The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado

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 Cross referencing Ralegh's with other historical sources (the most interesting being crewman Francis Sparry's unpublished memoir (or Francis Sparrow, depending on modernised names), Nicholl comments on various matters of interpretation, coming up with some plausible explanations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.