98 CULTIVATION OF LARGE PLAINS. 





opinions I have deduced from the climatic action of these 

 steppes considered as surfaces, or continuous masses. They 

 have observed that downs enclosed within cultivated and 

 wooded land sooner yield to the labours of the husbandman 

 than soils alike circumscribed, but forming part of a vast 

 surface of the same nature. This observation is extremely 

 just, whether in reference to soil covered with heath, as in the 

 north of Europe ; with cistuses, mastic-trees, or palmettos, as 

 in Spain ; or with cactuses, argemones, or brathys, as in equi- 

 noctial America. The more space the association occupies, 

 the more resistance do the social plants oppose to the labourer. 

 AVith this general cause others are combined in the Llanos of 

 Venezuela ; viz. the action of the small grasses which im- 

 poverish the soil ; the total absence of trees and brushwood ; 

 the sandy winds, the heat of which is increased by contact 

 with a surface absorbing the rays of the sun during twelve 

 hours, and unshaded, except by the stalks of the aristides, 

 chanchuses, and paspalums. The progress observable on the 

 vegetation of large trees, and the cultivation of dicotyledonous 

 plants in the vicinity of towns, (for instance around Gala- 

 bozo and Pao) prove what may be gained upon the Llano, by 

 attacking it in small portions, enclosing it by degrees, and 

 dividing it by coppices and canals of irrigation. Possibly the 

 influence of the winds, which render the soil sterile, might be 

 diminished by sowing on a large scale, for example, over 

 fifteen or twenty acres, the seeds of the psidium, the croton, 

 the cassia, or the tamarind, which prefer dry, open spots. I 

 am far from believing that the savannahs will ever disappear 

 entirely ; or that the Llanos, so useful for pasturage and the 

 trade in cattle, will ever be cultivated like the vallies of 

 Aragua or other parts near the coast of Caracas and Cumana : 

 but I am persuaded, that in the lapse of ages a considerable 

 portion of these plains, under a government favourable to 

 industry, will lose the wild aspect which has characterized 

 them since the first conquest by Europeans. 



After three days' journey, we began to perceive the chain 

 of the mountains of Cumana, which separates the Llanos, or, 

 as they are often called here, "the great sea of verdure,"* 

 from the coast of the Caribbean Sea. If the Bergantin be 



" Los Llanos son como un mar de yerbas" " The Llanos are like a 

 vast sea of grass" is an observation often repeated in these regiens. 



