BIMILABITY OF THE LEGENDS. 183 



figures of stars, of the sun, of tigers, and of crocodiles, which 

 we found traced upon the rocks in spots now uninhabited, 

 appeared to me in no way to denote the objects of worship 

 of those nations. Between the banks of the Cassiquiare 

 and the Orinoco, between Encaramada, the Capuchino, and 

 Caycara, these hieroglyphic figures are often seen at great 

 heights, on rocky cliffs which could be accessible only by 

 constructing very lofty scaffolds. When the natives are 

 asked how those figures could have been sculptured, they 

 answer with a smile, as if relating a fact of which only a 

 white man could be ignorant, that "at the period of the 

 great waters, their fathers went to that height in boats." 



These ancient traditions of the human race, which we find 

 dispersed over the whole surface of the globe, like the relics 

 of a vast shipwreck, are highly interesting in the philo- 

 sophical study of our own species. Like certain families of 

 the vegetable kingdom, which, notwithstanding the diversity 

 of climates and the influence of heights, retain the impres- 

 sion of a common type, the traditions of nations respecting 

 the origin of the world, display everywhere the same phy- 

 siognomy, and preserve features of resemblance that fill us 

 with astonishment. How many different tongues, belonging 

 to branches that appear totally distinct, transmit to us the 

 same facts ! The traditions concerning races that have been 

 destroyed, and the renewal of natnre, scarcely vary in 

 reality, though every nation gives them a local colouring. 

 In the great continents, as in the smallest islands of the 

 Pacific Ocean, it is always on the loftiest and nearest moun- 

 tain that the remains of the human race have been saved ; 

 and this event appears the more recent, in proportion as the 

 nations are uncultivated, and as the knowledge they have 

 of their own existence has no very remote date. After 

 having studied with attention the Mexican monuments 

 anterior to the discovery of the New "World ; after havLi 

 penetrated into the forests of the Orinoco, and obsened 

 the diminutive size of the European establishments, their 

 solitude, and the state of the tribes that have remained 

 'ndependent ; we cannot allow ourselves to attribute the 

 analogies just cited to the influence exercised by the mis- 

 sionaries, and by Christianity, on the national traditions. 

 Nor IB it more probable, that the d.scovery of eea-shellfl on 



