1849.] 



exercised hy Trees on Climate. 



405 



the Savannali. I know not whether the first aspect of the Llanos 

 excites less astonishment than that of the chain of the Andes. 

 It is impossible to cross these burning plains without inquir- 

 ing whether they have alvvays been in the same state : or whe- 

 ther they have been stripped of their vegetation by some revo- 

 lution of nature. The natives believe that the palmares and the 

 €haparales, (the little groves of palm trees and rhopala) were more 

 frequent and more extensive before the arrival of the Spaniards. 

 Since the Llanos have been inhabited and peopled with cattle, 

 become wild, the Savannah is often set on fire to meliorate the 

 pasturage, and groups of scattered trees beneath the shade of 

 which vegetation enjoyed a protection from the scorching rays of 

 the sun, are accidentally destroyed.* 



St. Pierre tries to explain the mode in which trees temper 

 the heat of tropical countries. One day in summer, he says, 

 about the hour of two in the afternoon, being about to cross the 

 forest of Ivry, I observed some shepherds with their flocks, who 

 kept at a distance from it, reclining under the shade of the trees 

 scattered over the country. I asked why they did not go into the 

 forest, to shelter themselves and their flocks from the heat of the 

 sun. They told me it was then too hot there and that they never 

 drove their sheep thither but in the morning and evening. Being 

 desirous, however, of traversing in broad day, the forest in which 

 Henry lY. had hunted and of arriving betimes at Anet to view 

 the country residence of Henry II. and the tomb of his mistress, 

 Diana de Poictiers, I engaged a boy belonging to one of the shep- 

 herds to a,ccompany me as a guide, which was a very easy matter 

 to him as the road to Anet crosses the forest in a straight line and 

 it is so little frequented that I found it covered in many places 

 with grass and stravv^berry plants. I felt all the time I was walk= 

 ing a suflbcating heat and much more intense than that experienc- 

 ed in the open country. I did not begin to breathe freely till I 

 was quite clear of the forest and had proceeded more than three 

 musket shots from its skirts. 



I have since reflected on what the shepherds told me concern- 

 ing the heat of the wood, and, on m}^ own experience of the truth 



* Personal Narrative, yol, iv.,. p. 291, et sequent. 



