O'Meara went quiet for a long moment, his eyes taking on a faraway look. "El hombre dorado," he said at last. "Spanish for the golden man or the gilded one. The legend-- some call it a curse-- has fired imaginations for four hundred and fifty years."
"Is there any truth to it?" asked Pitt.
"Every legend is based on fact, but like all the others before and since, this one has been distorted and embellished into a fairy tale. El Dorado has inspired the longest continuing treasure hunt on record.
Thousands of men have died searching for a glimpse of it."
"Tell me how the tale originated."
Another Jack Daniel's and Bombay gin arrived. Pitt laughed as O'Meara downed the water chaser first. Then the archeologist made himself comfortable and stared into another time.
"The Spanish conquistadores were the first to hear of a gilded man who ruled an incredibly wealthy kingdom somewhere in the mountainous jungles east of the Andes. Rumors described him as living in a secluded city built of gold with streets paved in emeralds and guarded by a fierce army of beautiful Amazons. Made Oz sound like a slum. Extremely overvalued, of course. But in reality there were a number of El Dorados-- a long line of kings who worshiped a demon god who lived in Lake Guatavita, Colombia. When a new monarch took command of the tribal empire, his body was painted with resinous gums and then coated with gold dust, thus the gilded man. Then he was placed on a ceremonial raft, piled high with gold and precious stones, and rowed into the middle of the lake, where he proceeded to pitch the riches into the water as an offering to the god, whose name escapes me."
"Was the treasure ever raised?"
"There were any number of attempts to drain the lake, but they all failed. In 1965 the government of Colombia declared Guatavita an area of cultural interest and banned all salvage operations. A pity, when you consider that estimates of the wealth on the bottom of the lake run between one hundred and three hundred million dollars."
"And the golden city?"
"Never found," said O'Meara, signaling the barmaid for another round. "Many looked and many died.
Nikolaus Federmann, Ambrosius Dalfinger, Sebastian de Belalcazar, Gonzalo and Herman Jimenez de Quesada, all sought El Dorado but only found the curse. So did Sir Walter Raleigh. After his second fruitless expedition, King James put his head on the block, literally. The fabulous city of El Dorado and the greatest treasure of them all remained lost."
"Let's back up a minute," said Pitt. "The treasure at the bottom of the lake is not lost."
"That's in scattered pieces," explained O'Meara. "The second one, the grand prize, the bonanza at the end of the rainbow, remains hidden to this day. With maybe two exceptions, no outsider has ever laid eyes on it. The only description came from a monk who wandered out of the jungle into a Spanish settlement on the Orinoco River in 1675. Before dying a week later, he told of being on a Portuguese expedition looking for diamond mines. Out of eighty men, he was the only survivor. He claimed they'd stumbled into a deserted city surrounded by high cliffs and guarded by a tribe who called themselves Zanonas. The party lived in the city for three months, but one by one the men began to die off. Too late they discovered the Zanonas were not as friendly as they made out, but were cannibals, poisoning the Portuguese and eating them. The monk alone managed to escape. He described massive temples and buildings, strange inscriptions, and the legendary treasure that sent so many of its hunters to their graves."
"A true golden man," Pitt speculated. "A statue."
"You're close," said O'Meara. "Damned close, but you missed on the sex.'
"Sex?"
"La mujer dorada, the golden woman," O'Meara replied. "Or more commonly, La Dorada. You see, the name first applied to a man and a ceremony, later to a city, and finally to an empire. Over the years it became a term for any place where riches could be found on the ground. Like so many descriptions the feminists hate, the masculine myth became generic, while the feminine was forgotten. Ready for another drink?"
"No, thanks. I'll nurse this one."
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O'Meara ordered another Jack Daniel's. "Anyway, you know the story behind the Taj Mahal. A Mogul ruler erected the ornate tomb as a monument to his wife. Same with a pre-Columbian, South American king. His name is not recorded, but, so the legend goes, she was the most beloved of the hundreds of women at his court. Then an event occurred in the sky. Probably either an eclipse or Halley's comet. And the priests called on him to sacrifice her to appease the angry gods. Life was no fun in those days. So she was killed, heart torn out in an elaborate ceremony."
"I thought only the Aztecs went in for heart removal."
"The Aztecs didn't have a monopoly on human sacrifice. The upshot was the king called together his artisans and ordered them to build a statue of her likeness so he could elevate her to a god."
"Did the monk describe it?"
"In vivid detail, if his story can be believed. She stands nude, nearly six feet tall, on a pedestal of rose quartz. Her body is solid gold. God, it must weigh at least a ton. Imbedded in the chest, where the heart should be, is a great ruby, judged to be in the neighborhood of twelve hundred carats."
"I don't profess to be an expert," said Pitt, "but I know that rubies are the most valuable of all the gemstones, and one of thirty carats is a rarity. Twelve hundred carats is unbelievable."
"That's not even the half of it," O'Meara continued. "The entire head of the statue is one gigantic carved emerald, deep blue-green and flawless. I can't begin to guess the carat weight, but it would have to hit the scales around thirty pounds."
"More like forty if you include a likeness of the hair."
"What's the largest known emerald?"
Pitt thought a moment. "Certainly no more than ten pounds."