58 



surface of the sea. The immensity of their 

 extent insures impunity to vagabonds ; for they 

 are better concealed in the savannahs than in 

 our mountains and forests ; and it is easy to 

 conceive, that the artifices of a European police 

 could not be easily put in practice, where there 

 are travellers and no roads, herds and no herds- 

 men, and farms so solitary, that, notwithstand- 

 ing the powerful action of the mirage, several 

 days' journey may be made without seeing one 

 appear within the horizon. 



In traversing the llanos of Caraccas, Barce- 

 lona, and Cumana, which succeed each other 

 from west to east, from the snowy mountains of 

 Merida to the Delta of the Oroonoko, we ask 

 ourselves, whether these vast tracts of land 

 be destined by Nature to serve eternally for 

 pasture, or the plough and the spade of the 

 labourer will one day subject them to cultiva- 

 tion. This question is so much the more impor- 

 tant, as the llanos, placed at the two extremities 

 of South America, are obstacles to the political, 

 union of the provinces they separate. They 

 prevent the agriculture of the coast of Vene- 

 zuela from extending toward Guyana, and that 

 of Potosi toward the mouth of the Rio de la* 

 Plata. The interposed steppes preserve with, 

 the pastoral life something rude and wild, which 

 separates and keeps them remote from the 

 civilizatipn of countries anciently cultivated. 



