HIGH LANDS OF THE EARTH. 



215 



Real, and the Cordillera of the coast, east and west. The included area, far exceeding that 

 of Great Britain, has a surface varied with hills and valleys, streams and lakes. Upon it 

 lie the waters of lake Titicaca, twenty times larger than the lake of Geneva, with the 

 decayed mining cities of Cuzco and PotosL 



Potosi, 



13,350 ft.,. Cerro dc Potosi 



Bolivian Plateau. 



Less elevated and extensive, but grandly situated, is the table-land of Quito, a plain, two 

 hundred miles long, by thirty broad, at the height of 9500 feet, engirdled by magnificent 

 projections of the Andes. "From the terrace of the government palace," says Humboldt, 

 speaking of the city of Quito, " there is one of the most magnificent prospects that human eye 

 ever witnessed, or nature ever exhibited. Looking to the south, and glancing along 

 towards the north, eleven mountains covered with perpetual snow present themselves, their 

 bases apparently resting on the verdant hills that surround the city, and their heads 

 piercing the blue arch of heaven, while the clouds hover midway down them, or seem to 

 crouch at their feet." In the same region, the upland plain of Santa Fe de Bogota, is an 

 almost perfect level, 8600 feet high, and forty-five miles, by twenty in extent, environed 

 with high mountains, through which the waters of the plain escape by a narrow outlet, and 

 form the celebrated falls of Torquedama. In North America, nearly the whole of Mexico 

 consists of high table-lands, mutually connected, at the mean height of 7000 feet. They are 

 interspersed with numerous streams and lakes ; and form a platform for the colossal cones 

 of Colima, Popocatepetl, Orizaba, and Nevada de Toluca, crowned with eternal snow. 



Colima, 12,000 ft. 



zaba, 17,374 ft. 



t of Snow, 14,800ft. 



Pacific Ocean. 



Gulfof Meiico. 



Mexican Plateau. 



In consequence of this configuration of the country, while the heat common to tropical 

 lands is experienced on the low shores, the climate becomes temperate as the traveller 

 ascends the interior highlands, and it is cold and frigid at the altitudes attained by the 

 mountains. 



The loftiest and most extensive plateau region on the face of the globe is the vast 

 protuberance of Central or High Asia, which comprises different systems of table-lands. 

 Between the Himalaya and the Kouenlun chains, lie the Thibets, a district of various but 

 great elevation, called the plateau of Great Tatary. At a house of the Dalai-lama, near 

 the margin of the two lakes, Manasa and Kawana-hrada, Captain Webb makes the height 

 14,502 feet, thus far exceeding that of the waters of Lake Titicaca. To behold the lake 

 Manasa, an oval basin, fifteen miles by eleven in extent, is deemed by the Hindoos a 

 felicity beyond every other on earth, but prodigious difficulties attend the pilgrimage. 



