59 



It is for the same reason, that in the war of 

 independance, they have been the theatre of the 

 struggle between the hostile parties, and that 

 the inhabitants of Calabozo have almost seen 

 the fate of the confederated provinces of Vene- 

 zuela and Cundinamarca decided under their 

 walls. I could wish, that in assigning limits 

 to the new states, and to their subdivisions, 

 ■there may be found no cause to repent here- 

 after having lost sight of the importance of the 

 llanos, and the influence they may have on the 

 disunion of communities, which important com- 

 mon interests should bring together. The step- 

 pes would serve for natural limits, like the seas, 

 or the virgin forests of the tropics, if armies 

 could not cross them with a facility so much 

 the greater, as they furnish in their innumera- 

 ble troops of horses and mules, and herds of 

 oxen, all the means of conveyance and subsis- 

 tence. 



In no other part of the world are the confi- 

 guration of the ground and the state of it's 

 surface marked by stronger features ; and no 

 where do they act more sensibly on the divisi- 

 ons of the social body, already divided by the 

 original difference of colour, and by individual 

 liberty. It is not in the power of man to change 

 that diversity of climates, whicb the inequalities 

 of the soil produce on a small space of ground, 

 and which give rise to the antipathy of the inhar 



