174 



carried, not to the Continent of America, but to 

 Newfoundland (Vinland), Latin books, the same 

 perhaps as the brothers Zeni found there in 

 1380*. 



We are ignorant whether tribes of the Tolteck 

 race penetrated into the southern hemisphere, 

 not by the Cordilleras of Quito and Peru, but 

 by following the plains which stretch to the east 

 of the Andes, towards the banks of the Mara- 

 non. An extremely curious fact, with which I 

 became acquainted during my abode at Lima, 

 leads to this supposition. 



Narcissus Gilbar, a franciscan, distinguished 

 for his courage, and his love of inquiry, found, 

 among some independent Indians, the Panoes, 

 on the banks of the Ucayale, a little to the north 

 of the mouth of the Sarayacu, bundles of paint- 

 ings, which in their external appearance per- 

 fectly resembled our volumes in quarto. Each 

 leaf was three decimetres long, and two broad ; 

 the covering of these collections was formed of 

 several leaves of the palm tree, with a very thick 

 parenchyma, glued together : pieces of tolerably 

 fine cotton formed the leaves, which were fast- 

 ened by threads of the agave. When Gilbar 

 reached the dwellings of the Panoes, he found 

 an old man seated %at the foot of a palm-tree, 



* Viaggio do Fralelli Zeni (Venezia, 1808), p. 67. 

 t Ibid. 



