94 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



Paris by Buclion, had advanced as far as the Gold River (Rt6 

 do Ouro), in 23 56' north lat. ; while the Normans, at the 

 close of the fourteenth century, reached Sierra Leone in 8 30' 

 north latitude. The merit of having been the first to cross the 

 equator in the Western Ocean incontrovertibly belongs, like 

 BO many other great achievements, to the Portuguese. 



(17) p. 7." As a grassy plain, resembling many of the Steppes 

 of Central Asia." 



The Llanos of Caracas, of the Rio Apure and the Meta. 

 which are the abode of numerous herds of cattle, are, 

 in the strictest sense of the word, grassy plains. The two 

 families of the Cyperaceae and the Gramineae, which are the 

 principal representatives of the vegetation, yield numerous 

 forms of Paspalum (Paspalum leptostachyum, P. lenticular e), 

 of Kyllingia (Kyllingia monocephala (Rottb.) K. odoratd], of Pa- 

 nicum (Panicum granuliferum^ P. micranthum^ of Antephora, 

 Aristida, Vilfa, and Anthisteria (Anthisteria rejlexa, A. 

 foliosa). It is only here and there that any herbaceous 

 dicotyledon, as the low-growing species of Mimosa intermedia 

 and M. dormiens, which are so grateful to the wild horses 

 and cattle, are found interspersed among the Gramineae. The 

 native* very characteristically apply to this group the name of 

 " Dormideras," or sleepy plants, because the delicate and 

 feathery leaves close on being touched. For many square 

 miles not a tree is to be seen ; but where a few solitary 

 trees are found, they are, in humid districts, the Mauritia 

 Palm, and, in arid spots, a Proteacea described by Bon- 

 pland and myself, the Rhopala complicata (Chaparro bobo], 

 which Willdenow regarded as an Embothrium; also the 

 useful Palma de Covija or de Sombrero ; and our Corypha 

 inermis, an umbrella palm allied to Chamaerops, and used by 

 the natives for the covering of their huts. How much more 

 varied and rich is the aspect of the Asiatic plains ! In a great 

 portion of the Kirghis and Kalmuck Steppes which I have 

 traversed (extending over a space of 40 degrees of longitude), 

 from the Don, the Caspian Sea and the Orenburg-Ural river 

 Jaik, to the Obi and the Upper Irtysch, near the Lake Dsai- 

 ang, the extreme range of view is never bounded by a hori- 

 zon in which the vault of heaven appears to rest on an un- 

 broken sea-like plain, as is so frequently the case in the 

 Llanos, Pampas, and Prairies of America, I have, indeed. 



