CRANIAL CONFORMATIONS. 
485 
women of the tribe of the Aturea. Such mixed marriages 
sometimes take place in this zone, though they are more 
rare than in Canada, and in the whole of North America, 
where hunters of European origin unite themselves with 
savages, assume their habits, and sometimes acquire great 
political influence. 
We took several skulls, the skeleton of a child of six 
or seven years old, and two of full-grown men of the nation 
of the Attires, from the cavern of Ataruipe. All these 
bones, partly painted red, partly varnished with odoriferous 
resins, were placed in the baskets (niapires or canastos ) 
which we have just described. They made almost the whole 
load of a mule ; and as we knew the' superstitious feelings 
of the Indians in reference to the remains of the dead after 
burial, we carefully enveloped the canastos in mats recently 
woven. Unfortunately for us, the penetration of the Indians, 
and the extreme quickness of their sense of smelling, rendered 
all our precautions useless. Wherever we stopped, in the 
missions of the Caribbees, amid the Llanos, between An- 
gostura and Nueva Barcelona, the natives assembled round 
our mules to admire the monkeys which we had purchased 
at the Orinoco. These good people had scarcely touched 
our baggage, when they announced the approaching death 
of the beast of burden “ that carried the dead.” In vain 
we told them that they were deceived in their conjectures ; 
and that the baskets contained the bones of crocodiles and 
manatis; they persisted in repeating that they smelt the 
resin that surrounded the skeletons, and “ that they were 
their old relations." We were obliged to request that the 
monks would interpose their authority, to overcome the 
aversion of the natives, and procure for us a change of 
mules. 
One of the skulls, which we took from the cavern of 
Ataruipe, has appeared in the fine work published by my 
old master, Blumenbach, on the varieties of the human 
species. The skeletons of the Indians were lost on the 
coast of Africa, together with a considerable part of our 
collections, in a shipwreck, in which perished our friend 
and fellow-traveller, Pray Juan Gonzales, the young monk 
of the order of Saint Francis. 
We withdrew in s'lence from the cavern of Ataruipe. 
