Synopsis: In this amazing history of quest and adventure, Robert Silverberg traces the fate of Old World explorers lured westward by the myth of El Dorado. From the German conquistadores, licensed by the Spanish king to operate out of Venezuela; to the journeys of Gonzalo Pizarro in the Amazon basin; to the nearly miraculous voyage of Orellana as far as the mouth of the Amazon (where he encountered the warlike women, who, according to his chronicler, gave the river its name; violence and bloodshed accompanied the determined adventurers.