The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

by Charles Nicholl

1595: A hundred Englishmen, led by Sir Walter Raleigh, row up a river in South America in search of the lost city of El Dorado. Four hundred years later, Nicholl follows their trail into the strange terrain of this enduring legendary obsession. Coloring and deepening the intense recollections of the original Elizabethan expedition are stories of the legendary bush pilot Jimmy Angel and of life in the shantytowns of the gold diggers. Illustrations.

Genres: History, Travel, Nonfiction, Biography

398 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Charles Nicholl is an English author specializing in works of history, biography, literary detection, and travel. His subjects have included Christopher Marlowe, Arthur Rimbaud, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Nashe and William Shakespeare. Besides his literary output, Nicholl has also presented documentary programs on television. In 1974 he was the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer Award for his account of an LSD trip entitled 'The Ups and The Downs'.

Nicholl was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has lectured in Britain, Italy and the United States. He lives in Lucchesia in Italy with his wife and children. He also lectures on Martin Randall Travel tours.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Nicholl's earlier book The Fruit Palace, which was excellent, I had expected a similar narrative - but this book was very different.

Where The Fruit Palace was about Nicholl, and his time in Colombia - almost gonzo in style where the author becomes the story, in this book he took a back seat to Walter Ralegh (as he spells it throughout this book, rather than the more conventional "Raleigh" - a convention I will follow below.) This book shows a much more mature style - heavily researched, and well concluded, rather than fast paced action based on speculation and drug induced experiences (don't get me wrong, I gave The Fruit Palace five stars).

Overall, this book is about Ralegh's 1595 quest for El Doraldo, the mythical city of gold in South America. The author closely examines Ralegh's expedition, and undertakes a reconstruction of this trip, under more modern circumstances.

Nicholl splits this book into four parts. In the first he introduces Ralegh, his travels to the period prior to his departure for Guiana, his relationship with the Queen, his crew and his journey across the Atlantic and to Trinidad - the staging point for his South American expedition. This sets up the background - the real reason Ralegh is on the outer and needs to make a glamorous expedition to impress Elizabeth I.

It is interesting to note that in 1595, while Ralegh was exploring Guiana, he was in Venezuela. At the time of course it was not known as Venezuela, but it was also not the modern day Guyana - close but not quite over the border, according to Nicholl. Other than some early inroads the Spanish had made, the Orinoco River hadn't been fully explored or mapped.

So the first Part of the book is purely biographical. Calling sources, quotations, all very academic, interesting and all about Ralegh and the political situation of the time.

Part Two takes us step by step through Raleghs Orinoco expedition. Cross referencing Ralegh's with other historical sources (the most interesting being crewman Francis Sparry's unpublished memoir (or Francis Sparrow, depending on modernised names), Nicholl comments on various matters of interpretation, coming up with some plausible explanations for things other people had written off as fantasy.
In Part Two we also begin the journey of the author and his accompanying crew as they Parallel Ralegh's movements from the Orinoco Delta, upstream. Nicholl locates the landmarks from Ralegh's text, he deciphers the words and names Ralegh uses for the tribes, the people and the places, and he gives a comparison to the places now. In his own journey he meets with important or interesting local people.

At the end of Part Two, Ralegh has reached his furtherest point upstream, and prepared to return downstream. El Dorado has remained elusive - although Ralegh acknowledges that it is just a little further on, but he has not the manpower or resources to take own it's inhabitants.

Part 3 is titled 'The New Dorado', and outlines the recent past of this area. It continues Nicholls own trip, a visit to a gold mine, and his research of various people - Jimmy Angel, Heinz Dollacker, Alexander Laime - and a visit to the small town of Eldorado (well one of them, there are many throughout the world, but this one is not too far from Raleghs travels). Here we are introduced to Nicholl's speculation about El Dorado in the grander philosophy. Not a physical place as much as an ideal, a euphemism perhaps, an invented place which represent something further on - always further on.

Part Four. This follows Ralegh's return voyage downriver, his brief stops, and his return to England. It explains how he presented his findings, the lack of riches he returns with, his Balsam of Guiana, and some interesting speculation about Ralegh as an alchemist.

After the Epilogue, where Nicholl sums up and adds to his thoughts on El Dorado, and Raleghs involvement, he presents three appendices. The first is text from, and discussion about Francis Sparry's unpublished memoir; the second explains Nicholls research and opinions about Raleghs chart (map) and the various versions mentioned in texts; the third brings together all the writing about the fleet of ships Ralegh took on his voyage (there was much confusion and contradictory information on this).

So overall, and impressive work, which makes a lot from little source material. There are more side-story's than I haven't mentioned, and other interesting asides. Nicholl writes a clear history and summary of events, and is very careful to point out where he is speculating and where he can substantiate statements. There are a lot of source notes through out the text, but also as endnotes, and an index. As I indicated at the start, it is impressive for me in the significant difference to his earlier book The Fruit Palace, but as different as it is, still very good.

Somewhere between four and five stars for me, possibly closer to four.

[Nash Musselwhite · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some interesting ideas laid out in this book. But the structure was a mess and the blending of travel writing and historical reference was incongruous. I also found many of the arguments posited to be a stretch and so marinated in academic theory craft as to leave this reader dubious of the conclusions drawn.

The reason I read the book was I had expressed interest in learning more about the origin story of El Dorado after reading The Lost City Of Z. My stepfather, who reviews books, gave me his copy. I do feel like I better understand some of the origin story.

[David Iverson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched...starts off well about walter Raleigh's voyage to guiana in 1595 to search for el dorado, then adds the author's trip to retrace raleigh's journey in south america...then adds in stories about a pilot who discovered angel falls, a hermit, chemistry, alchemy, rosicrucians , etc...

[The Final Chapter · Rating 4 out of 5]

SJC Review: 4.51

Nicholl has produced a veritable feast of historical research into Ralegh's vainglorious, and ultimately futile search for El Dorado. As such, he provides insightful background as to Ralegh's fall from grace and growing obsession in locating the riches of this fabled land. This eminent poet, courtier, and seafarer had enjoyed grest prestige during the 1580s when his role as chief promoter of the colonisation of America marked the apogee of his career. However, the failed settlements at Roanoke in 1585 and 1587 would cost him over £40,000 which made all his privateering merely operate on credit. Yet, his financial ruin was exacerbated by his fall from favour with both Queen and Establishment. The former concerned Elizabeth's dalliance with his younger rival at court, the Earl of Essex, during the 1590s, and more particularly the monarch's fury at discovering in 1592 Ralegh's secret marriage to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Elizabeth Throckmorton. The latter resulted from damaging investigations into accusations that his London abode, 'Durham House' had become an alleged centre of atheist propoganda. Indeed, two of his followers, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Harriot were charged before the Council on espousing atheism, the investigation for which coincided with the mysterious stabbing of Marlowe. Thus, Raleigh's ensnarement by the myth of 'El Dorado' can be accredited to his intense desire to reacquire status and to avoid going broke. The author reveals that the myth had been steadily taking shape in western minds since the 1530s and aided the 'entradas' made by Hispanic conquistadores into the unknown interior of South America. Perhaps, the most notorious of such expeditions set out from Lima in 1560 under the leadership of a young nobleman Pedro de Ursua, accompanied by his beautiful half-caste mistress. The expedition soon succumbed to mutiny and murder unleashed by Lope de Aguirre, who renounced his alleigance to the Spanish crown, and after surviving the hardships of the Amazonian interior, his party emerged to ransack the settlements on the Venezuelan coast until his own murder in 1562. Thy mystery surrounding the dark interior allowed for a spate of legends to arise, notably that which emanated from Columbus himself, whose first voyage had him encounter tales of warrior females inabiting the island of Martinique, while his later voyage had him face armed Carib women in Guadeloupe. Transposing the classical Amazonian myths to this new arena of colonisation, Columbus' obsession with the Amazonian connection sowed the seeds for the subsequent naming of the largest river discovered by Francisco de Orellana in 1542. As the expeditions increased and the interior was opened, the supposed location for 'El Dorado' shifted further and further east until by the 1590s many became convinced that it lay within Guiana. None more so than Antonio de Berrio who inherited great tracts of this part of the continent from one of his wife's relations. All his findings from his own expeditions would fall into the hands of Ralegh when he captured Berrio in Trinidad in 1595. The backers for Ralegh's expedition included two heavyweights at court: firstly, the Lord Admiral, Charles Howard, whose position had led to great involvement with Ralegh's career as privateer; the second was Sir Robert Cecil, the sickly but brilliant son of Lord Burghley, soon to follow in his father's footsteps to be named Secretary of State. Yet Cecil's patronage would only be enjoyed when it was expedient to himself. Ralegh had to endure an exasperating wait for preparations and weather conditions for his fleet to embark throughout the whole of 1594, but the scale of his obsession can be revealed by his own wife's desperate letter in Feb 1594 begging Cecil to dissuade her husband from undertaking this perilous voyage. Of all the members of the expedition which accompanied Ralegh in 1595, none could be as intriguing as George Gifford, captain of the 'Lion's Whelp', the ship donated by Howard, and nominal second-in-command. His past ventures had included exploits within the criminal underworld, and even in one instance treason or espionage. Astonishingly, in 1583 he had presented himself before Catholic plotters in Paris offering his services to assassinate the Queen, and received a large sum of money from the Duke of Guise to do so. Though arrested and imprisoned in the Tower in 1586, it remains unclear whether he was merely outrageously on a scam to line his own pocket or serving as a government-hired spy into the Catholic conspiracy against the Realm. he would survive the expedition, serve with distinction with Lord Howard at Cadiz in 1596, for which he was knighted, but fall into disfavour and ruin after alligning himself with the Earl of Essex. Another interesting individual was Francis Sparry, servant to Gifford, son and grandson of lawyers and man of letters, destined to be maleft behind in Guiana alongside Ralegh's cabin boy, Hugh Godwin, living among the natives till being captured by the Spanish and imprisoned in Madrid before finally returning home to publish his memoirs in 1625. Ralegh's expedition landed in Trinidad in April 1595 where it routed the Spanish settlement of San Jose before heading to the south of the island to establish a base from which to launch an entrada on the South American mainland on one of the tributaries of the Orinoco Delta. Having captured de Berrio, Ralegh questioned his prisoner on all aspects of his discoveries in the interior, with de Berrio offering scant optimism for the chances of success. This would be Ralegh's first setting foot on American soil, having been forbidden by his Queen from acompanying his Virginia exploits, at a time when his popularity with his monarch was unmatched. Enduring the myriad of labyrinthine tributaries of the Orinoco delta, Ralegh's expedition explored the upper reaches of this river arriving at the hinterland of the Guinea highlands. Ralegh's own accounts of the expedition would gloss over armed confrontations with the natives, as the later publication of Sparry's memoirs would reveal. However, the cordial relationship he established with the tribes on the Guinea border were undeniable, and his encounter with the aged chieftain, Topiawari, gave Ralegh the only first-hand account of El Dorado and the tale of an invading Inca tribe establishing a realm in the interior. Having to soon abandon the expedition, Ralegh set out on his return journey accompanied by three young tribesmen exchanged for Sparry and Godwin. The former's penmanship made him the best-suited candidate to remain to build up a navigational map of the region, while the ill-fated Godwin, tragically attacked and eaten by a jaguar within a few weeks, was of an age to learn the local language. Ralegh's glossing over details of any drawbacks also include that of omitting mention of the disastrous raid on a Spanish settlement on Trinidad on the return journey where it is estimated he lost up to a quarter of his men, and where he ignominiously had to exchange Berrio for what he believed to be a large party of captured soldiers, but which amounted to one drummer-boy. Upon his return to England in September 1595, Ralegh attempted to 'paper over' the lack of riches, stating that he had foregone personal fortune to reconnoitre the region for future English settlement and discovery of greater riches. Meanwhile, his enemies at court cruelly derided his exploits, even claiming he had merely visited the African coast, before holing up in some hidden Cornish cove. Nicholl uses his gifts as historical detective to offer an interesting possibility that Ralegh returned with some medicinal ingredient from which he would later be renowned. Ralegh had been interested in chemistry for some time, and when imprisoned in the Tower he devoted much time to studying medicine and chemistry. What resulted became known as his 'Balsam of Guiana'and was sought after by James I's wife for treating her own ills before that of her dying son, Prince Henry in 1612. Ralegh's propoganda of hidden riches of mineral wealth and gold deposits led to a couple of fruitless expeditions in the late 1590s and then he was imprisoned in the Tower on trumped-up charges of involvement in catholic conspiracies against James I in 1603. His requests that he be allowed to redeem himself by undertaking a second personal voyage were eventually heeded after thirteen long years of imprisonment. Setting sail in 1617 he was charged with finding treasure and not undermining James' peace initiatives with the Spanish. Accompanied by his son Wat he would lose discipline over those under his command, leading to a disastrous military exchange with the Spanish and the death of his son. Justice was swift as James finally carried out the death sentence upon Ralegh he had reluctantly commuted in 1603. Beheaded in October 1618, his wife kept his severed head in her possession in a red velvet bag till her own death in 1647. Nicholl, now switches his focus to profile the twentieth century adventurers similarly gripped by tales of hidden gold in this unexplored region. The first major strike of gold in the region wouldn't occur till the 1850s but by the 1880s a network of mines established Venezuela for a few years as the world's biggest gold-producer until the discovery of the Rand goldfields in South Africa in 1886. The author reveals the astonishing fact that the estimated geographical location for Ralegh's El Dorado coincides with the exact siting of Auyan Tepuy and the Angel Falls. Sharing the author's previous belief that this name was a poetic description of the Falls, this reader was similarly intrigued to discover that they are in fact named in honour of the intrepid aviator who discovered them in 1935. Jimmy Angel was an American of shrouded origins whose life is one of legendary feats - serving with great prowess in the aerial conflict of the Great War, he would later be hired by the Chinese warlord Sun Yat Sen to train pilots in Shanghai, before stunt-flying in Howard Hughes' legendary movie, 'Hell's Angels'. His discovery was so disputed that he had to return two years later accompanied by his wife and a small party, successfully landing his plane on the imposing summit. Yet, the Falls would not be scientificaaly surveyed till an overland expedition by the American journalist, Ruth Robertson, in 1949, while Angel himself would regale travellers of his discoveries of gold in the region till his death in his umpteenth plane crash in Panama in 1956. Many of the tales Nicholl relates of adventurers drawn to this region illustrate the wording of a Venezuelan boat-song recorded in the nineteenth century - 'Quien se va al Orinoco, o se muere o vuelve loco'.

[Jeroen Van de Crommenacker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book strangely flat and uninspiring. After the Fruit Palace I expected a lot more. It is a bit more scholarly and a lot less fun; unfortunately.

[Alexa Santaniello · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[Sierra Scamfer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually found the authors own journey a much more interesting read within this book than the historical journey and analysis the author offers. Not bad but a little slow.

[David R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholl does a lot with a little. From the sketchy and fragmentary documentary evidence he traces the 1595 journey of Sir Walter Raleigh to what is now northeastern Venezuala, in search of the fabled city of gold. And, Nicholl makes the trip himself, both to the places Raleigh may have explored as well as the actual gold mining sites of the 19th and 20th centuries. The book also explores Raleigh's occult fixations, native American culture, and related themes.

[Walter Kdz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book if you like Elizabethan history (I got interested after seeing the Cate Blanchett films). The last section contains an interesting theory – backed by old documents - that Ralegh went to Guiana to fulfil his ambitions as an alchemist.

[Patrick O'Mahony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book so far, I love the subject matter, but from the first twenty or so pages I like how he has written it...