The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

About this book

"A highly readable and authoritative account of Walter Raleighs failed expedition up the Orinoco river to find the fabled El Dorado in mid-1595. Based largely on first-hand accounts such as the Raleighs own The Discoverie of Guiana Francis Sparrys testimony and the authors retracing of Raleighs route the book not only recounts the expedition itself but also explicates the cultural myth of El Dorado that animated explorers and conquerors like Raleigh and the Spaniard Antonio de Berrio"--Handbook of Latin American Studies v. 58.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/A contemporary retracing of the original 1595 journey led by Sir Walter Raleigh starts with Raleighs curious "charte" in the British Museum and follows the delta of the Orinoco River up into the Guiana highlands