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the immutable laws of nature, their races are 

 preserved in the struggle with the elements, and 

 amid so many sufferings and dangers. When 

 the waters retire, and the rivers return again 

 into their beds, the savannah is spread over with 

 a fine odoriferous grass ; and the animals of 

 old Europe and Upper- Asia seem to enjoy, as 

 in their native climate, the renewed vegetation 

 of spring. 



During the time of great floods, the inhabi- 

 tants of these countries, to avoid the force of 

 the currents, and the danger arising from the 

 trunks of trees, which these currents bring 

 down, instead of ascending in their boats the 

 beds of rivers, cross the savannahs. To go from 

 San Fernando to the villages of San Juan de 

 Payara, San Raphael de Atamaica, or San 

 Francisco de Capanaparo, they direct their 

 course due South, as if they were crossing a 

 single river of twenty leagues broad. The junc- 

 tions of the Guarico, the Apure, the Cabullare, 

 and the Arauca with the Oroonoko, form, at a 

 hundred and sixty leagues from the coast of 

 Guyana, a kind of interior Delta, of which hydro- 

 graphy furnishes few examples in the Old World. 

 According to the height pf the mercury in the 

 barometer, the waters of the Apure have only a 

 fall of thirty-four toises from San Fernando to 

 the sea. The fall from the mouths of the Osage 

 and the Missoury to the bar of the Missisippi is 



