OBSTACLES TO CIVILIZATIOK. 
95 
L ill regions where there are travellers and no roads, 
no herdsmen, and farms so solitary, that notwith- 
the powerful action of the mirage, a journey of 
i'lie^h made without seeing one appear within 
g traversing the Llanos of Caracas, New Barcelona, 
fj, '^uinana, which succeed each otlier from west to east, 
snowy mountains of Merida to the Delta of the 
of anxious to know whether these vast tracts 
tur destined by nature to serve eternally for pas- 
the*^’ ^ i'iisy iii' some future time be subject to 
pQ®,Pi'*’igh and the spade. This question is the more im- 
Souttf^’ Llanos, situated at the two extremities of 
nr • "^^i^iioa, are obstacles to the political union of the 
k°^^iioes they separate. They prevent the agriculture of 
the Venezuela from extending towards Griiiana, and 
of X ^®P®de that of Potosi fj'om advancing in the direction 
j^l^P® mouth of the Eio do la Plata. The intermediate 
of preserve, together with pastoral life, somewhat 
and wild character, which separates and keeps 
ciilK from the civilization of countries anciently 
pend^^^^*^' happened that in the war of inde- 
scene of struggle between the 
altiiri t Parties ; and that the inhabitants of Calabozo have 
*Uel^' ®®6ii the fate of the confederate provinces of Vene- 
assii> .^nndinamarca decided before their WUs. In 
it limits to the new states, and to their subdivisions, 
liavi ° 1 ^°P®d there may not be cause hereafter to repent 
mflu sight of the importance of the Llanos, and the 
W j,i„f*^9® tkey may have on the disunion of communities 
Tijgg important common interests should bring together, 
oj. t},® plains would serve as natural boundaries like the seas, 
can c '’iigin forests of the tropics, were it not that armies 
■ iroor)^*^^c 1 *^®™ greater faciliiy, as their innumerable 
mean c mid mules, and herds of oxen, furnish every 
■\yf ®i conveyance and subsistence. 
®“ainst ®®®ii I'^i® power of man struggling 
centlv /"L ® nature in Gaul, in Germany, and re- 
acareel beyond the tropics), in the Dnited States, 
froTv. il “ifords any just measure of what we may expect 
'im the 
progress of civilization in the torrid zone. Forests 
