619 



real grecques, in straight lines variously com- 

 bined. Such paintings are found in every zone, 

 among nations the most remote from each other, 

 either with respect to the spot which they 

 occupy on the Globe, or to the degree of civili- 

 zation which they have attained. The inhabi- 

 tants of the little mission of Maypures still 

 execute them on their commonest pottery* ; 

 they decorate the bucklers of the Otaheiteans, 

 the fishing implements of the Eskimoes, the 

 walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla-f-, and the 

 vases of ancient Greece. Every where a rhyth- 

 mic repetition of the same forms flatters the eye, 

 as the cadenced repetition of sounds soothes the 

 ear. Analogies founded on the internal nature 

 of our feelings, on the natural dispositions of our 

 intellect, are not calculated to throw light 

 on the filiation and the ancient connections of 

 nations. 



We could not acquire any precise idea of the 

 period, to which the origin of the mapires and 

 the painted vases, contained in the ossuary ca- 

 vern of Ataruipe, can be traced. The greater 

 part seemed not to be more than a century old ; 

 but it may be supposed, that, sheltered from all 

 humidity, under the influence of a uniform tem- 



* See above, chap.xxi, p. 154. 

 t See ray Views of the Cordilleras, and Monuments of the 

 Ancient Inhabitants of America^ PI. 50. [Vol. ii, English edi- 

 tion, or xiv of the present work, p, 158, PI. 19.] 



