BEOION OF SCULPTURED BOCKS. 475 



fhe first monarchs, priest-kings, who are stripped of what is 

 human in their nature, to be raised co the rank of national 

 divinities. Amalivaca was a stranger, like Manco-Capac, 

 Bochica, and Quetzalcohuatl ; those extraordinary men, 

 who, in the alpine or civilized part of America, on the table- 

 lands of Peru, New Grenada, and Anahuac, organized civil 

 society, regulated the order of sacrifices, and founded reli- 

 gious congregations. The Mexican Quetzalcohuatl, whose 

 descendants Montezuma* thought he recognized in the 

 companions of Cortez, displays an additional resemblance to 

 Amalivaca, the mythologic personage of savage America or 

 the plains of the torrid zone. When advanced in age, the 

 high-priest of Tula left the country of Anahuac, which he 

 had filled with his miracles, to return to an unknown region, 

 called Tlalpallan. When the monk Bernard de Sahagun 

 arrived in Mexico, the same questions were put to him, as 

 those which were addressed to Father Grili two hundred 

 years later, in the forests of the Orinoco ; he was asked, 

 whether he came from 'the other shore' (del otro lado), 

 from the countries to which Quetzalcohuatl had retired. 



The region of sculptured rocks, or of painted stones, ex- 

 tends far beyond the Lower Orinoco, beyond the country 

 (latitude 7 5' to 7 40', longitude 68 50' to 69 45') to 

 which belongs what may be called the ' local fables ' of the 

 Tamanacs. We again find these same sculptured rocks 

 between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (lat. 2 5' to 

 3 2(X ; long. 69 to 70) ; and between the sources of the 

 Essequibo and the Eio Branco (lat. 3 50'; long. 62 32'). 

 I do not assert that these figures prove the knowledge of 

 the use of iron, or that they denote a very advanced degree 

 of culture; but even on the supposition that, instead of 

 being symbolical, they are the fruits of the idleness of 

 hunting nations, we must still admit an anterior race of 

 men, very different from those who now inhabit the banks 

 of the Orinoco and the E-upunuri. The more a country is 

 destitute of remembrances of generations that are extinct, 

 the more important it becomes to follow the least traces 

 of what appears to be monumental. The eastern plains of 

 North America display only those extraordinary circum- 



* The second king of this name, of the race of Acamr pitiin, properly 

 called Montezuma -Ilhuicamina. 



