317 



It affords pasturage only in the eastern party 

 where, from the effect of the trade-winds, the 

 layer of sand is less thick, so that the springs can 

 appear at the surface of the earth. In America, 

 the steppes, less vast, less scorching, fertilized 

 by fine rivers, present fewer obstacles to the in- 

 tercourse of nations. The Llanos separate the 

 chain of the coast of Caraccas and of the Andes 

 of New Grenada from the region of forests ; 

 from that Hi/ Ice a * of the Oroonoko, which, from 

 the first discovery of America, has been inhabited 

 by nations more rude, and farther removed 

 from civilization, than the inhabitants of the 

 coast, and still more than the mountaineers of 

 the Cordilleras. The steppes however were no 

 more heretofore the rampart of civilization, than 

 they are now the rampart of the liberty of the 

 hordes that live in the forests. They have not 

 hindered the nations of the Lower Oroonoko from 

 going up the little rivers, and making incursious 

 on the North and the West. If, according to 

 the various distribution of animals on the Globe, 

 the pastoral life could have existed in the New 

 World ; if, before the arrival of the Spaniards, 

 the Llanos and the Pampas had been filled with 

 those numerous, herds of cows and horses, that 

 graze there ; Columbus would have found the 

 human race in a state quite different. Pastoral 



* r*»t>. Herod, Melp. (Ed. Schweigk., vol, ii, p. 267.) 



