6 VIEWS OF NATUKE. 



But the interest yielded by the contemplation of such a 

 picture must arise from a pure love of nature. No Oasis here 

 reminds the traveller of former inhabitants, no hewn stone 

 (12), no fruit-tree once cultivated and now growing wild, 

 bears witness to the industry of past races. As if a stranger 

 to the destinies of mankind, and bound to the present alone, 

 this region of the earth presents a wild domain to the free 

 manifestation of animal and vegetable life. 



The Steppe extends from the littoral chain of Caracas to 

 the forests of Guiana, and from the snow-covered mountains of 

 Merida, on whose declivity lies the Natron lake of Urao, the 

 object of the religious superstition of the natives, to the vast 

 delta formed by the mouth of the Orinoco. To the south- 

 west it stretches like an arm of the sea (13), beyond the 

 banks of the Meta and of the Vichada, to the unexplored 

 sources of the Guaviare, and to the solitary mountain group 

 to which the vivid imagination of the Spanish warriors gave 

 the name of Paramo de la Suma Paz, as though it were the 

 beautiful seat of eternal repose. 



This Steppe incloses an area of 256,000 square miles. 

 Owing to inaccurate geographical data, it has often been 

 described as extending in equal breadth to the Straits of 

 Magellan, unmindful that it is intersected by the wooded 

 plain of the Amazon, which is bounded to the north by the 

 grassy Steppes of the Apure, and to the south by those 01 

 the Rio de la Plata. The Andes of Cochabamba and the 

 Brazilian mountains approximate each other by means of 

 separate transverse spurs, projecting between the province of 

 Chiquitos and the isthmus of Villabella (14). A narrow plain 

 unites the Hylcea of the Amazon with the Pampas of Buenos 

 Ayres. The area of the latter is three times larger than that 

 of the Llanos of Venezuela ; indeed so vast in extent, that it 

 is bounded on the north by palms, while its sotiiL<ern extremity 

 is almost covered with perpetual ice. The Tuyu, which re- 

 sembles the Cassowary, (Struthio Rhea,) is peculiar to these 

 Pampas, as are also those herds of wild dogs (15), which dwell 



