620 



perature^ the preservation of these articles would 

 be no less perfect, jf it dated from a period 

 far more remote. A tradition circulates among 

 the Guahiboes, that the warlike Atures, pursued 

 by the Caribbees, escaped to the rocks that 

 rise in the middle of the Great Cataracts ; and 

 there that nation, heretofore so numerous, be- 

 came gradually extinct, as well as it's language*. 

 The last families of the Atures still existed in 

 1767, in the time of the missionary Gili. At 

 the period of our voyage an old parrot was 

 shown at Maypures, of which the inhabitants 

 related, and the fact is worthy of observation, 

 that, " they did not understand what it said, 

 because it spoke the language of the Atures." 



We opened, to the great concern of our guides, 

 several mapires, in order to examine attentively 

 the form of the skulls ; they all displayed the 

 characteristics of the American race, with 

 the exception of two or three, which approach- 

 ed indubitably to the Caucasian. We have 

 observed above-f-, that in the middle of the Ca- 

 taracts, in the most inaccessible spots, cases are 

 found strengthened with iron bands, and filled 

 with European tools, vestiges of clothes, and glass 

 trinkets. These articles, which have given rise 

 to the most absurd reports of treasures hidden 



* See above, chap, xx, p. 13; and chap, xxi, p. 144. 

 + See above, chap, xxi, p. 121. 



