376 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



America during this period appear to have wan- 

 dered northwards as far as the southern districts 

 of North America, while the Mastodon of the 

 countries ranged southwards into Brazil. Whether 

 the means of passage consisted of continuous or bro- 

 ken land on the eastern side of the Gulf of Mexico, 

 or whether the high land of Mexico itself even then 

 connected the two continents, we are not at present 

 able to tell, but the very broad distinctions that there 

 are between the extinct faunas of this comparatively 

 modern period, as exhibited by the fossils of North 

 and South America generally, as well as the great dif- 

 ference observable in the recent faunas, would rather 

 lead us to conjecture that the species common to 

 both may have been conveyed accidentally, and that 

 these two great tracts of land in the western hemi- 

 sphere were anciently detached from one another. 



However the case may have been in that respect, 

 it is interesting to consider the condition of this part 

 of our earth at the period immediately antecedent 

 to the introduction of man. Instead of a country 

 remarkable for the absence of all large quadrupeds, 

 it was exactly the reverse, but these ancient giants 

 are now represented by smaller although similar spe- 

 cies. The Pampas then, perhaps, presented a con- 

 dition of vegetation little different from that still 

 characteristic of them; numerous clumps of forest 

 trees were dotted about at intervals, and the in- 

 tervening country was covered for the most part by 

 rich and luxuriant vegetation. Other trees probably 

 fringed the margin of those gigantic rivers which still 

 pour out their torrents of water and drain a mighty 

 continent. In the half swampy tracts, or in the 



