198 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



At the Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 

 on the 17th of November, 1836, there was read a memoir 

 by Sir Robert Schomburgk " On the Religious Traditions of 

 the Macusi Indians, who inhabit the Upper Mahu and a 

 part of the Pacaraima Mountains ;" a nation, consequently, 

 who for a century (since the journey of the adventurous 

 Hortsmann,) have not changed their residence. Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk says : " The Macusis believe that the sole 

 survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing 

 stones into human beings." This myth (the fruit of the 

 lively imagination of these nations, and which reminds us 

 of Deucalion and Pyrrha), shews itself in a somewhat altered 

 form among the Tamanaks of the Orinoco. When asked how 

 mankind survived the great flood, the " age of waters" of 

 the Mexicans, they reply without any hesitation, that ' one 

 man and one woman took refuge on the high mountain of 

 Tamanacu, on the banks of the Asiveru, and that they then 

 threw over their heads and behind their backs the fruits of 

 the Mauritia-palm, from the kernels of which sprang men 

 and women who repeopled the earth/ Some miles from 

 Encaramada, there rises, in the middle of the savannah, the 

 rock Tepu-Mereme, or the painted rock. It shews several 

 figures of animals and symbolical outlines which resemble 

 much those observed by us at some distance above Encara- 

 mada, near Caycara, in 7 5' to 7 40' lat. and 66 28' to 

 67 23' "W. long, from Greenwich. Rocks thus marked 

 are found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo 

 (in 2 5' to 3 20' lat.), and what is particularly remarkable, 

 560 geographical miles farther to the East in the soli- 

 tudes of the Parime. This last fact is placed beyond a 



