252 INDIAN BURIAL PLACES. 



Senor Ramirez informed me, that in the 

 plains of the Casanarie, he has seen more 

 than a hundred oxen round the spot where 

 an animal has been killed, the whole herd 

 rending the air with their horrid cries. 

 These wails and lamentations they will fre- 

 quently repeat for a month, by which time 

 the ground has imbibed, and the air car- 

 ried off, all vestige of the slaughter. 



Oct. 20th. I took a guide with me, an 

 intelligent young man, and mounting my 

 horse rambled over a very large extent of 

 country, and visited innumerable spots 

 where the Indians used to bury their 

 dead. I found that the burial places of 

 the chiefs had been always chosen on com- 

 manding summits, overlooking the plains 

 below, and they were generally interred 

 singly ; whereas the lower class were buried 

 in large subterraneous caverns, formed for 

 that purpose some hundred feet below. 



