IMMENSE EXTENT OF THE PAMPAS. 97 



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 

 I 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 01 their extremities, while the 

 other, equally low and level, is covered with eternal frost. 



The Llanos of America, where they extend in the direc- 

 tion of a parallel of the equator, are three-fourths narrower 

 th/in 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 direc- 

 tion, 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 Bed 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,f that the centi- 

 grade 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, unin- 

 habited 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; tafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer, a naked 

 desert, covered with sand and gravel ; tantifah, 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 tola or tschol. The word ffobi, which Europeans have cor- 

 rupted into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It ii 

 equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, of 

 plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah ; in Chinese, koucma 



f Expedition to explore the river Zahir, 1818. 



TOL. H. H 



