AUCJEXT NATIVE REMAINS. 
90 
between New G-renada and tbe western border of the 
mountains of La Parime. 
The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the 
Meta, like the deserts of Africa, bear different names in 
different parts. Prom the mouths of the Dragon the Llanos 
of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of Caracas or Venezuela,* 
follow, running from east to west. "Where the steppes turn 
towards the south and south-south-west, from the latitude 
of 8°, between the meridians of 70° and 73°, we find from 
north to south, the Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, 
Gruaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.f The plains of Varinas 
contain some few monuments of the industry of a nation 
that has diappeared. Between Mijagual and tbe Cano de la 
Hacha, we find some real tumuli, called in the country the 
Serillos de los Indies. They are hillocks in the shape of cones, 
artificially formed of earth, and probably contain bones, like 
the tumuli in the steppes of Asia. A fine road is also 
discovered near Hato de la Calzada, between Varinas and 
Canagua, five leagues long, made before the conquest, in 
the most remote times, by the natives. It is a causeway of 
earth fifteen feet high, crossing a plain often overflowed. 
Did nations farther advanced in civilization descend from 
the mountains of Truxillo and Merido to the plains of the 
Bio Apure ? The Indians whom -we now find between this 
river and the Meta, are in too rude a state to think of 
making roads or raising tumuli. 
I calculated the area of these Llanos from the Caqueta 
to the Apure, and from the Apure to the Delta of the 
Orinoco, and found to be it seventeen thousand square 
* The following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I 
marked them down on the spot. The Llanos of Cumana and New Anda- 
lusia include those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, 
and Cari. The Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, 
Pariaguan, and Villa del Pao. We distinguish in the Llanos of Caracas 
those of Chaguaramas, Uritucu, Calabozo or Guarico, La Portuguesa, 
San Carlos, and Araure. 
+ The inhabitants of these plains distinguish as subdivisions, from the 
Rio Portuguesa to Caqueta, the Llanos of Guanare, Bocono, Nutrius or 
the Apure, Palmerito near Quintero, Gnardalito and Arauca, the Meta, 
Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari, Inirids, 
the Rio Hacha, and Caguan. The limits between the savannahs and the 
forests, in the plains that extend from the sources of the Rio Negro M 
Futumayo, are not sufficiently known. 
