162 SOUTH AMERICA 



well-packed cushions on thick root-stooks ; bog-balsam 

 strews equally large and crowded bunches or mounds 

 over monotonous heath moors; a number of crawling 

 or low, evergreen, small- and hard-leaf bushes are inter- 

 mingled with a few grasses. 



Rougher still and more broken, rainy, chilly, and 

 wind-swept, is the group of the Falkland Islands, with 

 a very similar vegetation, though with quite a number 

 of plants of its own, and one or two bushes in sheltered 

 valleys. Here again the winds are the main cause 

 of treelessness. 



South Patagonia is suitable for sheep-farming, though 

 most of the settlements are as yet confined to the coast 

 and rivers. 



Fuegia. The foot-hills and piedmont strip along the 

 Andes, extending across the Straits of Magellan, over 

 the plateaus of central Fuegia, east of the mountains, 

 are more favourably situated than the steppe region 

 just described, which it succeeds to the west and south. 

 More sheltered, perhaps, yet receiving the benefit of the 

 western rainfall through the gaps of the mountains, 

 this region stands intermediate between the western 

 timbered highlands and the drier eastern steppes. It 

 also enjoys a milder and more equable temperature, but 

 has a strongly marked winter. 



It is a park landscape, the aspect of which recalls, 

 in a measure, that of our northern countries, with 

 thickets, woods, and even forests of middle-sized, summer- 

 green Antarctic beeches, an undergrowth of shrubs and 

 ferns, and a carpet of mosses and lichens. The inter- 

 vening grass-land is somewhat like our wild pastures 

 and meadows. In point of climate and vegetation it is 

 comparable to the northern part of our own island. 



The Andes. Ranging through 65 degrees of latitude, 



