230 SEPULCHRAL CAVE. 
flesh may be consumed by degrees. Some months 
after, it is taken out, and the flesh that remains — 
on the bones is scraped off with sharp stones. 
Several tribes of Guiana still follow this practice. 
Near the mapires or baskets there were vases of half- 
burnt clay, which appeared to contain the bones of the 
same family. ‘The largest of these vases or funereal 
urns are three feet two inches high, and four feet 
six inches long. They are of a greenish-gray colour, 
and have an oval form, not unpleasant to the eye. 
The handles are made in the form of crocodiles or 
serpents, and the edge is encircled by meanders, la- 
byrinths, and grecques, with narrow lines variously 
combined. These paintings are seen in all countries, 
among nations placed at the greatest distances from 
each other, and the most different in respect to civi- 
lisation. The inhabitants of the little mission of 
Maypures execute them at the present day on their 
most common pottery. They adorn the shields of 
the Otaheitans, the fishing-instruments of the Es- 
quimaux, the walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, 
and the vases of Magna Grecia. 
* We opened, to the great concern of our guides, 
several mapires, for the purpose of attentively exa- 
mining the form of the skulls. They all presented 
the characters of the American race,—two or three 
only approached the Caucasian form. We took 
several skulls, the skeleton of a child of six or seven 
years, and those of two full-grown men, of the na- 
tion of the Atures. All these bones, some painted 
red, others covered with odorous resins, were placed 
in the mapires or baskets already described. They 
formed nearly the whole lading of a mule; and, as 
we were aware of the superstitious aversion which 
