182 TRADITIOHS OF THE DELUGE. 



almost imperceptible manner in the very mass of granite 

 rocks, without our being able to perceive that there is a 

 ramification and an intertwining of small veins. Not long 

 a^o the Indians of Encaramada found in the Quebrada del 

 Tigre* a piece of native gold two lines in diameter. It was 

 rounded, and appeared to have been washed along by the 

 waters. This discovery excited the attention of the mis- 

 sionaries much more than of the natives ; it was followed by 

 no other of the same kind. 



1 cannot quit this first link of the mountains of Enca- 

 ramada without recalling to mind a fact that was not un- 

 known to Father Gili, and which was often mentioned to 

 ine during our abode in the Missions of the Orinoco. The 

 natives of those countries have 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 is not confined to one nation singly, the Tama- 

 ntcs ; it makes part of a system :of historical tradition, of 

 which we find scattered notions among the Maypures of the 

 great cataracts ; among the Indians of the Bio Erevato, which 

 runs into the Caura ; and among almost all the tribes of the 

 Upper Orinoco. When the Tamanacs are asked how the 

 human race survived this great deluge, the ' age of water,' 

 of the Mexicans, they say, "a man and a woman saved 

 themselves on a high mountain, 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 contained in those fruits produce men and women, 

 who repeopled the earth." Thus we find in all its simpli- 

 city, among nations now in a savage state, a tradition which 

 the Greeks embellished with all the charms of imagination ! 

 A few leagues from Encaramada, a rock, called Tcpu-mereme, 

 or ' the painted rock,' rises in the midst of the savannah. 

 Upon it are traced representations of animals, and symbolic 

 figures resembling those we saw in going down the Orinoco, 

 at a small distance below Encaramada, near the town Cay- 

 cara. Similar rocks in Africa are called by travellers fetis h 

 stones. I shall not make use of this term, because fetishism 

 does not prevail among the natives of the Orinoco ; and the 

 * The Tiger-ravine. 



