98 COXTIENOE ON THE INHABITANTS. 
These physical considerations on the steppes of the New 
World are 'linked with others more interesting, inaBmueh as 
they are connected with the history of our speeies. The 
great sea of sand in Africa, the deserts without water, axe 
frequented only by caravans, that take fifty days to traverse 
them.* Separating the Negro race from the Moors, and 
the Berber and Kabyle tribes, the Sahara is inhabited only 
in the oases. It affords pasturage only in the eastern 
part, where, from the effect of the trade-winds, the layer of 
sand being less thick, the springs appear at the surface of the 
earth. In America, the steppes, less vast, less scorching, 
fertilized by fine rivers, present fewer obstacles to the inter- 
course of nations. The Llanos separate the chain of the 
coast of Caracas and the Andes of New Grenada from 
the region of forests ; from that woody region of the Orinoco 
which, from the first discovery of America, has been inha- 
bited by nations more rude, and farther removed from 
civilization, than the inhabitants of the coast, and still more 
than the mountaineers of the Cordilleras. The steppes, 
however, were no more heretofore the rampart of civiliza- 
tion than they are now the rampart of the liberty of the 
hordes that live in the forests. They have not hindered the 
nations of the Lower Orinoco from going up the little 
rivers and making incursions to the north and the west. 
If, according to the various distribution of animals on the 
globe, the pastoral life could have existed in the New 
World, — if, before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Llanos 
and the Pampas had been filled with those numerous herds 
of cows and horses that graze there, Columbus would have 
found the human race in a state quite different. Pastoral 
nations living on milk and cheese, real nomad races, would 
have spread themselves over those vast plains which com- 
municate with each other. They would have been seen at 
the period of great droughts, and even at that of inunda- 
tions, fighting for the possession of pastimes; subjugating 
one another mutually ; and, united by the common tie of 
manners, language, and worship, they would have risen 
to that state of demi-civilization which we observe uith 
surprise in the nations of the Mongol ana Tartar race. 
* This is the maximum of the time, according to Major Rennefi* 
Gravels of Mungo Park, vol. it ) 
