THE EQUATOEIAL ZONE. 293 



The damp, hot valleys, shut in by the immense moun- 

 tain-ridges upon which the Cinchona grows, must be those 

 in which the tribe of Orchises grows in such rich profusion. 

 " An entire life," Humboldt says, " would not suffice to 

 enable an artist, although limiting himself to the specimens 

 afforded by one circumscribed region, to delineate all the 

 magnificent Orchidea which adorn the deeply-excavated 

 mountain valleys of the Peruvian Andes, sometimes re- 

 sembling winged insects, sometimes birds, which the per- 

 fume of the honey has allured." 



One great feature of the South American portion of this 

 zone is formed by the pampas of Peru and the savannahs 

 on the Orinoco. We must not imagine that their appear- 

 ance is exactly the same as that of our own grass meadows 

 on a larger scale. Extensive tracts indeed they are of green 

 grass, but this is only in the rainy season ; and the grasses, 

 instead of forming a uniform covering, " are distributed in 

 larger or smaller patches," and consist of different kinds to 

 those we have in England. These wide plains are often 

 wanting in the bright verdure of our meadows, " or it lasts 

 but a short time, unless they are overflowed on the margins 

 of lakes and rivers." An English eye too misses all the 

 band of Buttercups and Marsh Marigolds, and Ladies'- 



