174 
carried, not to the Continent of America, but to 
Newfoundland (Vinland)^ Latin books, the same 
perhaps as the brothers Zeni found there in 
1380 * 
We are ignorant whether tribes of the Tolteck 
race penetrated into the southern hemisphere, 
not by the Cordilleras of Quito and Peru, but 
by following the plains which stretch to the east 
of the Andes, towards the banks of the Mara- 
non. An extremely curious fact, with which I 
became acquainted during my abode at Lima, 
leads to this supposition. 
Narcissus Gilbar, a franciscan, distinguished 
for his courage, and his love of inquiry, found, 
among some independent Indians, the Panoes, 
on the banks of the Ucayale, a little to the north 
of the mouth of the Sarayacu, bundles of paint- 
ings, which in their external appearance per- 
fectly resembled our volumes in quarto* Each 
leaf was three decimetres long, and two broad ; 
the covering of these collections was formed of 
several leaves of the palm tree,- with a very thick 
parenchyma, glued together i pieces of tolerably 
fine cotton formed the leaves, which were fast- 
ened by threads of the agave. When Gilbar 
reached the dwellings of the Panoes, he found 
an old man seated at the foot of a palm-tree, 
♦ Viaggio de Fralelli Zeni (Venezia, 1808), p. 67. 
t Ibid. 
t 
