Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank of the river, is the cave of Ataruipe, which is widely celebrated among the Indians. The grand and melancholy character of the scenery around fits it for the burying-place of a deceased nation. We climbed with difficulty, and not without danger of falling to a great depth below, a steep and perfectly bare granite precipice. It would be hardly possible to keep one’s footing on the smooth surface, if it were not for large crystals of feldspar, which, resisting “weathering,” project as much as an inch from the face of the rock. On reaching the summit the traveller beholds a wide, diversified, and striking prospect. From the foaming river-bed rise wood-crowned hills, while beyond the western shore of the Orinoco the eye rests on the boundless grassy plain of the Meta, uninterrupted save where at one part of the horizon the Mountain of Uniama rises like a threatening cloud. Such is the distance; the nearer prospect is desolate, and closely hemmed in by high and barren rocks. All is motionless save where the vulture or the hoarse goat-sucker hover solitarily in mid-air, or, as they wing their flight through the deep-sunk ravine, their silent shadows are seen gliding along the face of the bare rocky precipice until they vanish from the eye. This precipitous valley is bounded by mountains on whose rounded summits are enormous detached granite spheres of more than 40 to 50 feet diameter: they appear to touch the base on which they rest only in a single point, as if the slightest movement, such as that of a faint earthquake shock, must cause them to roll down. The farther part of the valley is densely wooded, and it is in this shady portion that the cave of Ataruipe is situated. It is not properly speaking a cave, but rather a vaulted roof formed by a far over-hanging cliff, the cavity having apparently been formed by the waters when at their ancient level. This place is the vault or cemetery of an extinct nation.[63] We counted about 600 well-preserved skeletons placed in as many baskets woven from the stalks of palm leaves. These baskets, which the Indians call “mapires,” are shaped like square sacks, differing in size according to the age of the deceased. Even new-born children had each its own mapire. The skeletons are so perfect that not a bone or a joint is wanting. The bones had been prepared in three different ways; some bleached, some coloured red with onoto, the pigment of the Bixa Orellana; and some like mummies closely enveloped in sweet-smelling resin and plantain leaves.