Soic Ancknt America Wivte. 217 



contiuning, as the Lidians said, the wanderings and sufferings of their 

 ancestors, and such hidden things as no stranger ought to know. In 

 the interior, beginning at the eighth degree of north latitude and 

 extending over a waste territory of 750 niile^* in every direction, hiercv 

 glyphic inscriptions, cut into prominent rocks on the banks of the hirge 

 rivers, or into the isohited granite blocks of the plains, are quite abun- 

 dant. They ornament the high cliffs of the Orinoco, Rupunuri, 

 Essequilx), and Anuuon, and cover the i^\ce of nearly every rock on the 

 falls of the Me*sai and Engjxnes ; they are found on the head waters of 

 the Rio Branco, and on the extensive plain bounded by the (Orinoco, 

 Atap;isco, Xegro, and Casiquiari. They are met by the tourist in 

 Guiana, Venezuela and ^Xew Grenada. 



The^ hieroglvphic^ represent signs of the sun and moon, houses, im- 

 plements, and coUossal, ill-shaped, human figures, bipeds and quadru- 

 peds. The outlines are rude and imperfect ; mere dots and lines indicate 

 the organs of the senses and the extremities, and three convergent lines 

 the fingers and toes. Proportion is never observed ; sometimes the fig- 

 ures are enclosed in rectangles, and interspersed with curves and spirals. 



Their obliterated condition speaks for their great age. The one, 

 however, seen by Sir Robt. Scltomburgh, on the Isle of Pedro, in the 

 Rio Negro, representing, siside from 13 human figures, two Spanish 

 gallions, must be, of course, of later origin than the commencement 

 of the XVI century. 



Some attribute them to the Guarari tribes ; others, like Humboldt, 

 consider them as remnants of an ancient civiliz;\tion. Yet it is a re- 

 markable phenomenon, that the figures on the vases, drinking cups, 

 oars, and even the hieroglyphic signs which the hunter tribes in our 

 day paint on the pt>st^ of their huts, have a striking resemblance to 

 the rock engravings, and that the tent doors are adorned with the 

 same monstrous heads and spirals enclosed in squares, as look down 

 from the clifis of the rivers. Hence, the remark of ^lartens' seems, 

 justified, that the civilization of the engravei*s, though nniloubtedly 

 older, was not superior to that of the present inhabitants, who 

 approach the pictured rocks with awe and fear*, unable to decipher the 

 sacred Tehmehri, or to tell their origin. 



More correct and elegant in form and style are the inscriptions 

 found in western Veraguas, once inhabited by the ancient Dorachos. 

 The monuments and relics of this tribe are adorned with pictures of 

 natural objects and fant;xstic ehamcters. The Piedra pintal at Calvera, 

 a few leagues from the capital of Chiriqui is a fine specimen, every 

 part of which is covered with figures; one represents a radiant sun, 

 followed by a series of viiriously formed heads, scorpions, and tantastio 



