In the remote past, long (though we do not know how long) before the arrival of the white men from the east, the land appears to have been sparsely peopled by semi-nomadic, primitive tribes of a long-headed race, whose social organisation was limited to a grouping in temporary villages, while in the arts they had advanced as far as the making of rude earthenware, and perhaps the use of curiously shaped stones for personal adornment. They buried their dead in caves, either natural or artificial, placing them in a sitting posture in palm-leaf frails or earthenware urns, accompanied by small pieces of pottery and other household matters. The names of “tribes” in Guayana appear to be far too numerous to be really distinct races, and it is probable that they represent merely the more permanent associations of villages or groups of villages with slight differences of dialect. In Humboldt’s time there were traditions of the internecine warfare of these “tribes,” and it is possible that in times of strife they were guilty of cannibalism, though in later days authentic occurrences of the eating of human flesh were very rare, if existent at all. Throughout Guayana there are crude rock inscriptions of comparatively ancient date, apparently representing an early attempt at picture-writing, and it is said that some of the shy and reticent Indian tribes appear to know the meaning of these. As yet no one has obtained any satisfactory clue to the purpose of these _rocas pintadas_. We have said that these long-headed peoples occupied the land in the remote past, though their descendants were to be found in parts of Venezuela in comparatively recent times, and tribes of mixed race still bear witness to their existence. Many years before the Spanish conquest, however, there was a great influx of the more normal short-headed peoples, divided into more or less civilised communities, and possessed of some proficiency in the arts, with beliefs which were, in some respects, an advance upon the Nature-worship of the earlier inhabitants. These last were soon compelled to withdraw into the mountain fastnesses, or the equally inaccessible forests of the south, while their conquerors settled in the Caribbean Hills and the lower valleys of the Andes, where at some points excavations have revealed something of their customs. Though greatly inferior to the ruling nations of Peru and Mexico, these races must still be looked upon as intermediate between them and the savages already referred to.