SOUTH AMERICA 



CHAPTER I. 



SCENES OF ANCIENT DAYS. 



IME was when a rocky island, against which dashed 

 the surges of the Atlantic on the east and of the 

 Pacific on the west, rose in solitude from the 

 wide-extending ocean where now the highlands of Guiana 

 appear above the surrounding plains. Not another spot of 

 dry land was to be found — so geologists affirm — between 

 that point and the hills of Canada on the north, or for thou- 

 sands of miles southward towards the pole, over that portion 

 of the globe's surface now occupied by the vast continent of 

 America. Then, by slow degrees, the mountains of Brazil, 

 with their mines of glittering gems, appeared above the surface 

 of the waters, amid which huge reptile-like whales, ichthyo- 

 saurs, plesiosaurs, and cetiosaurs buffeted the billows, and 

 *vast saurians, lizards, and alligators, rivalling the elephant 

 in bulk, and twice his length — such as the megalosaurus, the 

 iguanodon, and teleosaurus — crawled along the slimy shores ; 



