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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ~DDITIONS. 163 of the K equibo, ncar the rapids of W arraputa (Richard Schomburgk, Rei en in Brit.i ch-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' ); 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 engravingswhich, 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 civilization,-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, shows 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, anumber 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 civilization 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 (4!0 N. lat. and 5no 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 siz~ is about ten feet, and they appear to represent human figures. The headdress is extremely remarkable; it encompasses the head, spreading out considerably in breadth, and is not unlike the halos represented |