296 A GENERAL VIEW OF SOUTH AMERICA. 



few permanent water-courses. To the north extends a salt 

 desert for upwards of one hundred miles, with a width of 

 two hundred miles. It is crossed by the River Salado, which, 

 rising in the Cordilleras, falls into the Plata, to the south of 

 which rises a number of step-like terraces, sterile during the 

 heats of summer, but covered with verdure after the rains of 

 spring. Huge boulders, brown gTass gi^owing in tufts, and 

 low spine-covered bushes, diversify the surface. In this in- 

 hospitable region transitions from lieat to cold are very great. 

 Now the traveller is panting under the intense heat of the 

 sun's rays ; and anon an icy blast rushes across the plain, 

 compelling him to draw close around his body his thick 

 poncho, for protection against its chilling influences. 



Further to the south are found large swamps and lagoons, 

 one of them having an area of one thousand square miles, its 

 surface covered with aquatic plants. In the rainy season, the 

 rivers, overflowing their banks, inundate the plains — leaving 

 behind, however, a thick deposit of fertilizing soil, from which, 

 as elsewhere, rich crops are capable of being produced. Further 

 on, to the south, the Pampas, over which the 3^et savage and 

 untamed Patagonians roam, and hunt the huanacu and ostrich, 

 is generally higher and drier. 



The South American continent, it will thus be seen, con- 

 sists of several distinctly different descriptions of country : — 



the long line of the Cordilleras, with their snow-capped peaks 

 and their lofty punas or high table-lands, and the narrow strip 

 of arid soil at their western base ; the three separate mountain- 

 systems of Venezuela, Guiana, and the Brazils ; the mighty 

 forests bordering the gi^eat rivers and their tributaries, to which 

 must be added the wooded heights of the intertropical regions, 



