1,; ASPFX'TS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



Besides their interminable extent, the Llanos have several 

 other points of resemblance to the sea. As here the waterspout, 

 raised by contending air-currents, rises to the clouds and sweeps 

 over the floods, thus also the dust of the savannah, set in motion 

 by conflicting winds, ascends in mighty columns and glides 

 over the desert plain. The glowing sand suspended in the 

 air increases the sultriness of the atmosphere, and may even 

 become dangerous to the traveller who cannot escape by a 

 timely flight; for, seizing him with irresistible violence, it 

 carries him along in its embrace, and then hurls him senseless 

 to the ground. 



As if " on a painted ocean," the becalmed ship lies motionless 

 on the glassy sea. No breath of air ruffles the surface of the 

 waters. The pennant hangs lazily from the mast ; the water- 

 casks are empty; the torments of thirst, aggravated by the heat 

 of a vertical sun, become intolerable. But, suddenly, as if by 

 magic, a beautiful island rises from the floods ; waving palm- 

 trees seem to welcome the mariner : he fancies he hears the 

 purling of the brook and the splashing of the waterfall. Yet 

 still the vessel remains immovable like a rock, and soon the 

 fading phantom that mocked his misery leaves him the victim 

 of increased despair. 



Similar delusions of the mirage, produced by the refraction 

 of the light as it passes through atmospherical strata of unequal 

 warmth, and consequently of unequal density, likewise take 

 place over the surface of the Llanos, which then assume the 

 semblance of a large sea, heaving and rocking in wave-like 

 motion. In the Lybian desert, in the dread solitudes of the 

 polar ocean, in every zone, we meet with the same phenomenon, 

 produced by the same cause. 



As in the arctic regions the intense cold during winter re- , 

 tards the pulsations, or even suspends the operations of life, so 

 in the Llanos the long continuance of drought causes a similar 

 stagnation in animated nature. The thinly-scattered trees and 

 shrubs do not indeed cast their foliage, but the greyish-yellow 

 of their leaves announces that vegetation is suspended. Buried 

 in the clay of the dried-up pools, the alligator and the water- 

 boa lie plunged in a deep summer-sleep, like the bear of the 

 north in his long winter slumber ; and many animals which, at 

 other times, are found roaming over the Llanos, — such as 



