VALLEYS AND GREAT LEVELS OF THE EARTH. 



231 



were, striped. The earth, there, seemed to mingle with heaven. Through the dry mist 

 we perceived palm trees in the distance. Stripped of their leaves and their green summits, 

 these stems resembled the masts of a ship which one descries in the horizon at sea. There 

 is something sublime, yet mournful, in the uniform spectacle of these steppes. Every 

 thing in them appears immoveable, except that perchance, occasionally, the shadow of 

 a small cloud which passes over the zenith and announces the approach of the rainy 

 season, falls on the savannah. I know not whether the first feeling of surprise at the 

 first view of the Llanos is not as great as at the first view of the chain of the Andes. 

 Mountainous regions, however high even their highest points may be, have an analogous 



physiognomy ; but it is only with diffi 

 culty that the eye can accustom itself to 

 the Llanos of Venezuela and Casanare 

 to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and of 

 Chaco, which incessantly, and during 

 journeys of from twenty to thirty days, 

 remind one of the watery mirror of the 

 tropic sea. I had seen the Llanos or 

 plains of La Mancha in Spain, and the 

 Haiden, which extend from the extreme 

 point of Jutland, through Luneburgh 

 and Westphalia, to the mouth of the 

 Scheldt. These Haiden are true steppes, 

 from which during centuries mankind 

 have only been able to win a few small 

 spots for the plough ; yet these plains of 

 the west and north of Europe afford but 

 a faint image of the immeasurable Llanos of South America." 



The Llanos exhibit a somewhat various aspect, the grasses rising to the height of 

 four feet in the neighbourhood of the streams, which only reach a few inches at a 

 distance from them. The palms and dicotyledonous plants are also more abundant in 

 such situations, and here is the favourite haunt of the jaguar, the tiger of the western 

 continent, lying in wait for some straggler from the droves of horses that occupy these 

 plains. But different seasons of the year produce a wonderful alteration in the appear 

 ance of these districts, particularly those which are removed from the watercourses. 

 The surface displays a beautiful green verdure in the rainy season, but in the dry months 

 its aspect is that of a desert. At that period the grasses wither, and are reduced to 

 powder, the ground cracks, the crocodiles and great serpents remain imbedded in the 

 dried mud, till the showers of returning spring awaken them from their lethargy, when 

 the whole scene changes, and puts on an air of great luxuriance. Humboldt determined 

 by barometrical observations that the Llanos have not more than a height of from forty 

 to fifty fathoms above the level of the sea. Hence the streams are sluggish, their motion 

 in some places scarcely perceptible, and the slightest wind upon the Orinoco contrary 

 to its course will suffice to raise its waters, and drive back the rivers that are tributary 

 to it. There is then the phenomenon exhibited of water ascending and descending in 

 the same channel, a mass of standing water separating the two, in which whirlpools are 

 formed by the disturbance of the equipoise. The same authority strikingly dilates upon 

 the almost liquid uniformity of the surface of these regions, large spaces occurring 

 without an elevation a foot high. But notwithstanding their apparent uniformity of 

 level, the Llanos offer two kinds of inequalities. There are banks of limestone and 

 sandstone or buncos, standing four or five feet above the plains, sometimes several leagues 



Llanos of Badajoz. 



