SOUTH AMERICA. 197 



of the Western Ocean, had any body questioned THIRD 



J ' JOURNEY. 



me on this subject, I should have answered, I - 

 have seen nothing amongst these Indians which 

 tells me that they have existed here for a century ; 

 though, for aught I know to the contrary, they 

 may have been here before the Redemption, but 

 their total want of civilization has assimilated 

 them to the forests in which they wander. Thus, 

 an aged tree falls and moulders into dust, and 

 you cannot tell what was its appearance, its 

 beauties, or its diseases amongst the neighbour- 

 ing trees ; another has shot up in its place, and 

 after nature has had her course, it will make way 

 for a successor in its turn. So it is with the 

 Indian of Guiana ; he is now laid low in the 

 dust ; he has left no record behind him, either 

 on parchment, or on a stone, or in earthenware, 

 to say what he has done. Perhaps the place 

 where his buried ruins lie was unhealthy, and the 

 survivors have left it long ago, and gone far away 

 into the wilds. All that you can say is, the trees 

 where I stand appear lower and smaller than the 

 rest, and from this I conjecture, that some Indians 

 may have had a settlement here formerly. Were 

 I by chance to meet the son of the father who 

 moulders here, he could tell me that his father 

 was famous for slaying tigers and serpents and 

 caymen, and noted in the chase of the tapir and 

 wild boar, but that he remembers little or nothing 

 of his grandfather. 



