488 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XXVII 
[Among Spruce's miscellaneous notes, written 
during his voyage up the Rio Negro, the following 
passages serve to illustrate the questions above 
discussed : — ] 
I have never yet met with an Indian who knew 
his own age or how many years he had lived in his 
present house. My pilot on the Trombetas very 
gravely stated his age at a hundred years (he was 
evidently not more than fifty). I have asked an 
Indian the age of his daughter. She may be 
twelve — she may be twenty — who knows ? What 
matter do our ages make to us ? " 
• ••••• 
These picture-writings in Brazil and Spanish 
Guiana cannot be considered of remote antiquity, 
for (i) they sometimes show rude figures of lions 
and other objects belonging to the Old World ; (2) 
some of them (and especially the Brazilian ones, 
e.g. at Monte Alegre, as stated by Mr. Wallace) 
have dates affixed, painted with the same colour 
and obviously of the same age as the pictures, which 
correspond very nearly with the dates of the estab- 
lishment of the Portuguese towns of the Amazon, 
and not going back above a century or two. 
