

ITS SUPPOSED ANTIQUITY. 



the walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, and the vases of 

 ancient Greece. 



"We could not acquire any precise idea of the period to 

 which the origin of the mapires and the painted vases, 

 contained in the bone-cavern of Ataruipe, can be traced. 

 The greater part seemed not to be more than a century 

 old; but it may be supposed that, sheltered from all 

 humidity under the influence of a uniform temperature, 

 the preservation of these articles would be no less perfect, 

 if their origin dated from a period far more remote. A 

 tradition circulates among the Guahibos, that the warlike 

 Atures, pursued by the Caribs, escaped to the rocks that 

 rise in the middle of the Great Cataracts ; and there that 

 nation, heretofore so numerous, became gradually extinct, 

 as well as its language. The last families of the Atures still 

 existed in 1767, in the time of the missionary Gili. At 

 the period of our voyage an old parrot was shown at 

 Maypures, of which the inhabitants said, and the fact is 

 TCttuLhv of observation, that " they did not understand what 

 it said, because it e.^-. -V. *he language of the Atures." 



We opened, to the great concern. ^ our guides, several 

 mapires, for the purpose of examining attend v^ v the form 

 of the skulls. They were all marked by the char ; ; acterigticg 

 of the American race, with the exception of tw or t 

 which approached indubitably to the Caucasian! j n 

 middle of the Cataracts, in the most inaccessible 

 cases are found strengthened with iron bands, an( j 

 with European tools, vestiges of clothes, and gla? , s trinkets. 

 These articles, which have given rise to the _mos 

 reports of treasures hidden by the Jesuits, 

 belonged to Portuguese traders who had penetrate* j 

 these savage countries. May we suppose that the f^us 

 of European race, which we saw mingled with the skel etong 

 of the natives, and preserved with the same care, wer. e t | ie 

 remains of some Portuguese travellers who had die^ Q f 

 sickness, or had been killed in battle? The aver 

 evinced by the natives for whatever is not of then- c 

 race renders this hypothesis little probable. -P 

 fugitive mestizos of the missions of the Meta and 

 may have come and settled near the Cataracts, 



