ae A 
1884.] Rock Inscriptions in Brazil. 11QI 
ity throw no light upon the subject. Some think they were made 
by the Dutch when they held the country about Pernambuco in 
the early part of the seventeenth century, but the general impres- 
sion is that they refer to some treasure hidden in the neighbor- 
hood. This idea led a former proprietor of the country about 
Pedra Pintada to make diligent search for this supposed treasure, 
and he even cleaned out the great pot-hole at the foot of the 
cascade, but without finding anything. 
It is to be noted, however, as far as I have observed, that these 
inscriptions are always near the water, or near a place where 
water is likely to be found ate in, if not quite through the dry 
season? At Pedra Pintada the pot-hole below the fall has water 
in it long after the stream proper has dried up, the Ipanema has 
never been known to dry up entirely at Sant’ Anna, while Ca- 
cimba Circada (fenced spring) takes its name from a spring at that 
place. This occurrence of the inscriptions in the neighborhood 
of water might admit of more than one explanation. If they 
have no other relation to the water itself, they happen to be in 
these localities because these are the places where the original 
inhabitants of the country would naturally live during the dry 
season, which is here nearly half the year, and indeed a part of 
these inscriptions at least—those in the bed of the stream—must 
have been made during the dry season. I am, however, inclined 
to the opinion that a part if not all these markings refer in some 
Way to the water supply which is so uncertain in this regiom of 
Seat drouths. Exactly in what way, whether as records of sea- 
Sons, or as petitions or offerings to the powers supposed to bring 
fain, it is idle now to speculate. To one visiting this section dur ing 
the dry season, which lasts from August till January, there 1s no 
More natural explanation. The whole country is parched except 
cacti and a very narrow strip bordering the now dry beds of 
the streams, Beyond these threads of gradually disappearing 
seen one may travel for leagues and leagues without seeing a 
‘ign of water, and when, as not infrequently happens, the dry 
Season is prolonged, the suffering of man and beast is extreme. : 
The cattle subsist upon the pulp of the cacti that grow here 
' There can be no confusing these markings with the holes made in large sR 
Indians grinding their corn, and which also occur near the water. Many excel- 
kent €xamples of these mortar holes were found by me at the foot o 
meat, On the Rio Sio Francisco, They are made in the upper surface of 
of tock near the river, 
large frag- 
