IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. 263 



Poppig, Robert and Richard Schomburgk, and myself, 

 are those who have spent the longest period of time in 

 primeval forests in the interior of a great continent. 



Rich as is the Spanish language, (as I have already 

 remarked), in appellations of distinct and definite meaning 

 in the description of nature, yet the same word " Monte" 

 is employed for mountain and forest, for cerro, (montana) 

 and for selva. In an inquiry into the true breadth and 

 greatest easterly extension of the chain of the Andes, I 

 have shewed how this two-fold signification of the word 

 " monte" led to the introduction, in a fine and extensively 

 circulated English map of South America, of high mountain 

 ranges, where, in reality, only plains exist. When the 

 Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla, which has served as 

 the foundation of so many other maps, shewed " Montes 

 de Cacao," ( 3 ) " cacao woods," Cordilleras were made to rise 

 although the cacao seeks only the lowest and hottest 

 localities. 



If we comprehend in one general view the wooded 

 region which includes the whole of the interior of South 

 America, from the grassy steppes of Venezuela (los Llanos 

 de Caracas) to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, or from 8 

 North to 19 South latitude, we shall perceive that this 

 connected forest of the tropical zone has an extent un- 

 equalled in any other portion of the earth's surface. Its 

 area is about twelve times that of Germany. Traversed 

 in all directions by systems of rivers, in which the minor 

 and tributary streams sometimes exceed our Rhine or 

 our Danube in the abundance of their waters, it owes 



