowed by worms. He will kill himself. I shall ask Virococha. I shall pray for an answer. Oh brothers, how lovely was our land! Oh brothers! We were struck blind and could not see one another.”

Someone struck up a muffled drumming, softly they crooned a lament. Many clutched small figurines, images of Virococha of pumice, green slate, some of gold. Darkness fell quickly, big fires were lit outside. Smoke drifted in. Whispering started. They exchanged news from home: who had evaded the Whites’ latest manhunts and might perhaps make it to here. A postal service up into the mountains was suggested, and everyone agreed that leaders should be despatched with provisions for refugees. It was told how roads were crumbling, all the bridges collapsing, channels drying up. Grief lay on every brow. Our country is finished. When can we go home? Virococha, hear, and Virococha, see us here, stay with us. There was talk of slave hunts and how the Whites auctioned off whole villages. How they hated the Whites. Oh, they were not immortal, they could die under torture like anyone else.

The red glow from the fires played over the angular image of Virococha. His hands were in front of his breast, in the right a short wide sword, in the left a beaker into which a man had fallen, you could see only his legs, bent at the knee.

As they left the house and Paillou closed the door, flutesong wafted from the village into the darkness. Little specks of stars up above, down below swirling hosts of fireflies.

≈≈≈

In the north out of Cundinamarca, where the Zipa’s people were journeying down the Pastaza and Morona rivers, the same laments could be heard. They were joined by groups from the regions around Antioquia, slaves from the gold and silver mines, who reported what the white beasts were up to.

“Everywhere we burned down the temples, the houses where we used to pray. We left no one behind in the settlements, so no one could betray us. But they created suspicion and eavesdropped on our conversations. They are cunning, they have many who speak our language. They tortured people to say where gold and silver can be found. None of us knows what they do with gold and silver. They have carried away whole shiploads, but we took care that it will not be to their advantage: we deployed all the priests we could find to curse the gold and silver, the pearls and precious stones they haul away from our land and dig from our earth, it will bring disaster, it will inflict sickness and infertility and war on them, it will rend their souls, it will confuse their spirits. We have dug in the mines and diverted water from the rivers. They took us to Irica, to the burned holy city, we had to dig channels in the ground of Guatavita, we had to scrabble in the lake-bed for gold. When we found some we brought it to them and shook it out in front of them, the overseer sat on a chair, his stewards stood there with spears and thunder tubes. They picked up the yellow poison and weighed it and were happy. As they did so, every one of us repeated the curses under our breath and called on the stones to activate the curse and be of help to us. We never handled gold and precious stones with such drunkard’s greed. We consecrated it. As anyone dies who looks into the face of the consecrated, so they will die when they hold up a mirror. We know that the stones heard us.

“But they laid our people out on benches and placed a brazier beside the bench and lit a fire in it. Then they questioned our people. They asked the people on the torture benches where gold and silver and precious stones can be found. And if they did not answer, the priests warned them to obey their superiors. And if they kept silent, the fire was brought closer and they were burned on the soles of their feet. Then many of them spoke.”

There was weeping at what people had endured.

“They found poor people among us who were paralysed by fear and did not know how to flee. They forced these to lead them to the graveyards in the burned settlements.”

At this, there was shouting.

“They opened the graves, dug up the dead, removed their ornaments, marks of honour and gifts. They boast that they recovered more gold from the graves than from our houses. Oh, this is true. We had gold for our ancestors and those we revered.”

≈≈≈

Dreadful was the cleansing initiated by the masses pouring from Cundinamarca. The Zipa’s death, the burning of the temple at Guatavita, were not a signal for an uprising.

When the building with all its shrines and treasures, all its cloisters burned, the white soldiers were alarmed and braced themselves for an attack by desperate natives. But the dumb masses flowed away like a deep current, particle by particle, some particles rose higher and others sank lower, and the farther they moved from the mountains, across the Upia river – who knew where they would end up – more and more people sank down. At last the only ones left were those who would not die. And now there came to the fore, with their weapons and strong bodies, men of the warrior caste, who had so rarely received the command from their rulers to attack the Whites.

They felt their time had come. Alongside them trudged peasants, artisans, priests. The warriors came together and murdered priests who raised their voices in the crowd, whose words were still received fervently, with yearning, they still conducted services of invocation, while warriors were despised as having no right to flee. Now they showed their prowess with the spear. And so they became leaders. The refugee mass became a bellicose swarm.

≈≈≈

Small bands came to the watery region where the last hills sank down to the swampy plain, along a broad waterway.

And as they lay on the bank, they discovered shards of jars and bowls under the bushy cliff. When they dug into the cliff, water flooded down. It led deep into the rock and was an ancient urn-field. Huge salamanders darted in the gloom. They handled a few skulls and pots and retreated.

There were dead people here.

Far and wide there were no tribes here now.

At the entrance stood a tall, brown-black pot, like a sentry. Its body bore an image: a monkey with one arm around a tree trunk, beside him crouched a naked man, head down, hands on his knees.

They quickly moved away from this place. They came to the region of black rivers that flow into the Amazon. Their numbers fluctuated, sometimes they were tens of thousands strong, separate streams that communicated with one another, then they were challenged by tribes and whole bands were wiped out. They suffered thunderstorms and floods, rise and fall of the rivers. They had to adapt to new foods. Once they dwelled in orderly towns and villages, and now they travelled homeless in dugout canoes through forests of rubber trees, speared fish, collected wild honey and roots. Given their strength they could have settled in the territory of other tribes. But the past would not let them go. New hordes poured down from the mountains, here and there whole bevies were caught and kept prisoner. Straggling feral hordes came to the river forests of the Marañon, and mixed with other refugees. This exodus ended only after many decades.

≈≈≈

Drums pounded their message from one bank to the other, reported what was happening. Once upon a time Cuzumarra’s companions began to dream and laugh in the forest, the oppressive heat overcame them, dampness fell on their skin – they said: “We are weary even when we stop moving. We no longer know what to say. Apart from the name we know nothing of the Empire of the Four World Regions, some magic has stolen all that we knew of it” – thorns and undergrowth ripped their clothing, they painted themselves red and black like the forest tribes. Likewise the bands that came down to the Amazon plain from the heights of Cundinamarca. Already you could hear: “But I, I shall never go back. Never.” Another: “I shall never go back.” A third, fourth, many: “I shall never ever go back. Never again shall we climb into the mountains.” Even those who once had lived in Cundinamarca under a Zipa learned to pound the drum.

All were renewed, all became peaceable, grave and strong. They lost their names. They learned about the sorcerers of the local tribes. Far to the east, down from the mountains into the great plain, the remnants of the destroyed empires lodged, settled on the edge of that wide plain suffused with the breath of the great river.

The great basin dipped towards the east, across it flowed sweet waters, gentle and immense. Trees, grasses and plants grew endlessly, plants shot up quickly. The ground, the fiery sky, the gushing waters were stronger than anything.

 

END OF PART 2