36 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



eating palm wine of the Gruaranis. The -scaly fruits, which resem- 

 ble in their appearance reddish fir cones, afford, like the plantain 

 and almost all tropical fruits, a different kind of nutriment, accord- 

 ing as they are eaten after their saccharine substance is fully de- 

 veloped, or in their earlier or more farinaceous state. Thus, in the 

 lowest state of man's intellectual development, we find the existence 

 of an entire people bound up with that of a single tree ; like the insect 

 which lives exclusively on a single part of a particular flower. 



Since the discovery of the New Continent, the Llanos have be- 

 | come habitable to men. In order to facilitate communication between 

 the .Orinoco country and the coasts, towns have been built here and 

 there on the banks of the streams which flow through the Steppes. ( 33 ) 

 The rearing of cattle has began over all parts of these vast regions. 

 Huts, formed of reeds tied together with thongs, and covered with 

 skins, are placed at distances of a day's journey from each other; 

 numberless herds of oxen, horses, and mules, estimated, at the 

 peaceful epoch of my journey, at a million and a half, roam over the 

 Steppe. The immense multiplication of these animals, originally 

 brought by man from the Old Continent, is the more remarkable 

 from the number of dangers with which they have to contend. 



When, under- the vertical rays of the never-clouded sun, the car- 

 bonized turfy covering falls into dust, the indurated soil cracks 

 asunder as if from the shock of an earthquake. If at such times 

 two opposing currents of air, whose conflict produces a rotary motion, 

 come in contact with the soil, the plain assumes a strange and sin- 

 gular aspect. Like conical shaped clouds, ( M ) the points of which 

 descend to the earth, the sand rises through the rarefied air in the 

 electrically charged centre of -the whirling current; resembling the 

 loud waterspout dreaded by the experienced mariner. The lowering 

 sky sheds a dim, almost straw-colored light on the desolate plain. 

 The horizon draws suddenly nearer ; the teppe seems to contract, 

 - and with it the heart of the wanderer. The hot dusty particles 

 which fill the air increase its suffocating heat, (^) and the east wind 

 blowing over the long-heated soil, brings with it no refreshment, but 

 rather a still more burning glow. The pools which the yellow, fad- 

 ing branches of the fan palm had protected from evaporation, now 

 gradually disappear. As in the icy north the animals become torpid 



