CBAXIAL CONl7>RMATTOWS. 485 



women of the tribe of the Atures. Such mixed marriages 

 sometimes take place in this zone, though they are more 

 rare than in Canada, and in the whole of North America, 

 where hunters of European origin unite themselves with 

 savages, assume their habits, and sometimes acquire great 

 political influence. 



We took several skulls, the skeleton of a child of six 

 or seven years old, and two of full-grown men of the nation 

 of the Atures, from the cavern oi Ataruipe. All these 

 bones, partly painted red, partly varnished with odoriferous 

 resins, were placed in the baskets (mapires or canastos) 

 which we have just described. They made almost the whole 

 load of a mule ; and as we knew the superstitious feelings 

 of the Indians in reference to the remains of the dead after 

 burial, we carefully enveloped the canastos in mats recently 

 woven. Unfortunately for us, the penetration of the Indians, 

 and the extreme quickness of their sense of smelling, rendered 

 all our precautions useless. Wherever we stopped, in the 

 missions of the Caribbees, amid the Llanos, between An- 

 gostura and Nueva Barcelona, the natives assembled round 

 our mules to admire the monkeys which we had purchased 

 at the Orinoco. These good people had scarcely touched 

 our baggage, when they announced the approaching death 

 of the beast of burden " that carried the dead." In vain 

 we told them that they were deceived in their conjectures ; 

 and that the baskets contained the bones of crocodiles and 

 manatis; they persisted in repeating that they smelt the 

 resin that surrounded the skeletons, and " that they were 

 their old relations." We were obliged to request that the 

 monks would interpose their authority, to overcome the 

 aversion of the natives, and procure for us a change of 

 mules. 



One of the skulls, which we took from the cavern of 

 Ataruipe, has appeared in the fine work published by my 

 old master, Blumenbach, on the varieties of the human 

 species. The skeletons of the Indians were lost on the 

 coast of Africa, together with a considerable part of our 

 collections, in a shipwreck, in which perished our friend 

 and fellow-traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, the young monk 

 of the order of Saint Francis. 



We withdrew in s lence from the cavern of Ataruipe. 



