It may be as well briefly to sum up the few facts that can be said, with any probability, of these rock pictures in Guiana. The engravings are of two kinds, which may or may not have had different authors and different intention. They were still produced after the first arrival of Europeans, as is shown by the sculptured ship. They were, therefore, probably made by the ancestors of the Indians now in the country; for, from the writings of Raleigh and other early explorers, as well as from the statements of early colonists, it is to be gathered that the present tribes were already in Guiana at the time of the first arrival of Europeans, though not perhaps in the same relative positions as at present. The art of stone-working being destroyed by the arrival of Europeans, the practice of rock-engraving ceased. Possibly the customary figures were for a time painted instead of engraved; but this degenerated habit was also soon relinquished. As to the intention of the figures, that they had some seems certain, but what kind this was is not clear. Finally, these figures really seem to indicate some very slight connection with Mexican civilization.
The following extract from a paper on the Indian picture-writing in British Guiana, by Mr. Charles B. Brown (_a_), gives views and details somewhat different from the foregoing:
These writings or markings are visible at a greater or less distance in proportion to the depth of the furrows. In some instances they are distinctly visible upon the rocks on the banks of the river at a distance of 100 yards; in others they are so faint that they can only be seen in certain lights by reflected rays from their polished surfaces. They occur upon greenstone, granite, quartz-porphyry, gneiss, and jasperous sandstone, both in a vertical and horizontal position, at various elevations above the water. Sometimes they can only be seen during the dry season when the rivers are low, as in several instances on the Berbice and Cassikytyn rivers. In one instance, on the Corentyn river, the markings on the rock are so much above the level of the river when at its greatest height, that they could only have been made by erecting a staging against the face of the rock, unless the river was at the time much above its usual level. The widths of the furrows vary from half an inch to 1 inch, while the depth never exceeds one-fourth of an inch. * * * The furrows present the same weather-stained aspect as the rocks upon which they are cut. * *