Historians of authority assure us that the Mixes, Zoques and Zapotecs united in the expectation, founded on their ancient myths and prophecies, of the arrival, some time, of men from the East, fair of hue and mighty in power, masters of the lightning, who would occupy the land.[1] [Footnote 1: Ibid., p.

94, _note_, quoting from the works of Las Casas and Francisco Burgoa.] On the lofty plateau of the Andes, in New Granada, where, though nearly under the equator, the temperature is that of a perpetual spring, was the fortunate home of the Muyscas.

It is the true El Dorado of America; every mountain stream a Pactolus, and every hill a mine of gold.

The natives were peaceful in disposition, skilled in smelting and beating the precious metal that was everywhere at hand, lovers of agriculture, and versed in the arts of spinning, weaving and dying cotton.

Their remaining sculptures prove them to have been of no mean ability in designing, and it is asserted that they had a form of writing, of which their signs for the numerals have alone been preserved.
The knowledge of these various arts they attributed to the instructions of a wise stranger who dwelt among them many cycles before the arrival of the Spaniards.