ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 105 



the mouth of the ^Orinoco to the snowy mountains of 

 Merida, turns ta^he south in the 8th degree of latitude, 

 filling the space between the eastern declivity of the high 

 mountains of New Granada, and the Orinoco, the course 

 of which is, in this part, from south to north. This latter 

 portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the 

 Yichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley 

 of the Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco. 

 The word Paramo, which I often employ in these pages, 

 signifies in Spanish America all those mountainous regions 

 which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 toises above the 

 level of the sea (11500 to 14000 English feet in round num- 

 bers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate 

 prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the 

 upper Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture 

 to the alpine plants ; a supply not arising from a large 

 absolute quantity of aqueous vapour in these high regions, 

 but from the frequency of showers, (hail and snow being so 

 termed as well as rain), produced by the rapidly changing 

 currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension. 

 The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and 

 spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and 

 myrtle-leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are 

 adorned with fresh and evergreen foliage. Escalloma tubai, 

 Escallonia myrtilloides, Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Wein- 

 mannias, Erezieras, Gualtherias, and Andromeda reticulata, 

 may be regarded as representatives of the physiognomy of 

 this vegetation. To the south of the town of Santa Ee da 

 Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz ; a lonely mountain 



