Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Region Of Sculptured Rocks, Or Of Painted Stones, Extends Far
Beyond The Lower Orinoco, Beyond The Country (Latitude 7 Degrees 5
Minutes To 7 Degrees 40 Minutes, Longitude 68 Degrees 50 Minutes To 69
Degrees 45 Minutes) To Which Belongs What May Be Called The Local
Fables Of The Tamanacs.
We again find these same sculptured rocks
between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (latitude 2 degrees 5 minutes
to 3 degrees 20 minutes; longitude 69 to 70 degrees); and between the
sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco (latitude 3 degrees 50
minutes; longitude 62 degrees 32 minutes).
I do not assert that these
figures prove the knowledge of the use of iron, or that they denote a
very advanced degree of culture; but even on the supposition that,
instead of being symbolical, they are the fruits of the idleness of
hunting nations, we must still admit an anterior race of men, very
different from those who now inhabit the banks of the Orinoco and the
Rupunuri. The more a country is destitute of remembrances of
generations that are extinct, the more important it becomes to follow
the least traces of what appears to be monumental. The eastern plains
of North America display only those extraordinary circumvallations
that remind us of the fortified camps (the pretended cities of vast
extent) of the ancient and modern nomad tribes of Asia. In the
oriental plains of South America, the force of vegetation, the heat of
the climate, and the too lavish gifts of nature, have opposed
obstacles still more powerful to the progress of human civilization.
Between the Orinoco and the Amazon I heard no mention of any wall of
earth, vestige of a dyke, or sepulchral tumulus; the rocks alone show
us (and this through a great extent of country), rude sketches which
the hand of man has traced in times unknown, and which are connected
with religious traditions.
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Words from 192415 to 192734
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