ILLUSTRATIONS (i3J. THE PARAMOS. 83 



counts of the alphabetical writing of the American aboriginal 

 races, in a work of Pedro de Cieca de Leon,* 4 in Garcia,f and 

 in Columbus'sJ journal of his first voyage. M. de Verandrier 

 maintained also that traces of the ploughshare were observed 

 for days together in travelling over the grassy plains of 

 Western Canada; a circumstance that other travellers, prior 

 to him, likewise profess to have noticed. But the utter 

 ignorance of the primitive nations of North America regarding- 

 this implement of agriculture, the want of beasts of draught 

 and the vast extent of surface over which these tracks extend 

 through the prairie, tend rather to make me adopt the opinion 

 that this singular appearance of furrows is owing to some 

 movement of water over the earth's surface. 



(13) p. 6 " It spreads like an arm of the sea" 



The great steppe, which extends from the mouth of the 

 Orinoco to the snowy mountains of Merida, from east to 

 west, deflects towards the south in the parallel of 8 north 

 latitude, and occupies the whole space between the eastern 

 declivity of the elevated mountains of New Granada and the 

 Orinoco, which here flows in a northerly direction. That 

 portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, Vichada, 

 Zama, and Guaviare, connects as it were the valley of the 

 Amazon with that of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo, 

 which I have frequently employed in this work, signifies in 

 the Spanish colonies all alpine regions which are situated 

 from 11,000 to 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 and \vhose climate is rude, ungenial, and misty. In the 

 higher Paramos hail and snow fall daily for many hours 

 continuously, and yield a beneficial supply of humidity to 

 the alpine plants, not from the absolute quantity of vapour 

 in the higher strata of the air, but by the frequency of 

 the aqueous deposits occasioned by the rapidly changing 

 currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension. 

 The trees found in these regions are low, and spread out 

 in an umbrella-like form, have gnarled branches, which are 

 constantly covered with fresh and evergreen foliage. They are 



* Ohronica del Peru, P. 1, cap. 87. (Losa con letras en los ediiicioa 

 de Vinaque.) 



t Origen de los Indios, 1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258. 

 J Navarrete, Viages de los Espa.oles, t. i. p. G7. 



o 2 



