Treasure Hunt

In the sleepy old town of Moyobamba, in the foothills of the Peruvian Andes, men, women & children turned out to cheer; with 17 soldiers and four civilians, Lieut. Colonel Juan Heysen was setting out to find the fabled Angayza mountain. To Peruvians familiar with the legends of Angayza, this was "Operation El Dorado."

The Spanish conquistadores had always believed that somewhere in northeastern Peru lay the land of the Indian king, El Dorado, a man so fabulously rich that he daily powdered himself from head to foot with gold dust. Legend also held that the land of El Dorado lay close to Angayza and that the mountain, which rises where the spurs of the eastern Andes reach the Amazonian jungle, was solid gold. In 1541, Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of Peru's conqueror, led several thousand men on a fruitless hunt for El Dorado.

During 14 years of military duty in northeastern Peru, Juan Heysen again & again heard the legends of El Dorado and Angayza. Finally, he decided that he had to see the mountain for himself. The government agreed to help--with supplies and Air Ministry aerial photographs. In June the expedition was ready to set out.

For days, guided by Indians, they pushed into the jungle. In some places the growth was so thick "that without a watch you would mistake midday for daybreak or sunset." Some days, cutting a trail with machetes, the party progressed as little as two miles. Boggy ground made walking hazardous. Food grew scarce, and dysentery developed. Once a 20-foot python knocked down a soldier. Men who fell ill returned to Moyobamba.

A month after setting out, Heysen and the remnants of his band reached Angayza, the first white men ever known to have been there. If any of them had expected the mountain to be solid gold, they were disappointed, though ore samples did contain gold. Last week a government communique announced: "Lieut. Colonel Heysen's report and valuable ore samples will be carefully studied and analyzed. The results will be used as a basis for further operations." Some Peruvians wondered if the "further operations" might not yet lead to El Dorado.

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