300 



than toward the East, between the Cari, La 

 Villa del Pao, and Nueva Barcelona; but it 

 reigns without interruption from the mouths of 

 the Oroonoko to La Villa de Araure and Ospinos, 

 under a parallel of a hundred and eighty leagues 

 in length ; and from San Carlos to the savannahs 

 of Caqueta, on a meridian of two hundred 

 leagues *. It particularly characterizes the new 

 continent, as it does the low steppes of Asia, 

 between theBorysthenes and the Wolga, between 

 the Irtisch and the Obi The deserts of cen- 

 tral Africa, of Arabia, Syria, and Persia, Cobi, 

 and Casna present on the contrary many in- 

 equalities, ranges of hills, ravines without water, 

 and rocks that pierce the sands ^. 



The Llanos, however, notwithstanding the ap- 

 parent uniformity of their surface, furnish two 

 kinds of inequalities, that do not escape the ob- 

 servation of an attentive traveller. The first is 

 known by the name of Bancos : they are real 

 shoals in the basin of the steppes, fractured 

 strata of sandstone, or compact limestone, stand- 

 ing four or five feet higher than the rest of the 



* In strictness from N. N. E. to S. S. W. 



+ Gueldenstedt Reise, vol. i, p. 116 — 126. Gmelin, Flor. 

 Sibir. Prcef. p. 31. Pallas, vol. ii, p. 75; vol. hi, p. 638. 



j Or Karak, between the Iaxartes and the Oxus. 



§ See the laborious investigations of Mr. Meiners on 

 Deserts, in the Untersuchungen ueber die Menschenarten, vol. i, 

 p. 101. 



