98 INFLUENCE ON THE INHABITANTS. 



These physical considerations on the steppes of tie New 

 World are linked with others more interesting, inasmuch aa 

 t'hey are connected with the history of our speeies. The 

 great sea of sand in Africa, the deserts without water, are 

 frequented only by caravans, that take fifty days to traverse 

 them.* Separating the Negro race from the Moors, and 

 the Berber and Kabyle tribes, the Sahara is inhabited only 

 in the oases. It affords pasturage only in the eastern 

 part, where, from the effect of the trade-winds, the layer of 

 sand being less thick, the springs appear at the surface of the 

 earth. In America, the steppes, less vast, less scorching, 

 fertilized by fine rivers, present fewer obstacles to the inter- 

 course of nations. The Llanos separate the chain of the 

 coast of Caracas and the Andes of New Grenada from 

 the region of forests ; from that woody region of the Orinoco 

 which, from the first discovery of America, has been inha- 

 bited by nations more rude, and farther removed from 

 civilization, than the inhabitants of the coast, and still more 

 than the mountaineers of the Cordilleras. The steppes, 

 however, were no more heretofore the rampart of civiliza- 

 tion than they are now the rampart of the liberty of the 

 hordes that live in the forests. They have not hindered the 

 nations of the Lower Orinoco from going up the little 

 rivers and making incursions to the north and the west. 

 If, according to the various distribution of animals on the 

 globe, the pastoral life could have existed in the New 

 World, if, before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Llanos 

 and the Pampas had been filled with those numerous herds 

 of cows and horses that graze there, Columbus would have 

 found the human race in a state quite different. Pastoral 

 nations living on milk and cheese, real nomad races, would 

 have spread themselves over those vast plains which com- 

 municate with each other. They would have been seen at 

 the period of great droughts, and even at that of inunda- 

 tions, fighting for the possession of pastures ; subjugating 

 one another mutually ; and, united by the common tie of 

 manners, language, and worship, they would have risen 

 to that state of demi-civilization which we observe with 

 surprise in the nations of the Mongol ana Tartar race. 



* This is the maximum of the time, according to Major ReunelL 

 /Traveia of Mungo Park, voL ii. ) 



