4 88 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XXVH 



[Among Spruce's miscellaneous notes, written 

 during his voyage up the Rio Negro, the following 

 passages serve to illustrate the questions above 

 discussed :--] 



I have never yet met with an Indian who knew 

 his own age or how many years he had lived in his 

 present house. My pilot on the Trombetas very 

 gravely stated his age at a hundred years (he was 

 evidently not more than fifty). I have asked an 

 Indian the age of his daughter. " She may be 

 twelve she may be twenty who knows? What 

 matter do our ages make to us ? ' 







These picture-writings in Brazil and Spanish 

 Guiana cannot be considered of remote antiquity, 

 for (i) they sometimes show rude figures of lions 

 and other objects belonging to the Old World ; (2) 

 some of them (and especially the Brazilian ones, 

 e.g. at Monte Alegre, as stated by Mr. Wallace) 

 have dates affixed, painted with the same colour 

 and obviously of the same age as the pictures, which 

 correspond very nearly with the dates of the estab- 

 lishment of the Portuguese towns of the Amazon, 

 and not going back above a century or two. 



