472 
HIEEO GLYPHIC ECCK-M1.KK8. 
Conorichite, one hundred and forty leagues further eastward, 
between the sources of the Rio Blanco and the Rio Esse- 
quibo, we also meet with rocks and symbolical figures. I 
have lately verified this curious fact, which is recorded in 
the journal of the traveller Hortsman, who went up the 
Rupunuvini, one of the tributary streams of the Essequibo. 
Where this river, full of small cascades, winds between the 
mountains of Macarana, he found, before he reached lake 
Amucu, “rocks covered with figures,” or (as he says in 
Portuguese) with “ varias letras.” Wo must not take this 
word letters in its real signification. We were also shewn, 
near the rock Culimacari, on the banks of the Cassiquiare, 
and at the port of Caycara in the Lower Orinoco, traces 
which were believed to be regular characters. They were 
however only misshapen figures, representing the heavenly 
bodies, together with tigers, crocodiles, boas, and instru- 
ments used for making the flour of cassava. It was impos- 
sible to recognize in these ‘ painted rocks’* (the name by 
which the natives denote those masses loaded with figures) 
any symmetrical arrangement, or characters with regular 
spaces. The traces discovered in the mountains of Uruana, 
by the missionary Eray .Ramon Bueno, approach nearer to 
alphabetical writing ; but are nevertheless very doubtful. 
Whatever may be the meaning of these figures, and with 
whatever view they were traced upon granite, they merit 
the examination of those who direct their attention to the 
philosophic history of our species. In travelling from the 
coast of Caracas towards the equator, we are at first led to 
believe that monuments of this kind are peculiar to the 
mountain-chain of Encaramada ; they are found at the port 
of Sedefio, near Caycara, f at San Rafael del Capuchino, 
opposite Cabruta, and in almost every place where the 
granitic rock pierces the soil, in the savannah which extends 
from the Cerro Curiquima towards the banks of the Caura. 
* In Tamanac, iepumereme. ( Tepu , a stone, rock; as in Mexican, 
tetl, a stone, and tepetl, a mountain ; in Turco-Tatarian, tepe.) The 
Spanish Americans also call the rock covered with sculptured figures, 
piedras pintados ; those for instance, which are found on the summit of 
the Paramo of Guanacas, in New Grenada, and which recall to mind tl.s 
tepumereme of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rupunuvini. 
t In the Mountains of the Tyrant, ( Cerros del 2Va»o.) 
