ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 201 



extent of the invasions of the Caribs, and the ancient power 

 of this fine race, I cannot believe that all the rock engrav- 

 ings, which, as I have said, form an immense belt 

 traversing a great part of South America from west to 

 east, are to be regarded as their work. I am inclined 

 rather to view these remains as traces of an ancient civili- 

 sation, belonging, perhaps, to an epoch when the tribes 

 whom we now distinguish by various appellations were 

 still unknown. Even the veneration everywhere testified 

 by the Indians of the present day for these rude sculptures 

 of their predecessors, shews that they have no idea of the 

 execution of similar works. There is another circum- 

 stance which should be mentioned : between Encaramada 

 and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, a number of 

 these hieroglyphical figures are sculptured on the face of 

 precipices at a height which could now be reached only by 

 means of extraordinarily high scaffolding. If one asks the 

 natives how these figures can have been cut, they answer, 

 laughing, as if it were a fact of which none but a white 

 man could be ignorant, that "in the days of the great 

 waters their fathers went in canoes at that height." Thus 

 a geological fancy is made to afford an answer to the 

 problem presented by a civilisation which has long passed 

 away. 



Let me be permitted to introduce here a remark 

 which I borrow from a letter addressed to me by the 

 distinguished traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgk. "The 

 liieroglyphical figures are more widely extended than you 

 had perhaps supposed. During my expedition, which had 



