THE PAMPAS. 
87 
but tlie desiertos of Sechura and Ataeamez. This solitary 
tract is not broad, but it is four hundred and forty leagues 
long. The rock pierces everywhere though the quicksands. 
No drop of rain ever falls on it; and, like the desert of 
Sahara, north of Timbuctoo, the Peruvian desert affords, 
near Huaura, a rich mine of native salt. Everywhere else, 
in the New World, there are plains desert because not 
inhabited, but no real deserts.* 
The same phenomena are repeated in the most distant 
regions ; and, instead of designating those vast treeless 
plains in accordance with the nature of the plants they 
produce, it seems natural to class them into deserts, steppes, 
or savannahs; into bare lands without any appearance of 
vegetation, and lands covered with gramina or small plants 
of the dicotyledonous tribe. The savannahs of America, 
especially those of the temperate zone, have in many works 
been designated by the French term prairies ; but this 
appears to me little applicable to pastures which are often 
very dry , though covered with grass of four or five feet in 
height. The Llanos and the Pampas of South America are 
really steppes. They are covered with beautiful verdure in 
the rainy season, but in the time of great drought they 
assume the aspect of a desert. The grass is then reduced to 
powder ; the earth cracks ; the alligators and the great ser- 
pents remain buried in the dried mud, till awakened from 
their long lethargy by the first showers of spring. These 
phenomena are observed on barren tracts of fifty or sixty 
leagues in length, wherever the savannahs are not traversed 
by rivers ; for on the borders of rivulets, and around little 
pools ol stagnant water, the traveller finds at certain dis- 
tances, even during the period of the great droughts, thickets 
ol mauritia, a palm, the leaves of which spread out like a 
tan, and preserve a brilliant verdure. 
The steppes of Asia are all beyond the tropics, and form 
very elevated table-lands. America also has savannahs of 
* We are almost tempted, however, to give the name of desert to that 
vast and sandy table-land of Brazil, the Campos dos Parecis, which gives 
birth to the rivers Tapajos, Paraguay, and Madeira, and which reaches 
the summit of the highest mountains. Almost destitute of vegit&tion, it 
reminds us of Gobi, in Mongolia. 
