had surmised it many years before; but their hope of forecast had been
deemed but an idle vision until in a moment, as it were, the reality was
born.

It was essential, however, to the final success of the great revolt, that
the men who brought it to pass should be the best of a chosen race. And
this requisite also was secured by conflict. It was the inveterate
persuasion of many generations that America was the land of gold. Tales
told by the Indians stimulated the imagination and the cupidity of the
first adventurers; legends of El Dorado kindled the horizons that fled
before them as they advanced. Somewhere beyond those savage mountains,
amid these pathless forests, was a noble city built and paved with gold.
Somewhere flowed a stately river whose waters swept between golden
margins, over sands of gold. In some remote region dwelt a barbarian
monarch to whom gold and precious stones were as the dross of the wayside.
These stories were the offspring of the legends of the alchemists of the
Dark Ages, who had professed to make gold in their crucibles; it was as
good to pick up gold in armfuls on the earth as to manufacture it in the
laboratory. The actual discovery of treasure in Mexico and Peru only
whetted the inexhaustible appetite of the adventurers; they toiled through
swamps, they cut their way through woods, they scaled precipices, they
fought savages, they starved and died; and their eyes, glazing in death,
still sought the gleam of the precious metal. Worse than death, to them,
would have been the revelation that their belief was baseless. The thirst
for wealth is not accounted noble; yet there seems to have been something
not ignoble in this romantic quest for illimitable gold. There is a magic
in the mere idea of the yellow metal, apart from such practical or
luxurious uses as it may subserve; it stood for power and splendor
--whatever good the men of that age were prone to appreciate. Howbeit, the
strongest and bravest of all lands were drawn together in the search; and