[Footnote 1: "E Brasilia in Guairaniam euntibus spectabilis adhuc semita
viditur, quam ab Sancto Thoma ideo incolae vocant, quod per eam Apostolus
iter fecisse credatur; quae semita quovis anni tempore eumdem statum
conservat, modice in ea crescendibus herbis, ab adjacenti campo multum
herbescenti prorsus dissimilibus, praebetque speciem viae artificiose
ductae; quam Socii nostri Guairaniam excolentes persaepe non sine stupore
perspexisse se testantur." Nicolao del Techo, _ubi supra_, Lib. vi, cap.
iv.
The connection of this myth with the course of the sun in the sky, "the
path of the bright God," as it is called in the Veda, appears obvious. So
also in later legend we read of the wonderful slot or trail of the dragon
Fafnir across the Glittering Heath, and many cognate instances, which
mythologists now explain by the same reference.]
Like all the hero-gods, he left behind him the well-remembered promise
that at some future day he should return to them, and that a race of men
should come in time, to gather them into towns and rule them in peace.[1]
These predictions were carefully noted by the missionaries, and regarded
as the "unconscious prophecies of heathendom" of the advent of
Christianity; but to me they bear too unmistakably the stamp of the
light-myth I have been following up in so many localities of the New World
for me to entertain a doubt about their origin and meaning.
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