BANKS OF THE LLANOS. 89 



altogether destitute of palm-trees ; and where the mountains 

 of the shore and of the Orinoco are so distant that they 

 cannot be seen, as in the Mesa de Pavones. A person would 

 be tempted there to take the altitude of the sun with a quad- 

 rant, if the horizon of the land were not constantly misty on 

 account of the variable effects of refraction. This equality 

 of surface is still more perfect in the meridian of Calabozo, 

 than towards the east, between Cari, La Villa del Pao, and 

 Nueva Barcelona ; but it extends without interruption from 

 the mouths of the Orinoco to La Villa de Araure and to 

 Ospinos, on a parallel of a hundred and eighty leagues in 

 length; and from San Carles to the savannahs of Caqueat, 

 on a meridian of two hundred leagues. It particularly cha- 

 racterises the New Continent, as it does the low steppes ol 

 Asia, between the Borysthenes and the Volga, between the 

 Irtish and the Obi. The deserts of central Africa, of Arabia, 

 Syria, and Persia, Gobi, and Casna, present, on the contrary, 

 many inequalities, ranges of hills, ravines without water, 

 and rocks which pierce the sands. 



The Llanos, however, notwithstanding the apparent uni- 

 formity of their surface, present two kinds of inequalities, 

 which cannot escape the observation of the traveller. The 

 first is known by the name of banks (bancos) ; they are in 

 reality shoals in the basin of the steppes, fractured strata of 

 sandstone, or compact limestone, standing four or five feet 

 higher than the rest of the plain. These banks are some- 

 times three or four leagues in length ; they are entirely 

 smooth, with a horizontal surface; their existence is per- 

 ceived only by examining their margins. The second species 

 of inequality can be recognised only by geodesical or baro- 

 metric le veilings, or by the course of rivers. It is called a 

 mesa or table, and is composed of small flats, or rather 

 convex eminences, that rise insensibly to the height of a 

 lew toises. Such are, towards the east, in the province of 

 Cumana, on the north of the Villa de la Merced and Can- 

 delaria, the Mesas of Amana, of Guanipa, and of Jonoro, the 

 direction of which is south-west and north-east ; and which, 

 in spite of their inconsiderable elevation, divide the watert 

 between the Orinoco and the northern coast of Terra Firm a. 

 The convexity of the savannah alone occasions this partition : 

 we there find the ' dividing of the waters ' (divortia aqua- 



