182 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



east of the sources of the Orinoco, as high as 4000 (4263 

 Eng.) feet. On the unvisited banks of the Eio Atabapo, 

 in the interior of Guiana, we discovered a new species 

 of Mauritia with prickly stems, our Mauritia aculeata; 

 (Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth, Nova Genera et Species 

 Plantarum, t. i. p. 310). 



( 32 ) p. 16. "An American Stylites." 



The founder of the sect of the Stylites, the fanatical 

 pillar-saint Simeon Sisanites, the son of a Syrian herdsman, 

 is said to have passed thirty-seven years in religious contem- 

 plation on the summits of five successive pillars, each higher 

 than the preceding. The last pillar was 40 ells high. 

 He died in the year 461* For seven hundred years there 

 continued to be men who imitated this manner of life, and 

 were called " sancti columnares" (pillar saints). Even in 

 Germany, in the Diocese of Treves, it was proposed to 

 erect such aerial cloisters, but the Bishops opposed the 

 undertaking (Mosheim, Institut. Hist, Eccles. 1755, p. 215.) 



( 33 ) p. 17. " Towns on the banks of the streams 

 which Jlow through the Steppe! 3 



Families who live not by agriculture but by the care of 

 cattle, have congregated in the middle of the Steppe in 

 small towns, which, in the cultivated parts of Europe, 

 would hardly be regarded as villages. Such are Calabozo, 

 in 8 56' 14" N. lat. and 67 42' long, according to my 

 observations, Villa del Pao, lat 8 38' 1", long. 66 57', 

 S. Sebastian, and others. 



