In the Raudal of Canucari the dyke is formed of piled-up granitic boulders. We crept into the interior of a cavern, whose humid walls were covered with confervæ and phosphorescent Byssus. The river rushed over our heads with a terrible and stunning noise. By accident we had an opportunity of contemplating this grand scene longer than we desired. The Indian boatmen had left us in the middle of the cataract, to take the canoe round a small island, at the other extremity of which, after a considerable circuit, we were to re-embark. For an hour and a half we remained exposed to a fearful thunder-storm. Night was approaching, and we in vain sought shelter in the fissures of the rocks. The little apes which we had carried with us for months in wicker cages, attracted by their plaintive cries large crocodiles, whose size and leaden-grey colour indicated their great age. I should not have alluded to the appearance of these animals in the Orinoco, where they are of such common occurrence, were it not that the natives had assured us that no crocodiles had ever been seen among the cataracts; indeed, on the strength of that assertion, we had repeatedly ventured to bathe in this portion of the river.
Meanwhile our anxiety increased every moment, lest, drenched as we were and deafened by the thundering roar of the falling waters, we should be compelled to spend the long tropical night in the midst of the Raudal. At length, however, the Indians made their appearance with our canoe. Their delay had been occasioned by the inaccessibility of the steps they had to descend, owing to the low state of the water; which had obliged them to seek in the labyrinth of channels a more practicable passage.
Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank of the river, lies the cavern of Ataruipe, so celebrated among the Indians. The surrounding scenery has a grand and solemn character, which seems to mark it as a national burial-place. With difficulty, and not without danger of being precipitated into the depths below, we clambered a steep and perfectly bare granite rock, on whose smooth surface it would be hardly possible to keep one’s footing were it not for large crystals of feldspar, which, defying the action of weather, project an inch or more from the mass.
On gaining the summit, a wide prospect of the surrounding country astonishes the beholder. From the foaming bed of the river rise hills richly crowned with woods, while beyond its western bank the eye rests on the boundless Savannah of the Meta. On the horizon loom like threatening clouds the mountains of Uniama. Such is the distant view; but immediately around all is desolate and contracted. In the deep ravines of the valley moves no living thing save where the vulture and the whirring goat-sucker wing their lonely way, their heavy shadows gleaming fitfully past the barren rock.
The cauldron-shaped valley is encompassed by mountains, whose rounded summits bear huge granite boulders, measuring from 40 to more than 50 feet in diameter. They appear poised on only a single point of their surface, as if the slightest shock of the earth would hurl them down.
The further side of this rocky valley is thickly wooded. It is in this shady spot that the cave of the Ataruipe is situated; properly speaking, however, it is not a cave, but a vault formed by a far projecting and overhanging cliff,—a kind of bay hollowed out by the waters when formerly at this high level. This spot is the grave of an extinct tribe[[63]]. We counted about six hundred well-preserved skeletons, placed in as many baskets, formed of the stalks of palm-leaves. These baskets, called by the Indians mapires, are a kind of square sack varying in size according to the age of the deceased. Even new-born children have each their own mapire. These skeletons are so perfect, that not a rib or a finger is wanting.
The bones are prepared in three different ways: some are bleached, some dyed red with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa Orellana; others like mummies, are anointed with fragrant resin and wrapped in banana leaves.
The Indians assured me that the corpse was buried during several months in a moist earth, which gradually destroyed the flesh; and that after being disinterred, any particles of flesh still adhering to the bones were scraped off with sharp stones. This practice is still continued among many tribes of Guiana. Besides these baskets or mapires, we saw many urns of half-burnt clay, which appear to contain the bones of whole families. The largest of these urns are upwards of three feet in height and nearly six feet in length, of an elegant oval form, and greenish colour; with handles shaped like crocodiles and serpents, and the rims bordered with flowing scrolls and labyrinthine figures. These ornaments are precisely similar to those which cover the walls of the Mexican palace at Mitla. They are found in every clime and every stage of human culture,—among the Greeks and Romans, no less than on the shields of Otaheitans, and other South Sea islanders,—in all regions where a rhythmical repetition of regular forms delights the eye. The causes of these resemblances, as I have explained elsewhere, are rather to be referred to psychical conditions, and to the inner nature of our mental qualifications, than as affording evidence in favour of a common origin and the ancient intercourse of nations.[[IA]]
Our interpreters could give us no certain information regarding the age of these vessels; but that of the skeletons did not in general appear to exceed a hundred years. There is a legend amongst the Guareke Indians, that the brave Atures, when closely pursued by the cannibal Caribs, took refuge on the rocks of the cataracts,—a mournful place of abode, in which this oppressed race perished, together with its language![[64]] In the most inaccessible portion of the Raudal other graves of the same character are met with; indeed it is probable that the last descendants of the Atures did not become extinct until a much more recent period. There still lives and it is a singular fact, an old parrot in Maypures which cannot be understood, because, as the natives assert, it speaks the language of the Atures!
We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the extreme annoyance of our Indian guides, several skulls and the perfect skeleton of an aged man. One of these skulls has been delineated by Blumenbach in his admirable craniological work;[[IB]] but the skeleton, together with a large portion of our natural history collections, especially the entomological, was lost by shipwreck off the coast of Africa on the same occasion when our friend and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk, Juan Gonzalez, lost his life.