INTERIOR OF THE CAVERN. 
483 
of our planet, they attained that height.* In this tomb of 
a whole extinct tribe we soon counted nearly six hundred 
skeletons well preserved, and regularly placed. Every 
skeleton reposes in a sort of basket made of the petioles 
of the palm-tree. These baskets, which the natives call 
mapires, have the form of a square bag. Their size is pro- 
portioned to the age of the dead ; there are some for infants 
cut off at the moment of their birth. We saw them from 
ten inches to three feet four inches long, the skeletons in 
them being bent together. They are all ranged near each 
other, and are so entire that not a rib or a phalanx is 
wanting. The bones have been prepared in three different 
manners, either whitened in the air and the sun, dyed red 
with anoto, or, like mummies, varnished with odoriferous 
resins, and enveloped in leaves of the heliconia or of the 
plantain-tree. The Indians informed us that the fresh 
corpse is placed in damp ground, that the flesh may be 
consumed by degrees ; some months afterwards it is taken 
out, and the flesh remaining on the bones is scraped off 
with sharp stones. Several hordes in G-uia.ua still observe 
this custom. Earthen vases half-baked are found near the 
mapires or baskets. They appear to contain the bones of 
the same family. The largest of these vases, or funeral 
urns, are five feet high, and three feet three inches long. 
Their colour is greenish-grey, and their oval form is pleasing 
to the eye. The handles are made in the shape of croco- 
diles or serpents ; the edges are bordered with painted 
meanders, labyrinths, and grecques, in rows variously com- 
bined. Such designs are found in every zone among 
nations the farthest removed from each other, either with 
respect to their respective positions on the globe, or to the 
degree of civilization which they have attained. They still 
adorn the common pottery made by the inhabitants of the 
little mission of Maypures ; they ornament the bucklers of 
the Otaheitans, the fishing-implements of the Esquimaux, 
* I saw no vein, no hole ( four ) filled with crystals. The decomposi- 
tion of granitic rocks, and their separation into large masses, dispersed in 
the plains and valleys in the form of blocks and balls with concentric 
layers, appear to favour the enlarging of these natural excavations, which 
resemble real caverns. 
2 i 2 
