DEPARTURE FROM ARAGUA.

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CHAPTER IX.

Departure from the valleys of Aragua-Entrance into the Llanos, or plains-Their appearance-Characteristics of the plains of the four great continents; Prairies, Llanos, and Pampas-Want of hills-in the Llanos-Two kinds of slight inequalities in them-General outline of the mountains of South America, and of its plains-Traces of ancient inhabitants-Palm-trees of the Llanos.

[1800.]

On the 6th of March, our travellers departed from the charming valleys of Aragua, to enter upon the desolate plains which stretch far to the south, or, in the words of Humboldt, from a peopled country embellished with cultivation, to plunge into a vast solitude. Proceeding along the south-west side of the Lake of Valencia, they passed over a rich country, covered with plantains and water-melons, and were amused in their route by the singular evolutions of the monkeys, moving in regular bands from tree to tree. The howlings of these creatures announced the rising of the sun: Humboldt ascertained the distance at which their cries are audible to be 1705 yards. According to the Indians, there is one of them who always chants as leader; and the missionaries assert, that, when a young one is on the point of being brought forth, the howlings are suspended until the moment of its appearance.

"Naturalists," says Humboldt, "have very often described the howling monkeys which live in society in different parts of America. They everywhere resemble each other in their manners, though the species are not always the same. The uniformity with which the araguatoes execute their movements is extremely striking. Whenever the branches of neighbouring trees do

not touch, the male that leads the band, suspends himself by the callous and prehensile part of his tail; and letting fall the rest of his body, swings himself, till, in one of his oscillations, he reaches the neighbouring branch. The whole file goes through the same evolution at the same place. It is almost superfluous to add, how dubious is the assertion of Ulloa, and so many well-informed travellers, according to whom the marimondoes, the araguatoes, and other monkeys with a prehensile tail, form a sort of chain, in order to reach the opposite side of a river*. We had opportunities of observing thousands of these animals; and for this very reason we place no confidence in accounts, which were, perhaps, invented by the Europeans themselves, though they are repeated by the Indians of the missions, as if they had been transmitted to them by their own fathers."

On the second day, they began to ascend the mountains which separate the valleys from the Llanos, or plains, of the interior, and, reaching the top of an elevated platform, took their last view of the delightful country in which they had spent the previous four weeks. The passage of the mountain range occupied them some days, and, on the 12th, they entered the basin of the Llanos, in the ninth degree of north latitude.

“The sun was almost at its zenith; the earth, wherever it appeared sterile and destitute of vegetation, was at the temperature of 118° or 122°. Not a breath of air was felt at the height at which we were on our mules; yet, in the midst of this apparent calm, whirls of dust incessantly arose, driven on by those small cur

* Ulloa even goes so far as to represent this extraordinary feat of the monkeys in an engraving (in his Voyage to South America).

THEIR APPEARANCE.

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rents of air, that glide only over the surface of the ground, and are occasioned by the difference of temperature which the naked sand and the spots covered with herbs acquire. These sand-winds augment the suffocating heat of the air. Every grain of quartz, hotter than the surrounding air, radiates heats in every direction; and it is difficult to observe the temperature of the atmosphere, without these particles of sand striking against the bulb of the thermometer. All around us, the plains seemed to ascend toward the sky, and that vast and profound solitude appeared to our eyes like an ocean covered with sea-weeds. According to the unequal mass of vapours diffused through the atmosphere, and the variable decrement in the temperature of the different strata of air, the horizon, in some parts, was clear and distinct; in other parts, it appeared undulating, sinuous, and as if striped. The earth there was confounded with the sky. Through the dry fog, and strata of vapour, the trunks of palm-trees were seen from afar: stripped of their foliage, and their verdant summits, these trunks appeared like the masts of a ship discovered at the horizon.

"There is something awful, but sad and gloomy, in the uniform aspect of these Steppes. Everything seems motionless; scarcely does a small cloud, as it passes across the zenith, and announces the approach of the rainy season, sometimes cast its shadow on the savannah. I know not whether the first aspect of the Llanos excite less astonishment than that of the chain of the Andes. Mountainous countries, whatever may be the absolute elevation of the highest summits, have an analogous physiognomy; but we accustom ourselves with difficulty to the view of the Llanos of Venezuela and Casanare, to that of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and of Chaco,

104

PRAIRIES, LLANOS, AND PAMPAS.

which recall to mind incessantly, and during journeys of twenty or thirty days, the smooth surface of the ocean."

It has been attempted to characterize the four great divisions of the globe, with reference to their plains, by saying that Europe has its heaths, Asia its steppes, Africa its deserts, and America its savannahs. Humboldt observes, however, that erroneous notions are inculcated by this description, inasmuch as no one of the four characteristics is peculiar to any one of the four quarters of the globe. The term heath always implies the existence of the plant of that name; but as all the plains of Europe are not heathy, the description is incorrect. In like manner, the steppes of Asia are not always covered with saline plants, some of them being real deserts. The American llanos are not always grassy. It is true that deserts, such as those of Africa, are almost wholly wanting in the New World; they exist, however, in the low part of Peru, on the borders of the South Sea, and are called by the Spaniards, not Llanos, but desiertos.

"This solitary tract is not broad, but four hundred and forty leagues long. The rock pierces every where through the quicksands. No drop of rain ever falls on it; and, like the Desert of Sahara, to the north of Tombuctoo, the Peruvian Desert affords, near Huaura, a rich mine of native salt. Every where else, in the New World, there are plains, desert because not inhabited, but no real deserts."

The name of prairies, given to the savannahs of America, is considered by Humboldt as little applicable to pastures that are often very dry, though covered with grass four or five feet in height. The Llanos and the Pampas of South America, are regarded by him as

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LLANOS.

105

real Steppes. "They display," he says, a beautiful verdure in the rainy season; but, in the season of great drought, assume the aspect of a desert. The grass is then reduced to powder, the earth cracks, the alligator and the great serpents 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 of stagnant water, the traveller finds at certain distances, even during the period of the great droughts, thickets of the mauritia palm, the leaves of which, spread out like a fan, preserve a brilliant verdure. These immense plains appear, as far as the eye can reach, to adopt our traveller's expression, "like an ocean of verdure." Their extent, however, great as it is, is apt to deceive the traveller. "The uniform landscape of the Llanos; the extreme rarity of inhabitants; the fatigue of travelling beneath a burning sky, and an atmosphere darkened with dust; the view of the horizon, which seems for ever to fly before us; those lowly trunks of palm-trees, which have all the same aspect, and which we despair of reaching, because they are confounded with other trunks that rise by degrees on the visual horizon; all these causes combined, make the steppes appear far greater than they are in reality."

The chief characteristic of these savannahs is the absolute want of sensible hills and inequalities, and the almost perfect level of every part of the soil, which is so remarkable, that often in the space of thirty square leagues there is not an eminence of a foot high. This regularity of surface is said to reign, without interruption, from the mouth of the Orinoco to La Ville de