Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

488 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XXVH
[Among Spruce's miscellaneous notes, written
during his voyage up the Rio Negro, the following
passages serve to illustrate the questions above
discussed :--]
I have never yet met with an Indian who knew
his own age or how many years
he had lived in his
present house. My pilot on the Trombetas very
gravely stated his age at a hundred years (he was
evidently not more than fifty).
I have asked an
"
Indian the age of his daughter. She may be
twelve she may be twenty who knows? What
matter do our ages make to us ?
These picture-writings in Brazil and Spanish
Guiana cannot be considered of remote antiquity,
for (i) they sometimes show rude figures of lions
and other objects belonging to the Old World ; (2)
some of them (and especially the Brazilian ones,
e.g. at Monte Alegre, as stated by Mr. Wallace)
have dates affixed, painted with the same colour
and obviously of the same age as the pictures, which
correspond very nearly with the dates of the establishment
of the Portuguese towns of the Amazon,
and not going back above a century or two.
'