THE LLANOS. 89 



arborescent vegetation except a few clumps of dwarf fan-palms (copernicia), thorny 

 mimosas, and stunted chaparros {curateila Americana). 



Previous to about 1875 trees had greatly multiplied on the llanos since the 

 beginning of the century. Nearly all the elevated plains had become decked 

 with little patches of arborescent growths, which the natives attributed to the 

 great falling off in livestock. During the War of Independence the belligerents 

 lived on the cattle captured on the plains, and the result was that in a few years 

 the herds were almost exterminated, and millions of saplings on which the animals 

 had formerly browsed were able to develop into full-grown plants. As the rain- 

 fall is certainly sufficient to nourish an arborescent vegetation, forests might 

 again spring up and flourish, though they would again disappear if all the land 

 were devoted to stock-breeding. In this respect the Venezuelan llanos present a 

 phenomenon analogous to that of the Illinois prairies. They receive less rain than 

 the forest regions, but still enough for the development of woodlands if protected 

 from herds and flocks. In some districts, as on the grazing-grounds of the 

 French Alps and of Algeria, the aspect of the land has been changed by the 

 destructive action of goats. The grass eaten away or torn up by the roots has 

 allowed the rains to furrow the ground, and the level plains have thus been trans- 

 formed to a labyrinth of winding gorges. 



The rivulets rising in the sierras, and especially in the Cordillera de Merida, 

 have an incline steep enough to rapidly discharge the surface waters into the 

 Apure or the Orinoco. But most of the streams are only intermittent, overflowing 

 their banks far and wide during the winter season, but during the droughts 

 subsiding into narrow channels, and even apparently ceasing to flow. The sandy 

 or muddy beds at this period present a succession of c/mrcos, or flooded meres, 

 separated by 2)/a_//as, or emerged sills. The fish are thus confined to terraced 

 basins ; where, however, the water never becomes quite stagnant. It continues 

 to filter through the intervening sandy ridges, where an agreeable potable water 

 can always be had by sinking wells down to the underground current. In the 

 vast triangular space limited north-westwards by the Sierra de Merida, northwards 

 by the Apure and eastwards by the Rio Portuguesa, all the watercourses without 

 exception assume in summer the aspect of chains of lakelets separated by dry 

 ledges. 



But the continuous current is thus broken only in their middle courses. 

 The upper reaches near the mountains, being fed by copious springs, still flow in 

 an uninterrupted stream, while, lower down, the mainstreams, such as the Apure, 

 Portuguesa, and Orinoco, ascend the tributaries far enough to maintain a perennial 

 vegetation for some distance along the banks. According to the natives the Rio 

 Guarico, which rises in the hills near Lake Tacarigua, and which flows across the 

 Calabozo plains southwards to the Apurito, had formerly a permanent dis- 

 charge, although now broken into detached pools during the dry season. Hence 

 it would appear that the climate has become drier, or rather that the difference 

 between the summer and winter discharge has been increased by the destruction 

 of the upland forests and the cultivation of the riverine tracts. 



