OBSTACLES TO CIVILIZATION. 95 



fective in regions where there are travellers and no roads, 

 herds and no herdsmen, and farms so solitary, that notwith- 

 standing the powerful action of the mirage, a journey of 

 several days may be made without seeing one appear within 

 the horizon. 



Whilst traversing the Llanos of Caracas, New Barcelona, 

 and Cumana, which succeed each other from west to east, 

 from the snowy mountains of Merida to the Delta of the 

 Orinoco, we feel anxious to know whether these vast tracts 

 of land are destined by nature to serve eternally for pas- 

 ture, or whether they will at some future time be subject to 

 the plough and the spade. This question is the more im- 

 portant, as the Llanos, situated at the two extremities of 

 South America, are obstacles to the political union of the 

 provinces they separate. They prevent the agriculture of 

 the coast of Venezuela from extending towards Guiana, and 

 they impede that of Potosi from advancing in the direction 

 of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The intermediate 

 Llanos preserve, together with pastoral life, somewhat 

 of a rude and wild character, which separates and keeps 

 them remote from the civilization of countries anciently 

 cultivated. Thus it has happened that in the war of inde- 

 pendence, they have been the scene of struggle between the 

 hostile parties ; and that the inhabitants of Calabozo have 

 almost seen the fate of the confederate provinces of Vene- 

 zuela and Cundinamarca decided before their walls. In 

 assigning limits to the new states, and to their subdivisions, 

 it is to be hoped there may not be cause hereafter to repent 

 having lost sight of the importance of the Llanos, and the 

 influence they may have on the disunion of communities 

 which important common interests should bring together. 

 These plains would serve as natural boundaries like the seas, 

 or the virgin forests of the tropics, were it not that armies 

 can cross them with greater facility, as their innumerable 

 troops of horses and mules, and herds of oxen, furnish every 

 means of conveyance and subsistence. 



What we have seen of the power of man struggling 

 against the force of nature in Gaul, in Germany, and re- 

 cently (but still beyond the tropics), in the United States, 

 scarcely affords any just measure of what we may expect 

 from the progress of civilization in the torrid zone. Fore^ta 



