226 VIOLENT INUNDATIONS. 



until, with a violent noise, like the outbreak of a small mud volcano, 

 the accumulated earth is cast high into the air. The spectator who 

 comprehends the purport of this strange scene immediately retreats, 

 for he knows that the birth of the portentous travail will be a 

 gigantic water-snake or huge crocodile roused from its torpidity. 



The rivers which bound the plain to the south the Arauca, the 

 Apure, and the Pajara gradually swell, and now Nature compels the 

 same animals, which in the first half of the year panted with thirst 

 on the dry and dusty soil, to adopt an amphibious life. A portion 

 of the Steppe now assumes the aspect of a vast inland sea.* The 

 brood mares retire with their foals to the more elevated banks, which 

 rise like islands above the watery expanse. Every day the dry 

 space grows smaller. It is a miniature reproduction of the Noachian 

 Deluge. The animals, crowded together, swim about for hours in 

 quest of other pasture, and feed sparingly on the tops of the flowering 

 grasses that spring above the seething surface of the turbid waters. 

 Many foals are drowned, and many are surprised by the crocodiles, 

 killed by a blow from their powerful tails, and devoured. It is no 

 uncommon thing to see the marks of these monsters' cruel teeth on 

 the legs of horses and cattle which have narrowly escaped from their 

 blood-thirsty jaws. Such a sight reminds the thoughtful observer of 

 that capability of adaptation to the most varied circumstances with 

 which the all-powerful Creator has endowed certain animals and 

 plants, f 



The Pampas of Perriambuco and Buenos Ayres have three times 

 the superficial area of the Llanos of Venezuela. So great is their 

 extent, that while forests of palms border them on the north, they are 

 covered with snow in the south, during a great part of the year, like 

 the northern Steppes of Tartary. According to the climatic divisions 

 generally adopted, these regions belong to the Temperate Zone ; but 

 in truth they comprehend a great variety of climates. Their- char- 



* These inundations are nowhere more extensive than in the network of rivers formed 

 by the Apure, the Araclmna, the Pajara, the Arauca, and the Cabuliare. Large vessels 

 eail across the country over the Steppe for forty or fifty miles. 



f Humboldt, " Ansichten der Natur," i.. Steppes and Deserts. 



