IMMENSE EXTENT OF VIEW. 99 



more than eight hundred toises high, it may be seen sup- 

 posing only an ordinary refraction of one fourteenth of the 

 arch, at the distance 01 twenty-seven nautical leagues ; but 

 the state of the atmosphere long concealed from us the ma- 



{"estic view of this curtain of mountains. It appeared at first 

 ike a fog-bank, which hid the stars near the pole at their 

 rising and setting ; gradually this body of vapour seemed to 

 augment and condense, to assume a bluish tint, and become 

 bounded by sinuous and fixed outlines. The same effects 

 which the mariner observes on approaching a new land pre- 

 sent themselves to the traveller on the borders of the Llano. 

 The horizon began to enlarge in some part, and the vault of 

 heaven seemed no longer to rest at an equal distance on the 

 grass-covered soil. A llanero, or inhabitant of the Llanos, is 

 happy only when, as expressed in the simple phraseology of 

 the country, "he can see everywhere well around him." 

 What appears to European eyes a covered country, slightly 

 undulated by a few scattered hills, is to him a rugged 

 region bristled with mountains. After having passed several 

 months in the thick forests of the Orinoco, in places where 

 one is accustomed, when at any distance from the river, to see 

 the stars only in the zenith, as through the mouth of a well, 

 a journey in the Llanos is peculiarly agreeable and attrac- 

 tive. The traveller experiences new sensations ; and, like the 

 Llanero, he enjoys the happiness " of seeing well around 

 him." But this enjoyment, as we ourselves experienced, is 

 not of long duration. There is doubtless something solemn 

 and imposing in the aspect of a boundless horizon, whether 

 viewed from the summits of the Andes or the highest Alps, 

 amid the expanse of the ocean, or in the vast plains of Vene- 

 zuela and Tucuman. Infinity of space, as poets in every 

 language say, is reflected within ourselves ; it is associated 

 with ideas of a superior order ; it elevates the mind, which 

 delights in the calm of solitary meditation. It is true, also, 

 that every view of unbounded space bears a peculiar cha- 

 racter. The prospect surveyed from a solitary peak, varies 

 according as the clouds reposing on the plain extend in layers, 

 are conglomerated in groups, or present to the astonished 

 eye, through broad openings, the habitations of man, the 

 labour of agriculture, or the verdant tint of the aerial oceaa. 

 An immense sheet of water, animated by a thousand various 



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