CONNEXION OF THE PLAINS.

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and July, communicate with the basin of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the Cordillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the mountains of Parime. The opening which is left between the latter and the Andes of New Grenada, occasions this communication. The aspect of the country here reminds us, but on a much larger scale, of the plains of Lombardy, which also are only fifty or sixty toises above the level of the ocean; and are directed first from La Brenta to Turin, east and west; and then from Turin to Coni, north and south. If we were authorized, from other geological facts, to regard the three great plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata as basins of ancient lakes,* we should imagine we perceived in the plains of the Rio Vichada and the Meta, a channel by which the waters of the upper lake (those of the plains of the Amazon) forced their way towards the lower basin, (that of the Llanos of Caracas, separating the Cordillera of La Parime from that of the Andes. This channel is a kind of land-strait. The ground, which is perfectly level between the Guaviare, the Meta, and the Apure, displays no vestige of a violent irruption of the waters; but on the edge of the Cordillera of Parime, between the latitudes of 4° and 7°, the Orinoco, flowing in a westerly direction from its source to the mouth of the Guaviare, has forced its way through the rocks, directing its course from south to north. All the great cataracts, as we shall soon see, are within the latitudes just named. When the river has reached the mouth of the Apure in that very low ground where the slope towards the north is met by the counter-slope towards the south-east, that is to say, by the inclination of the plains which rise imperceptibly towards the mountains of Caracas, the river turns anew and flows eastward. It appeared to me, that it was proper to fix the attention of the reader on these singular inflexions of the Orinoco because, belonging at once to two basins, its course marks, in some sort, even on the most imperfect maps, the direction of that part of the plains intervening

* In Siberia, the great steppes between the Irtish and the Obi, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes (Tchabakly, Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolony), appear to have been, according to the Chinese traditions, even within historical times, an inland sea.

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ANCIENT NATIVE REMAINS.

between New Grenada and the western border of the mountains of La Parime.

The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the Meta, like the deserts of Africa, bear different names in different parts. From the mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. Where the steppes turn towards the south and south-south-west, from the latitude of 8°, between the meridians of 70° and 73°, we find from north to south, the Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, Guaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.+ The plains of Varinas contain some few monuments of the industry of a nation that has diappeared. Between Mijagual and the Caño de la Hacha, we find some real tumuli, called in the country the Serillos de los Indios. They are hillocks in the shape of cones, artificially formed of earth, and probably contain bones, like the tumuli in the steppes of Asia. A fine road is also discovered near Hato de la Calzada, between Varinas and Canagua, five leagues long, made before the conquest, in the most remote times, by the natives. It is a causeway of earth fifteen feet high, crossing a plain often overflowed. Did nations farther advanced in civilization descend from the mountains of Truxillo and Merido to the plains of the Rio Apure? The Indians whom we now find between this river and the Meta, are in too rude a state to think of making roads or raising tumuli.

I calculated the area of these Llanos from the Caqueta to the Apure, and from the Apure to the Delta of the Orinoco, and found to be it seventeen thousand square

*The following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I marked them down on the spot. The Llanos of Cumana and New Andalusia include those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, and Cari. The Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, Pariaguan, and Villa del Pao. We distinguish in the Llanos of Caracas those of Chaguaramas, Uritucu, Calabozo or Guarico, La Portuguesa, San Carlos, and Araure.

The inhabitants of these plains distinguish as subdivisions, from the Rio Portuguesa to Caqueta, the Llanos of Guanare, Bocono, Nutrius or the Apure, Palmerito near Quintero, Guardalito and Arauca, the Meta, Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari, Inirida, the Rio Hacha, and Caguan. The limits between the savannahs and the forests, in the plains that extend from the sources of the Rio Negro to Putumayo, are not sufficiently known.

IMMENSE EXTENT OF THE PAMPAS.

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leagues twenty to a degree. The part running from north to south is almost double that which stretches from east to west, between the Lower Orinoco and the littoral chain of aracas. The Pampas on the north and north-west of Buenos Ayres, between this city and Cordova, Jujuy, and the Tucuman, are of nearly the same extent as the Llanos; but the Pampas stretch still farther on to the length of 18° southward; and the land they occupy is so vast, that they produce palm-trees at one of their extremities, while the other, equally low and level, is covered with eternal frost.

The Llanos of America, where they extend in the direction of a parallel of the equator, are three-fourths narrower than the great desert of Africa. This circumstance is very important in a region where the winds constantly blow from east to west. The farther the plains stretch in this direction, the more ardent is their climate. The great ocean of sand in Africa communicates by Yemen* with Gedrosia and Beloochistan, as far as the right bank of the Indus. It is from the effect of winds that have passed over the deserts situated to the east, that the little basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by plains which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, is one of the hottest regions of the globe. The unfortunate captain Tuckey relates,† that the centigrade thermometer keeps there generally in the night at 34°, and by day from 40° to 44°. We shall soon see that, even in the westernmost part of the steppes of Caracas, we seldom found the temperature of the air, in the shade, above 37°.

* We cannot be surprised that the Arabic should be richer than any other language of the East in words expressing the ideas of desert, uninhabited plains, and plains covered with gramina. I could give a list of thirty-five of these words, which the Arabian authors employ without always distinguishing them by the shades of meaning which each separate word expresses. Makadh and kaah indicate, in preference, plains; bakadh, a table-land; kafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer, a naked desert, covered with sand and gravel; tanufah, a steppe. Zahra means at once a naked desert and a savannah. The word steppe, or step, is Russian, and not Tartarian. In the Turco-Tartar dialect a heath is called tala or tschol. The word gobi, which Europeans have corrupted into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It is equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, or plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah; in Chinese, kouang. + Expedition to explore the river Zahir, 1818.

VOL. II.

H

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INFLUENCE ON THE INHABITANTS.

These physical considerations on the steppes of the New World are linked with others more interesting, inasmuch as they are connected with the history of our speeies. The great sea of sand in Africa, the deserts without water, are frequented only by caravans, that take fifty days to traverse them.* Separating the Negro race from the Moors, and the Berber and Kabyle tribes, the Sahara is inhabited only in the oases. It affords pasturage only in the eastern part, where, from the effect of the trade-winds, the layer of sand being less thick, the springs appear at the surface of the earth. In America, the steppes, less vast, less scorching, fertilized by fine rivers, present fewer obstacles to the intercourse of nations. The Llanos separate the chain of the coast of Caracas and the Andes of New Grenada from the region of forests; from that woody region of the Orinoco which, from the first discovery of America, has been inhabited by nations more rude, and farther removed from civilization, than the inhabitants of the coast, and still more than the mountaineers of the Cordilleras. The steppes, however, were no more heretofore the rampart of civiliza tion than they are now the rampart of the liberty of the hordes that live in the forests. They have not hindered the nations of the Lower Orinoco from going up the little rivers and making incursions to the north and the west. If, according to the various distribution of animals on the globe, the pastoral life could have existed in the New World,―if, before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Llanos and the Pampas had been filled with those numerous herds of cows and horses that graze there, Columbus would have found the human race in a state quite different. Pastoral nations living on milk and cheese, real nomad races, would have spread themselves over those vast plains which communicate with each other. They would have been seen at the period of great droughts, and even at that of inundations, fighting for the possession of pastures; subjugating one another mutually; and, united by the common tie of manners, language, and worship, they would have risen to that state of demi-civilization which we observe with surprise in the nations of the Mongol ana Tartar race.

*This is the maximum of the time, according to Major Rennell. (Travels of Mungo Park, vol. ii.)

JOURNEY ACROSS THE LLANOS.

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America would then, like the centre of Asia, have had its conquerors, who, ascending from the plains to the tableands of the Cordilleras, and abandoning a wandering life, would have subdued the civilized nations of Peru and New Grenada, overturned the throne of the Incas and of the Zaque, and substituted for the despotism which is the fruit of theocracy, that despotism which arises from the patriarchal government of a pastoral people. In the New World the human race has not experienced these great moral and political changes, because the steppes, though more fertile than those of Asia, have remained without herds; because none of the animals that furnish milk in abundance are natives of the plains of South America; and because, in the progressive unfolding of American civilization, the intermediate link is wanting that connects the hunting with the agricultural nations.

We have thought proper to bring together these general notions on the plains of the New Continent, and the contrast they exhibit to the deserts of Africa and the fertile steppes of Asia, in order to give some interest to the narrative of a journey across lands of so monotonous an aspect. Having now accomplished this task, I shall trace the route by which we proceeded from the volcanic mountains of Parapara and the northern side of the Llanos, to the banks of the Apure, in the province of Varinas.

After having passed two nights on horseback, and sought in vain, by day, for some shelter from the heat of the sun beneath the tufts of the moriche palm-trees, we arrived before night at the little Hato del Cayman,† called also La Guadaloupe. It was a solitary house in the steppes, surrounded by a few small huts, covered with reeds and skins. The cattle, oxen, horses, and mules are not penned, but wander freely over an extent of several square leagues There is nowhere any enclosure; men, naked to the waist and armed with a lance, ride over the savannahs to inspect the animals; bringing back those that wander too far from the pastures of the farm, and branding all that do not already bear the mark of their proprietor. These mulattos, who are known The Zaque was the secular chief of Cundinamarca. His power was shared with the high priest (lama) of Iraca.. The Farm of the Alligator.