COUIiSE OF CIVILIZATION. 



ha ye not sufficed to make it known among the Indians of 

 the peninsula of Araya, opposite the port of Cumana. The 

 colours used by the Maypures are the oxides of iron arid 

 manganese, and particularly the yellow and red ochres that 

 are found in the hollows of sandstone. Sometimes the 

 fecula of the Bignonia chica is employed, after the pottery 

 has been exposed to a feeble fire. This painting is covered 

 with a varnish of algarobo, which is the transparent resin of 

 the Hymenaea courbaril. The large vessels in which the 

 chiza is preserved are called ciamacu; the smallest bear the 

 name of mucra, from which word the Spaniards of the coast 

 have framed mwrcwra. Not only the Maypures, but also the 

 Guaypunaves, the Caribs, the Ottomacs, and even the Gua- 

 mos, are distinguished at the Orinoco as makers of painted 

 pottery, and this manufacture extended formerly towards the 

 banks of the Amazon. Orellana was struck with the painted 

 ornaments on the ware of the Omaguas, who in his time were 

 a populous commercial nation. 



The following facts throw some light on the history of 

 American civilization. In the United States, west of the 

 Alleghany mountains, particularly between the Ohio and 

 the great lakes of Canada, on digging the earth, frag- 

 ments of painted pottery, mingled with brass tools, are con- 

 stantly found. This mixture may well surprise us in r 

 country where, on the first arrival of Europeans, the natives 

 were ignorant of the use of metals. In the forests of South 

 America, which extend from the equator as far as the 

 eighth degree of north latitude, from the foot of the Andes 

 to the Atlantic, this painted pottery is discovered in the 

 most desert places, but it is found accompanied by hatchets 

 of jade and other hard stones, skilfully perforated. No me- 

 tallic tools or ornaments have ever been discovered ; though 

 in the mountains on the shore, and at the back of the Cor- 

 dilleras, the art of melting gold and copper, and of mixing 

 the latter metal with tin to make cutting instruments, was 

 known. How can we account for these contrasts between tlu 

 temperate and the torrid zone? The Incas of Peru had 

 pushed their conquests and their religious wars as far- as the 

 Dunks of the Napo and the Amazon, where their lan^ua-jc 

 extended over a small space of land ; but the civilization uf 

 the Peruvians, of the inhabitants of Quito, awl of the 



