156 



SOUTH AMERICA 



There are oases along the margins of the rivers, fed 

 by fresh water, which afford only limited fields for 

 a mediterranean agriculture. 



From these bush lands one rides into the ' esteros ' or 

 ' salitrales ', i. e. vast salt-wastes, where the bare ground 

 is shrouded in a white sheet of salt powder, or may be 

 flooded for miles round in times of rain. Dotted here 

 and there are shrubs, high or low, with small, fleshy, 



FIG. 53. Cliafiar and dry cerous scrub, 

 W. Argentina. 



grey leaves in tufts, growing sparser and lower with an 

 increasing proportion of salt, till the soil remains naked 

 but for a few distant, crawling dwarf-bunches. Plants 

 of these parts somewhat resemble those of our own salt- 

 marshes, and have a similar aspect the .world over: 

 such are the 'junin' wastes. 



At the limits of the salitrales, the land rises into 



