ASPECTS OF NATURE 



DIFFERENT LANDS AND DIFFERENT CLIMATES. 



STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



A WIDELY extended and apparently interminable plain stretches 

 from the southern base of the lofty granitic crest, which, in 

 the youth of our planet, when the Caribbean gulf was formed, 

 braved the invasion of the waters. On quitting the moun- 

 tain valleys of Caraccas, and the island-studded lake of 

 Tacarigua ( l ) whose surface reflects the stems of plantains 

 and bananas, and on leaving behind him meads adorned 

 with the bright and tender green of the Tahitian sugar cane 

 or the darker verdure of the Cacao groves, the traveller, 

 looking southward, sees unroll before him Steppes receding 

 until they vanish in the far horizon. 



Eresh from the richest luxuriance of organic life, he treads 

 at once the desolate margin of a treeless desert. Neither 

 hill nor cliff rises, like an island in the ocean, to break the 

 uniformity of the boundless plain ; only here and there 



VOL. I. B 



