CHAPTER III. 



THE PAMPAS OF SOUTH AMERICA ; AND THE ANDES. 



E must now ask the reader to accompany us to 

 the South TemiDerate Zone of the New World ; 

 inchiding the llanos of Paraguay, La Plata, 

 and Uruguay, the Andean region of Chili, 

 and the plains and ridges of Patagonia. 



South America exhibits three great basins, or tracts, of 

 low and comparatively level lands — the desert of Pata- 

 gonia, the pampas of Buenos Ayres and Paraguay, and the 

 silvas or virgin forests of the Amazons. 



The Patagonian plains and the pampas cover an area of 

 about nineteen hundred miles in length — from Tierra del 

 Fuego to the mountains of Brazil. Necessarily the climatic 

 conditions vary greatly over so vast an extent ; and there- 

 fore, while palm-trees flourish on the Brazilian borders, 

 deep snow covers the wastes of Tierra del Fuego for many 

 months in the year. 



For nearly two hundred miles west from Buenos Ayres 

 the pampas bloom with thistles and lucern of the brightest 

 green, so long as the moisture from the rain endures. In 

 spring the greenness passes away ; and a month afterwards 



