11 



CHAPTER ir. 



THE LLANOS. 



Their Aspect in the Dry Season — Vegetable Sources — Land Spouts — EiFects 

 of the Mirage — A Savannah on Fire — Opening of the Rainy Season — 

 Miraculous Changes — Exuberance of Animal and Vegetable Life — Conflict be- 

 tween Horses and Electrical Eels — Beauty of the Llanos at the Termination 

 of the Rainy Season —The Mauritia Palm. 



IN South America, the features of Nature are traced on a 

 gigantic scale. Mountains, forests, rivers, plains, there 

 appear in far more colossal dimensions than in our part of the 

 world. Many a branch of the Maraiion surpasses the Danube 

 in size. In the boundless primitive forests of Gruiana more 

 than one Grreat Britain could find room. The Alps would seem 

 but of moderate elevation if placed aside of the towering Andes ; 

 and the plains of Northern Germany and Holland are utterly 

 insignificant when compared with the Llanos of Venezuela and 

 New Grenada, which, stretching from the coast-chain of Caraccas 

 to the forests of Guiana, and from the snow-crowned mountains 

 of Merida to the Delta of the Orinoco, cover a surface of more 

 than 250,000 square miles. 



Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast which 

 these immeasurable plains present at various seasons of the 

 year — now parched by a long-continued drought, and now 

 covered with the most luxuriant vegetation. When, day after 

 day, the sun, rising and setting in a cloudless sky, pours, his 

 vertical rays upon the thirsty Llanos, the calcined grass-plains 

 present the monotonous aspect of an interminable waste. Like 

 the ocean, their limits melt in the hazy distance with those of 

 the horizon ; but here the resemblance ceases, for no refreshing 

 breeze wafts coolness over the desert, and comforts the drooping 

 spirits of the wanderer. 



