[51] p. 25.—“Figures graven on the rock.”

In the interior of South America, between the 2d and 4th degrees of North latitude, a forest-covered plain is enclosed by four rivers, the Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare. In this district are found rocks of granite and of syenite, covered, like those of Caicara and Uruana, with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles and tigers, and drawings of household utensils, and of the sun and moon. At the present time this remote corner of the earth is entirely without human inhabitants, throughout an extent of more than 8000 square geographical miles. The tribes nearest to its boundaries are wandering naked savages, in the lowest stage of human existence, and far removed from any thoughts of carving hieroglyphics on rocks. One may trace in South America an entire zone, extending through more than eight degrees of longitude, of rocks so ornamented; viz. from the Rupuniri, Essequibo, and the mountains of Pacaraima, to the banks of the Orinoco and of the Yupura. These carvings may belong to very different epochs, for Sir Robert Schomburgk even found on the Rio Negro representations of a Spanish galiot (Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko, übersetzt von Otto Schomburgk, 1841, S. 500), which must have been of a later date than the beginning of the 16th century; and this in a wilderness where the natives were probably as rude then as at the present time. But it must not be forgotten that, as I have elsewhere noticed, nations of very different descent, when in a similar uncivilized state, having the same disposition to simplify and generalise outlines, and being impelled by inherent mental dispositions to form rhythmical repetitions and series, may be led to produce similar signs and symbols. (Compare Relation hist. T. ii. p. 589, and Martius über die Physionomie des Pflanzenreichs in Brasilien, 1824, S. 14.)

At the Meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, on the 17th of November, 1836, there was read a memoir by Sir Robert Schomburgk “On the Religious Traditions of the Macusi Indians, who inhabit the Upper Mahu and a part of the Pacaraima Mountains;” a nation, consequently, who for a century (since the journey of the adventurous Hortsmann,) have not changed their residence. Sir Robert Schomburgk says: “The Macusis believe that the sole survivor of a general deluge repeopled the earth by changing stones into human beings.” This myth (the fruit of the lively imagination of these nations, and which reminds us of Deucalion and Pyrrha), shews itself in a somewhat altered form among the Tamanaks of the Orinoco. When asked how mankind survived the great flood, the “age of waters” of the Mexicans, they reply without any hesitation, that ‘one man and one woman took refuge on the high mountain of Tamanacu, on the banks of the Asiveru, and that they then threw over their heads and behind their backs the fruits of the Mauritia-palm, from the kernels of which sprang men and women who repeopled the earth.’ Some miles from Encaramada, there rises, in the middle of the savannah, the rock Tepu-Mereme, or the painted rock. It shews several figures of animals and symbolical outlines which resemble much those observed by us at some distance above Encaramada, near Caycara, in 7° 5′ to 7° 40′ lat. and 66° 28′ to 67° 23′ W. long. from Greenwich. Rocks thus marked are found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (in 2° 5′ to 3° 20′ lat.), and what is particularly remarkable, 560 geographical miles farther to the East in the solitudes of the Parime. This last fact is placed beyond a doubt by the journal of Nicholas Hortsmann, of which I have seen a copy in the handwriting of the celebrated D’Anville. That simple and modest traveller wrote down every day, on the spot, what had appeared to him most worthy of notice, and he deserves perhaps the more credence because, being full of dissatisfaction at having failed to discover the objects of his researches, the Lake of Dorado, with lumps of gold and a diamond mine, he looked with a certain degree of contempt on whatever fell in his way. He found, on the 16th of April, 1749, on the banks of the Rupunuri, at the spot where the river winding between the Macarana mountains forms several small cascades, and before arriving in the district immediately round Lake Amucu, “rocks covered with figures,”—or as he says in Portuguese, “de varias letras.” We were shown at the rock of Culimacari, on the banks of the Cassiquiare, signs which were called characters, arranged in lines,—but they were only ill-shaped figures of heavenly bodies, boa-serpents, and the utensils employed in preparing manioc-meal. I have never found among these painted rocks (piedras pintadas) any symmetrical arrangement or any regular even-spaced characters. I am therefore disposed to think that the word “letras” in Hortsmann’s journal must not be taken in the strictest sense.

Schomburgk was not so fortunate as to rediscover the rock seen by Hortsmann, but he has seen and described others on the banks of the Essequibo, near the cascade of Warraputa. “This cascade,” he says, “is celebrated not only for its height but also for the quantity of figures cut on the rock, which have great resemblance to those which I have seen in the Island of St. John, one of the Virgin Islands, and which I consider to be, without doubt, the work of the Caribs, by whom that part of the Antilles was formerly inhabited. I made the utmost efforts to detach portions of the rock which contained the inscription, and which I desired to take with me; but the stone was too hard, and fever had taken away my strength. Neither promises nor threats could prevail on the Indians to give a single blow with a hammer to these rocks,—the venerable monuments of the superior mental cultivation of their predecessors. They regard them as the work of the Great Spirit, and the different tribes who we met with, though living at a great distance, were nevertheless acquainted with them. Terror was painted on the faces of my Indian companions, who appeared to expect every moment that the fire of heaven would fall on my head. I saw clearly that my endeavours would be fruitless, and I contented myself with bringing away a complete drawing of these memorials.” The last determination was certainly the best, and the editor of the English Journal, to my great satisfaction, adds a note to the effect that it is to be wished that no one else may be more successful than Mr. Schomburgk, and that no future traveller from civilized countries may do anything towards the destruction of these monuments of the unprotected Indians.

The symbolical signs seen by Robert Schomburgk in the Valley of the Essequibo, near the rapids of Waraputa, (Richard Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch-Guiana, Th. i. S. 320), were remarked by him to bear a great resemblance to genuine Carib ones in one of the small Virgin Islands (St. John’s); but notwithstanding the wide extent of the invasions of the Caribs, and the ancient power of this fine race, I cannot believe that all the rock engravings,—which, as I have said, form an immense belt traversing a great part of South America from west to east,—are to be regarded as their work. I am inclined rather to view these remains as traces of an ancient civilisation,—belonging, perhaps, to an epoch when the tribes whom we now distinguish by various appellations were still unknown. Even the veneration everywhere testified by the Indians of the present day for these rude sculptures of their predecessors, shews that they have no idea of the execution of similar works. There is another circumstance which should be mentioned: between Encaramada and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, a number of these hieroglyphical figures are sculptured on the face of precipices at a height which could now be reached only by means of extraordinarily high scaffolding. If one asks the natives how these figures can have been cut, they answer, laughing, as if it were a fact of which none but a white man could be ignorant, that “in the days of the great waters their fathers went in canoes at that height.” Thus a geological fancy is made to afford an answer to the problem presented by a civilisation which has long passed away.

Let me be permitted to introduce here a remark which I borrow from a letter addressed to me by the distinguished traveller, Sir Robert Schomburgk. “The hieroglyphical figures are more widely extended than you had perhaps supposed. During my expedition, which had for its object the examination of the Corentyn River, I not only observed some colossal figures on the rock of Timeri (4½° N. lat. and 57½° W. long.), but I also discovered similar ones near the great cataracts of the Corentyn, in 4° 21′ 30″ N. lat. and 57° 55′ 30″ W. long. These figures are executed with much greater care than any which I discovered in Guiana. Their size is about ten feet, and they appear to represent human figures. The head-dress is extremely remarkable; it encompasses the head, spreading out considerably in breadth, and is not unlike the halos represented in paintings as surrounding the heads of Saints and Sacred Persons. I have left my drawings of these figures in the colony, but I hope some day to be able to lay them all before the public. I saw ruder figures on the Cuyuwini, a river which empties itself into the Essequibo in latitude 2° 16′ N., entering it from the north-west; and I have since seen similar figures on the Essequibo itself in 1° 40′ N. lat. These figures extend, therefore, as ascertained by actual observation, from 7° 10′ to 1° 40′ N. lat., and from 57° 30′ to 66° 30′ W. long. Thus the zone of pictured rocks extends, so far as it has been at present examined, over a space of 192000 square geographical miles, comprising the basins of the Corentyn, the Essequibo, and the Orinoco; a circumstance from which we may form some inferences respecting the former amount of population in this part of the continent.”

Other remarkable remains of a degree of civilisation which no longer exists, are the granite vases with graceful labyrinthine ornaments, and the earthen masks resembling Roman ones, which have been discovered on the Mosquito coast, among wild Indians. (Archæologia Britan. vol. v. 1779, p. 318–324; and vol. vi. 1782, p. 107.) I have had them engraved in the “Picturesque Atlas” which accompanies the historical portion of my Travels to the Equinoctial Regions. Antiquaries are astonished at the similarity of these ornaments (resembling a well-known Grecian form), to those of the Palace of Mitla, near Oaxaca, in Mexico. In looking at Peruvian carvings, I have never remarked any figures of the large-nosed race of men, so frequently represented in the bas-reliefs of Palenque in Guatimala, and in the Aztec paintings. Klaproth remembered having seen individuals with similar large noses among the Chalcas, a northern Mogul tribe. It is well known that many tribes of the North American red or copper-coloured Indians have fine aquiline noses; and that this is an essential physiognomic distinction between them and the present inhabitants of Mexico, New Granada, Quito, and Peru. Are the large-eyed, comparatively fair-complexioned people, spoken of by Marchand as having been seen in 54° and 58° lat. on the north-west coast of America, descended from an Alano-Gothic race, the Usüni of the interior of Asia?

[52] p. 25.—“Apparently weaponless, and yet prepared for murder.”

The Otomacs often poison the thumb-nail with Curare. A mere scratch of the nail is deadly if the curare mixes with the blood. We obtained specimens of the climbing plant, from the juice of which the curare is prepared, at Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco, but unfortunately we did not find it in blossom. Judging by its physiognomy it appears to be related to Strychnos (Rel. hist. T. ii. p. 547–556). Since the notice in the work referred to of the curare or ourari (previously mentioned by Raleigh, both as a plant and as a poison), the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk have done much towards making us accurately acquainted with the nature and preparation of this substance, of which I was the first to bring a considerable quantity to Europe. Richard Schomburgk found the plant in blossom in Guiana on the banks of the Pomeroon and the Sururu in the territory of the Caribs, who are not, however, acquainted with the manner of preparing the poison. His instructive work (Reisen in Britisch-Guiana, Th. i. S. 441–461), contains the chemical analysis of the juice of the Strychnos toxifera, which, notwithstanding its name and its organic structure, does not contain, according to Boussingault, any trace of strychnine. Virchou and Münter’s interesting physiological experiments make it probable that the curare or ourari poison does not kill by mere external absorption, but only when absorbed by living animal substance of which the continuity has been severed (i. e. which has been wounded slightly); that it does not belong to the class of tetanic poisons; and that its particular effect is to take away the power of voluntary muscular movement, whilst the involuntary functions of the heart and intestines still continue. Compare, also, the older chemical analysis of Boussingault, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, T. xxxix. 1828, p. 24–37.

[*] [The circumstance referred to was even more remarkable. Casks of palm oil, part of the cargo of the ship wrecked near Cape Lopez, were conveyed by the current to Finmarken, and stranded near the North Cape. Vide Editor’s note in the English translation of “Cosmos,” vol. i. p. xcvii.]—Tr.