220 LIFE OF THE LLANEKO. 



take to traverse them, and the track is marked by whitened skeletons, 

 whose flesh has been devoured by vultures, and which unknown 

 hands have piled up and arranged with a ghastly symmetry of order. 



However, since the discovery of America, certain portions of the 

 Llanos have become habitable. Towns have risen at intervals on 

 the banks of the rivers which water them. These centres of popula- 

 tion are connected with each other by huts of reeds, covered with 

 ox-hides, and separated by about a day's march. Here reside the 

 Llaneros, to whose charge are intrusted the innumerable herds of cattle, 

 horses, and mules, which subsist on the pasturage of the Steppes. 



The inhabitants of the Llanos possess characteristics as marked as 

 those of their plains. The hatos wherein they assemble are situated 

 at long distances apart ; but the true home of the llanero, a bold 

 and skilful horseman, is his saddle. Firmly seated on his rapid 

 steed, he gallops at will across the trackless plain, and combining the 

 two extremes of solitude and activity, confines his half-savage exist- 

 ence to the custody or the ownership of his herds of horses and 

 cattle. Thus, born in the Llanos like his father, a descendant of the 

 first Spanish settlers, he has no idea of any other country than his 

 southern pastures, of any other career than his dreamy pastoral life. 

 Clothed in a picturesque costume, half Spanish, half Indian ; his 

 machete (or cutlass) thrust through a belt of leather, his poncho (a 

 chequered mantle) over his shoulder, and the redoubtable lasso 

 suspended in a coil to his saddle-bow ; armed with the clumsy lance, 

 which serves to drive his herd before him, and, at need, to vindicate 

 its owner's courage in some partisan affray ; the llanero, never think- 

 ing of the past, never dreaming of the future, on the alert in every 

 danger, and accustomed to the severest privations, enjoys with intoxi- 

 cation the rude happiness of his wild freedom. 



The Llanos of Venezuela occupy a superficial area, estimated, ac- 

 cording to Humboldt, at 153,000 square miles, between the deltas of 

 the Orinoco and the river Coqueta. They are as flat as the surface 

 of the sea, and covered with long rank grass. You might travel over 

 the dreary level for 1100 miles from the delta of the Orinoco to the 



