ILLTJSTBATIONS (51). SCHOMBUKGK'S KESEABCHES. 147 



(51) p. 20. " Images graven in rocks" 



In the interior of South America, between the parallels 

 2 and 4 north lat., lies a wooded plain inclosed by four 

 rivers, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro, and the 

 Cassiquiare. Here we find granitic and syenitic rocks, which, 

 like those of Caicara and Uruana, are covered with colossal 

 symbolical figures of crocodiles, tigers, utensils of domestic 

 use, signs of the sun and moon, &.c. This remote portion of 

 the earth is at present wholly uninhabited throughout an 

 extent of more than 8000 square miles. The neighbouring 

 tribes, who occupy the lowest place in the scale of humanity, 

 are naked wandering savages, who could not possibly have 

 carved hieroglyphics in stone. A whole range of these rocks 

 covered with symbolical signs may be traced from Rupunuri, 

 Essequibo, and the mountains of Pacaraima, to the banks of 

 the Orinoco and of the Yupura, extending over more than 

 eight degrees of longitude. 



These carvings may belong to very different periods of time, 

 for Sir Robert Schomburgk even found on the Rio Negro 

 representations of a Spanish galliot,* which must necessarily 

 have been of a date subsequent to the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century, and that in a wilderness where the inhabitants 

 were probably as rude then as they now are. But it must not 

 be forgotten, as I have already elsewhere observed, that nations 

 of very different descent, but in similarly uncivilized con- 

 ditions, possessed of the same disposition to simplify and 

 generalize outlines, and urged by identical inherent mental 

 tendencies, maybe led to produce similar signs and symbols.f 



At the meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in London a, 

 memoir was read on the 17th of November, 1836, by Sir 

 Robert Schomburgk, " On the religious traditions of the 

 Macusi Indians, who inhabit the Upper Mahu, and a portion 

 of the Pacaraima mountains," and who have therefore not 

 changed their habitation for a century (since the journey of 

 the intrepid Hortsmann). " The Macusis," says Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk, "believe that the only being who survived a 



* Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko ubersetzt von Otto Schom- 

 burgk, 1841, s. 500. 



t Compare Relation historique, t. ii. p. 5 8 9, with Martins, Ueber die 

 \PJiysiognomie des Pflanzenreichs in Brasilien, 1824, s. 14. 



