132 THE TAINTED KOCK. 



whole day they had seen very few crocodiles, but all of 

 an extraordinary size, from twenty to twenty four feet. 

 The Indians assured them that the yoyng crocodiles 

 preferred the marshes, and the rivers that were less 

 broad and less deep. 



Speaking of the mountains of Encaramada, Humboldt 

 says that the natives of those countries had retained the 

 belief that, " at the time of the great waters, when their 

 fathers were forced to have recourse to boats, to escape 

 the general inundation, the waves of the sea beat against 

 the rocks of Encaramada." This belief was. not confined 

 to one nation singly, it made part of a system of historical 

 tradition, of which he found scattered notions among 

 the Maypures of the great cataracts ; among the Indians 

 of the Rio Erevato, and among almost all the tribes of 

 the Upper Orinoco. When the Indians were asked how 

 the human race survived this great deluge they said, 

 " a man and a woman saved themselves on a high moun- 

 tain, called Tamanacu, situated on the banks of the 

 Asiveru ; and casting behind them, over their heads, the 

 fruits of the mauritia palm-tree, they saw the seeds con- 

 tained in those fruits produce men and women, who 

 repeopled the earth." A few leagues from Encaramada, 

 a rock, called "the painted rock," rose in the midst of the 

 savannah. Upon it were traced representations of ani- 

 mals and symbolic figures. Between the banks of the 

 Cassiquiare and the Orinoco, between Encaramada, the 

 Capuchino, and Caycara, these hieroglyphic figures were 

 often seen at great heights, on rocky cliffs which could 

 be accessible only by constructing very lofty scaffolds. 

 When the natives were asked how those figures could 

 have been sculptured, they answered with a smile, as if 



