ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 161 



17th of November, 1836, there was read a memoir by Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk " On the Religious Traditions of the Macusi Indians, 

 who inhabit the Upper Malm and a part of the Pacaraima Moun- 

 tains;" a nation, consequently, who for a century (since the journey 

 of the adventurous Hortsmann) have not changed their residence. 

 Sir Robert Schomburgk says : " The Macusis. believe that the sole 

 survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing stones 

 into human beings." This myth (the fruit of the lively imagina- 

 tion of these nations, and which reminds us of Deucalion and 

 Pyrrha) shows itself in a somewhat altered form among the Tama- 

 naks of the Orinoco. When asked how mankind survived the great 

 flood, the "age of waters" of the Mexicans, they reply, without any 

 hesitation, that " one man and one woman took refuge on the high 

 mountain of Tamanacu, on the banks of the Asiveru, and that they 

 then threw over their heads and behind their backs the fruits of the 

 Mauritia-palm, from the kernels of which sprang men and women 

 who repeopled the earth." Some miles from Encaramada, there 

 rises, in the middle of the savannah, the rock Tepu-Mereme, or the 

 painted rock. It shows several figures of animals and symbolical 

 outlines which resemble much those observed-by us at some distance 

 above Encaramada, near Caycara, in 7 5' to 7 40' lat. and 66 

 28' to 67 23' W. long, from Greenwich. Rocks thus marked are 

 found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (in 2 5' to 3 20' 

 lat.), and what is particularly remarkable 560 geographical miles 

 farther to the East in the solitudes of the Parime. This last fact is 

 placed beyond a doubt by the journal of Nicholas Hortsmann, of 

 which I have seen a copy in the handwriting of the celebrated 

 D'Anville. That simple and modest traveller wrote down every 

 day, on the spot, what had appeared to him most worthy of notice ; 

 and he deserves perhaps the more credence because, being full of 

 dissatisfaction at having failed to discover the objects of his re- 

 searches, the Lake of Dorado, with lumps of gold and a diamond 

 mine, he looked with a certain degree of contempt on whatever fell 

 in his way. He found on the 16th of April, 1749, on the banks of 

 the Rupunuri, at the spot where the river winding between the Ma- 

 carana mountains forms several small cascades, and before arriving 

 at the district immediately round Lake Amucu, " rocks covered with 



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