250 
Resemblances in the PetroglyBHS. 
they are of Asiatic origin as has been claimed, certainly cannot be proved 
with certainty in the complete absence of historical data. The belts 
of hieroglyphics that we lind extending through the whole of South 
America and North America as far as Behring's Straits into Northern 
Siberia, the characters of which so uumistakeably correspond with one 
another, might at all events make the peopling of America through 
Asiatic hordes more than probable, especially if we further . take into 
account the resemblance of the whole physical features of the Indians to 
that of the Mongolian tribes of Northern Asia. These fugitive sugges 
tions may suffice to draw attention to the importance underlying these 
old inscriptions which we found in the course of our travels along the 
most different degrees of latitude, not only in the river valleys but also 
on considerable heights. Upon enquiring from the natives as to who had 
made them we everywhere received the reply : ‘‘Our forefathers when the 
immense waters still covered the earth and they navigated the mountains 
in their corials.” 
710. The Great Cataract lies to the South-East of the Mission, and 
after avoiding some of its many channels, one of them carried us to its 
foot. The Fall was undoubtedly one of the most sublime I had hitherto 
seen. The mass of water 1 ushes down a 12-foot high perpendicular rocky 
wall while at the bottom of the fall the huge granite boulders, completely 
covered with those wonderful figures, everywhere emerge from out of the 
black rocky cauldron like swimmers who have lost their way. The 
hieroglyphics which are even still incised to a depth of from \ to i an 
incli in the hard granite* show no trace whatever of symmetrical propor- 
tions, many of them measuring not quite a foot while others on the other 
hand go up to over two feet and more. Besides several representations 
of human figures, including also some of animals, there is in particular a 
repetition of spiral lines which, only differing in size and with some 
slight modifications, are very like Semitic language-signs. The Macusis 
accompanying us called this picture writing Ta, emong-kong, while they 
described the marks upon their bodies as Imenn-casa. If one bears in 
mind the hardness of the stone and the further fact that on the discovery 
of America the inhabitants knew as little about iron as the tribes of the 
interior do at the present time, if must be assumed that many years were 
required to cut these markings to such a depth, unless it is to be sug- 
gested that they testify to a long-past higher state of civilisation during 
the pre-historic period of the Continent. 
741. We did not find the hieroglyphics mentioned by Hortsmann in 
the Rupununi although we searched the river practically from end to 
end, while the Indians from whom we everywhere enquired, knew 
nothing about them. On the journey to Roraima we discovered a new 
series that were cut in a sandstone mound: these differed in manv 
respects from those at Waraputa, but seemed to resemble instead those 
which Alexander von Humboldt found on the granite rocks of Caycara on 
the Orinoco, and Oulimarare on the Casiquiare. The singular spiral 
* There is a diabase dike in the granite at Waraputa. Prof. Harrison states “ the intru- 
sive rock is covered in places -wit n rude prehistoric figures of the kind known in the Colony 
as Timehri writings.” (E.E.W). 
