4S4 
ITS SVI'I'O BED ANTIQUITY. 
the -walls of the Mexican palace of Mitla, and the vases of 
^We cwldnot any p rec i S e idea of the period to 
which the origin of the mapires and the painted vases, 
contained in the hone-cavern of Ataruipe, can be traced. 
The nreater part seemed not to be more than a center 
old- lint it may be supposed that, sheltered from all 
humidity under the influence of a uniform temperature 
the preservation of these articles would be no less perfect 
if their origin dated from a penod far more remote. A 
tradition cifculates among the Guahibos that the 
Atures pursued by the Canbs, escaped to the rocks that 
rise in ’the middle' of the Great Cataracts; and there that 
nation, heretofore so numerous, became gradually extinct 
as well as its language. The last families of the Atures still 
existed in 1767, in the time of the missionary Gill. A 
the period of our voyage an old parrot was shown at 
Maypures, of which the inhabitants said and the fact is 
worthy of observation, that “ they did not understand what 
it mil, because it spoke the language of the Atoes. 
We opened, to the great concern of our guides, several 
mavircs V for the purpose of examining attentively the form 
of 'the skulls They were all marked by the characteristics 
of Z “can race, with the exception of two or three 
which approached indubitably to the Caucasian. In 
middle of the Cataracts, in the most inaccessible spots 
cases are found strengthened with iron bands, and failed 
with European tools vestiges of clothes * and glass i tr 
These articles, which have given rise to the most aDsuru 
reports of measures hidden by the Jesuits probab y 
belonged to Portuguese traders who had penetrated into 
these savage counties. May we suppose tha the shahs 
of SE' ^id presewed 1 mThthe same care were the 
evinced ’by the natives for whatever is not of them owii 
race renders this hypothesis little 
fncrhlve mestizos of the missions of the Meta and Apiu 
may have come and settled near the Cataracts, mami r» 
