When You Can Walk on Water, Take the Boat - Webs

ing one day to tell his story.
One who heard the story of El Dorado was Sir Walter
Raleigh, friend and confidant of Elizabeth the First of England.
Many expeditions were made to the area on the northern
coast of South America called Guyana. It was there that Sir
Walter Raleigh and others believed the fabled city of gold
would be found.
In the search for El Dorado many lives were lost. In
the dense jungles of Guyana could be found bushes of Yellow
Allamanda and Red Amaryllis. There was also the lovely
petalled Cereus that blooms at midnight once in about seven
years, then fades away with the morning sun. But a land of
wealth and ease or a golden city could not be found. For many
centuries the fight for Guyana continued until, in the end, the
country became a part of the British Empire.
In the meantime, the little boy Mahn Singh, who had
spent much time at the court of the Maharajah Jai Singh the
Second, had become an old man. His last days were spent
much like his earlier days, telling stories of distant lands, this
time to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One greatgrandson
especially delighted in asking questions of the elderly
Mahn Singh. Though still young in age, Jung Bahadur
Singh would question Mahn Singh for hours about foreign
lands and different peoples. The younger Singh also learned
about the heroes of the Ramayana as well as the countries of
the West where many adventures awaited the brave and restless
ones who would dare to journey beyond the land of their
birth.
Jung Bahadur Singh was in his twenties when he heard
that some of his people were traveling across the ocean to
work on the sugar plantations in a remote land known as Guy-
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