595 



natives denote those masses loaded with figures) 

 any symetrical arrangement, or characters with 

 regular spaces. The traces discovered in the 

 mountains of Uruana, by the missionary Fray 

 Ramon Bueno, approach nearer to alphabetical 

 writing ; these very characters, however, which J 

 have elsewhere discussed, still have many doubts*. 



Whatever may be the meaning of these figures, 

 and with whatever view they were traced upon 

 granite, they do not less merit the attention 

 of those, who occupy themselves with the philo- 

 sophic history of our species. In travelling 

 from the coast of Caraccas toward the equator, 

 we are at first led to believe, that monuments of 

 this kind are peculiar to the chain of mountains 

 of Encaramada ; they are found at the port of 

 Sedeno, near Caycara-f~, at San Rafael del Ca- 

 puchino, opposite Cabruta, and in almost every 

 place where the granitic rock pierces the soil in 

 the savannah, which extends from the Cerro Cu- 

 riquima toward the banks of the Caura. The 

 nations of the Tamanac race, the ancient inha- 

 bitants of those countries, have a local mytho- 

 logy, and traditions which relate to these sculp- 

 tured rocks. Amalivaca, the father of the Ta- 

 manacs, that is the creator of the human race 



* See vol. ir, p. 499 ; and my Views of the Cordilleras 

 and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, vol. 

 i (or xiii of the present work), p. 153. 



f In the mountains of the tyrant, Cprros del tyrano. 



2 q 2 



