3G1 LLANOS OF TILE 1UO DE LA PLATA. 



V. PLAINS or THE Bio DE LA PLATA, AND or PATA 



GONiA, from the south-western slope of the group of the 

 Brazil mountains, to the strait of Magellan ; from 20 to 53 

 of latitude. These plains correspond with those of the Mis- 

 sissippi and of Canada in the northern hemisphere. If one 

 of their extremities approaches less nearly to the polar 

 regions, the other enters much further into the region of 

 palm-trees. That part of this vast basin extending from the 

 eastern coast towards the Bio Paraguay, does not present a 

 surface so perfectly smooth as the part situated on the west 

 and the south-east of the Bio de la Plata, and which has been 

 known for ages by the name of Pampas, derived from th^ 

 Peruvian or Quichua language.* Greognostically speaking, 

 these two regions of east and west form only one basin, 

 bounded on the east by the Sierra de Villarica or do Es- 

 piiiha^o, which loses itself in the Capitania of San Paul, 

 near the parallel of 24 ; issuing on the north-east by little 

 hills, from the Serra da Canastra and the Campos Parecis 

 towards the province of Paraguay ; on the west, by the 

 Andes of Upper Peru and Chile ; and on the north-west, by 

 the ridge of the partition of the waters which runs from the 

 spur of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, across the plains of the 

 Chiquitos, towards the Serras of Albuquerque (lat. 19 2') 

 and San Fernando. That part only of this basin lying on 

 the west of the Bio Paraguay, and which is entirely covered 

 with gramina, is 70,000 square leagues. This surface of the 

 Pampas or Llanos of Manse, Tucuman, Buenos Ayres, and 

 eastern Patagonia, is consequently four times greater than 

 the surface of the whole of France. The Andes of Chile 

 narrow the Pampas by the two spurs of Salta and Cordova ; 

 the latter promontory forms so projecting a point, that there 

 remains (lat. 31-32) a plain only 45 leagues broad between 

 the eastern extremity of the Sierra de Cordova and the right 

 bank of the river Paraguay, stretching in the direction of a 

 meridian, from the town of Nueva Coimbra to Bosario, below 

 Santa Fe. Far beyond the southern frontiers of the old vice- 

 royalty of Buenos Ayres, between the Bio Colorado and the 



* Hatan Pampa signifies in that language, e a great plain.' We find 

 the word Pampa also in Riobamba and Guallabamba ; the Spaniards, in 

 wder to softca the geographical names, changing the p into b. 



