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Updated: June 11, 2025
It was, however, some consolation to him that Marina had been carried safely through the awful night by her faithful guards. Aguilar was also alive, and Martin Lopez, who had built two boats for him in Mexico, as well as Alvarado, Avila, Sandoval, Olid, and Ordaz. But this was no time to give way to vain regrets.
The Aruacas, whom Ordaz employed as guides, advised him to go up the Meta; where, on advancing towards the west, they asserted he would find men clothed, and gold in abundance.
He was consoled, however, by finding that many of his most trusted companions had escaped. Sandoval, Alvarado, Olid, Ordaz and Avila were safe; and so, to his great joy, was Marina. She had, with a daughter of a Tlascalan chief, been placed under the escort of a party of Tlascalan warriors, in the van of the column, and had passed unharmed through the dangers of the night.
One of the Spaniards, Diego Ordaz, tried to climb to the summit, and got as far as the snow; whereupon he returned, and got permission to put a burning mountain in his coat of arms, in commemoration of the exploit! If, as he declared, a high wind was blowing, and showers of ashes falling, his turning back was excusable, though his bragging was not.
Be it as it may, it is not less certain that the celebrity which the expeditions of Ordaz, Herrera, and Speier had already given to the Orinoco, the Meta, and the province of Papamene, situate between the sources of the Guaviare and Caqueta, contributed to fix the fable of El Dorado near to the eastern back of the Cordilleras.
The undertaking was eminently characteristic of the bold spirit of the cavalier of that day, who, not content with the dangers that lay in his path, seemed to court them from the mere Quixotic love of adventure. A report of the affair was transmitted to the Emperor Charles V.; and the family of Ordaz was allowed to commemorate the exploit by assuming a burning mountain on their escutcheon.
It has already been said above that Orellana saw llamas at the dwelling of an Indian chief on the banks of the Amazon, and that Ordaz had heard mention made of them in the plains of Meta. These false reports contributed greatly to embellish the fable of El Dorado.
Cortés sprang up the lower stairway, followed by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other gallant cavaliers, leaving a strong detachment to hold the enemy in check at the foot of the temple. On every terrace as well as on the topmost platform the Aztec warriors were drawn up to dispute his passage.
The women being rescued, Cortéz afterward sent Ordaz, with four hundred men, which brought on hostilities that ended in this night retreat. Cortéz was worse than the Mormon governor of Utah, who is said to have thirty-six wives in his household. But they are, at least, voluntary inmates of his harem, while the "household" of Cortéz had been taken by violence.
Cortez at once dispatched messengers after Velasquez and Ordaz, and ordered them to march to join him at Tlascala; recalled a hundred men from Vera Cruz, and then set forward. The troops suffered much in their march across the low country to the foot of the hills, beneath a sun of terrible power. However, they reached Tlascala, and were there joined by Ordaz and Velasquez.
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