American Continent—The Mountains of South America—The Andes—The
Mountains of the Parima and Brazil.
SOME thinner portion of the crust of the globe under the meridians that
traverse the continent of America from Cape Horn to the Arctic Ocean
must have yielded to the expansive forces of the subterranean fires, or
been rent by contraction of the strata in cooling. Through this the
Andes had arisen, producing the greatest influence on the form of the
continent, and the peculiar simplicity that prevails in its principal
mountains systems, which, with very few exceptions, have a general
tendency from north to south. The continent is 9000 miles long, and, its
form being two great peninsulas joined by a long narrow isthmus, it is
divided by nature into three parts, of South, Central, and North
America; yet these three are connected by the mighty chain of the Andes,
but little inferior in height to the Himalaya, running along the coast
of the Pacific from within the Arctic nearly to the Antarctic circle. In
this course every variety of climate is to be met with, from the rigour
of polar congelation to the scorching heat of the torrid zone; while the
mountains are so high that the same extremes of heat and cold may be
experienced in the journey of a few hours from the burning plains of
Peru to the snow-clad peaks above. In this long chain there are three
distinct varieties of character, nearly, though not entirely,
corresponding to the three natural divisions of the continent. The Andes
of South America differ materially from those of Central America and
Mexico, while both are dissimilar to the North American prolongation of
the chain, generally known as the Chippewayan or Rocky Mountains.
The greatest length of South America, from Cape Horn to the Isthmus of
Panamá is about 4020 geographical miles. It is very narrow at its
southern extremity, but increases in width northwards to the latitude of
Cape Roque on the Atlantic, between which and Cape Blanco on the Pacific
it attains its greatest breadth of nearly 2750 miles. It consists of
three mountain systems, separated by the basins of three of the greatest
rivers in the world. The Andes run along the western coast from Cape
Horn to the Isthmus of Panamá, in a single chain of inconsiderable width
but majestic height, dipping rapidly to the narrow maritime plains of
the Pacific, but descending on the east in high valleys and occasional
offsets to plains of vast extent, whose dead level is for hundreds of
miles as unbroken as that of the ocean by which they are bounded.
Nevertheless, two detached mountain systems rise on these plains, one in
Brazil between the Rio de la Plata and the river of the Amazons; the
other is that of Parima and Guiana, lying between the river of the
Amazons and the Orinoco.
The great chain of the Andes first raises its crest above the waves of
the Antarctic Ocean in the majestic dark mass of Cape Horn, the
southernmost point of the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego. This group of
mountainous islands, equal in size to Britain, is cut off from the main
land by the Straits of Magellan. The islands are penetrated in every
direction by bays and narrow inlets of the sea, or fiords, ending often
in glaciers fed by the snow on the summits of mountains 6000 feet high.
Peatmosses cover the higher declivities of these mountains, and their
flanks are beset with densely entangled forests of brown beech, which
never lose their dusky leaves, producing altogether a savage, dismal
scene. The mountains which occupy the western side of this cluster of
islands sink down to wide level plains to the east, like the continent
itself, of which the archipelago is but the southern extremity.[40]
The Pacific washes the very base of the Patagonian Andes for about 1000
miles, from Cape Horn to the 40th parallel of south latitude. The whole
coast is lined by a succession of archipelagos and islands, separated
from the iron-bound shores by narrow arms of the sea, which, in the more
southern part, are in fact profound longitudinal valleys of the Andes
filled by the ocean, so that the chain of islands running parallel to
the axes of the mountains is but the summits of an exterior range rising
above the sea.
The coast itself for 650 miles is begirt by walls of rock, which sink
into unfathomable depths, torn by long crevices or fiords, similar to
those on the Norwegian shore, ending in tremendous glaciers, whose
masses, falling with a crash like thunder, drive the sea in sweeping
breakers through these chasms. The islands and the mainland are thickly
clothed with forests, which are of a less sombre aspect as the latitude
decreases.
Between the Pass of Chacabuco north of Santiago, the capital of Chile,
and the archipelago of Chiloe, a chain of hills, composed in general of
crystalline rocks, borders the coast; between which and the Andes exists
a longitudinal valley, well watered by the rivers descending from the
central chain, and which constitutes the most fertile portion, nay the
garden of the Chillian republic—the rich provinces of Santiago,
Colchagua, and Maule. This longitudinal depression may be considered as
a prolongation of the strait that separates Chiloe from the mainland.
Many peaks of the Andes enter within the limits of perpetual snow,
between the 40th and 31st parallels; and some of which are active
volcanos. In lat. 32° 39ʹ rises the giant of the American Andes, the
Nevado of Aconcagua, which towers over the Chillian village of the same
name, and is so clearly visible from Valparaiso. Although designated as
a volcano, a term generally applied in Chile to every elevated and snowy
peak, it offers no trace of modern igneous origin. It appears to be
composed of a species of porphyry generally found in the centre of the
Chillian chain. Its height, according to Captain Beechey’s very accurate
observations, exceeds 24,000 feet.[41]
About the latitude of Concepcion the dense forests of Araucarias and of
other semi-tropical plants cease with the humid equable climate; and as
no rain falls in central Chile for nine months in the year, the brown,
purple, and tile-red hills and mountains are only dotted here and there
with low trees and bushes; very soon, however, after the heavy showers
have moistened the cracked ground, it is covered with a beautiful but
transient flora. In some valleys it is more permanent and of a tropical
character, mixed with alpine plants.[42] In southern Chile rain falls
only once in two or three years, the consequence of which is sterility
on the western precipitous and unbroken descent of the Andes; but on the
east, two secondary branches leave the central Cordillera, which extend
300 or 400 miles into the plains, wooded to a great height. The Sierra
de Cordova, the most southern of these, begins between the 33d and 31st
parallels, and extends in the direction of the Pampas; more to the
north, the Sierra di Salta and Juguy stretches from the valley of
Catamarca and Tucuman towards the Rio Vermejo, one of the tributaries of
the Rio de la Plata.
The chain takes the name of the Peruvian Andes about the 24th degree of
south latitude, and is separated from the Pacific by a range of hills
composed of crystalline rocks, and parallel to the sea coast, and of an
intervening sandy desert, seldom above 60 miles broad, on which rain
scarcely ever falls, where bare rocks pierce through the moving sand.
The width of the coast is nearly the same to the Isthmus of Panamá, but
damp luxuriant forests full of orchideæ, begin about the latitude of
Payta, and continue northwards.
From its southern extremity to the Nevado of Chorolque, in 21° 30ʹ S.
lat., the Andes are merely one grand and continuous range of mountains,
but north of that the chain intercepts a very elevated table-land, or
wide longitudinal valley, in the direction of the chain, bounded on each
side by a parallel range of high mountains, rising much above it. These
parallel Cordilleras are united at various points by enormous transverse
groups or mountain-knots, or by single ranges crossing between them like
dykes, a structure that prevails to Pasto, 1° 13ʹ 6ʺ N. lat. The descent
to the Pacific is very steep; the dip is also very rapid to the east,
whence offsets diverge to the level plains.
Unlike the table-lands of Asia of the same elevation, where cultivation
is confined to the more sheltered spots, or those still lower in Europe,
which are only fit for pasture, these lofty regions of the Andes yield
exuberant crops of every European grain, and have many populous cities
enjoying the luxuries of life, with universities, libraries, civil and
religious establishments, at altitudes equal to that of the Peak of
Teneriffe, which is 12,170 feet above the sea-level. Villages are placed
and mines are worked at heights as great and even greater than the top
of Mont Blanc.[43] This state is not limited to the present times, since
these table-lands were once the centre of civilization by a race of
mankind which “bear the same relation to the Incas and the present
inhabitants that the Etruscans bear to the ancient Romans and to the
Italians of our own days.”
The table-land or valley of Desaguadero, one of the most remarkable of
these, has an absolute altitude of 12,900 feet, and a breadth varying
from 30 to 60 miles: it stretches 400 miles between the two parallel
chains of the Andes, and between the transverse mountain-group of Lipez,
in 20° S. lat., and the enormous mountain-knot of Vilcañota, which,
extending from east to west, shuts in the valley on the north-west, and
occupying an area three times as large as Switzerland, some of the snowy
peaks rising 8300 feet above the surface of the table-land, from which
an idea may be formed of the gigantic scale of the Andes. This
table-land or valley is bounded on each side by the two grand chains of
the Bolivian Andes: that on the west is the Cordillera of the coast; the
range on the east is the Bolivian Cordillera, properly speaking; and on
its north-west prolongation the Cordillera Real.[44] These two rows of
mountains lie so near the edge that the whole breadth of the table-land,
including both, is only 226 miles. All the snowy peaks of the
Cordilleras of the coast are either active volcanoes or of igneous
origin, and are all situate near the maritime declivity of the chain;
consequently, the descent is very abrupt. The eastern Cordillera, which
begins at the metalliferous mountain of Potosi, is below the level of
perpetual snow to the south, but its northern portion contains the three
peaked mountains of Sorata, of Supäíwasi, and Illimani, and is one of
the most magnificent portions of the Andes.[45] The snowy part begins
with the gigantic mass of Illimani, whose serrated ridges are elongated
in the direction of the axis of the chain. The lowest glacier on its
southern slope does not descend below 16,500 feet, and the valley of
Totoral, a mere gulf in which Vesuvius might stand, comes between
Illimani and the Nevado of La Mesada, from whence the eastern Cordillera
runs to the north-west in a continuous line of snow-clad peaks to the
group of Vilcañoto, where it unites with the Cordillera of the coast.
The valley of the Desaguadero, occupying 150,000 square miles, has a
considerable variety of surface; in the south, throughout the mining
district, it is poor and cold. Potosi, the highest city in the world,
stands at an absolute elevation of 13,330 feet, at the foot of a
mountain celebrated for its silver mines. Chiquisaca, the capital of
Bolivia, containing 13,000 inhabitants, lies to the north-east of
Potosi, in the midst of cultivated fields. The northern part of the
valley is populous, and produces wheat, barley, and other grain; and the
Lake of Titicaca, twenty times as large as the Lake of Geneva, fills the
north-western portion of this great basin. The islands and shores of
this lake still exhibit ruins of gigantic magnitude, monuments of a
people more ancient than the Incas. The modern city of La Paz with
40,000 inhabitants, not far from its southern shores, stands in the most
sublime situation that can be imagined, having in full view the vast
Nevado of Illimani to the east-south-east at a distance of seven
leagues.
Many offsets leave the eastern side of the Bolivian Cordillera which
terminates in the great plain of Chiquitos and Paraguay; the most
important is the Cordillera of Yuracaraës, which bounds the rich valley
of Cochabamba on the north, and ends near the town of Santa Cruz de la
Sierra.
There are some fertile valleys in the snow-capped group of Vilcañota and
Cusco. The city of Cusco, which contains nearly 50,000 inhabitants, was
the capital of the empire of the Incas: it still contains numerous ruins
of that dynasty, among which the remains of the Temple of the sun and
its Cyclopean Fortress still mark its former splendour. Four ancient
Peruvian roads led from Cusco to the different parts of the empire,
little inferior in many respects to the old Roman ways: all crossing
mountain-passes higher than the Peak of Teneriffe. On the northern
prolongation of the chain, in lat. 11° S., encircled by the Andes, is
the elevated plain of Bombon, near to the celebrated silver-mines of
Pasco, at a height of 14,000 feet above the sea. In it is situated the
Lake of Lauricocha, which may be considered, from its remoteness, as one
of the sources of the Amazon. There are many small lakes on the
table-lands and high valleys of the Andes, some even within the range of
perpetual snow. They are very cold and deep, often of the purest
sea-green colour; some of them may have been craters of extinct
volcanos.
The chain of the Andes is divided into three ranges of mountains running
from south to north in the transverse group or mountain-knot of Pasco
and Huanuco, which shuts in the valley of Bombon between the 11th and
10th parallels of south latitude: that in the centre separates the wide
fertile valley of the Upper Marañon from the still richer valley of the
Huallaga, whilst the more eastern forms the barrier between the latter
and the tropical valley of the Yucayali. The western chain alone reaches
the limit of perpetual snow, and, if we except the Nevado of Huaylillas,
in 7° 50ʹ, no mountain north of this for nearly 400 miles to the Andes
of Quito arrives at the snow-line.
In lat. 4° 50ʹ S. the Andes form the mountain-knot of Loxa, once
celebrated for its forests, in which the cinchona or Peruvian bark was
discovered. From this knot the chain divides into two great longitudinal
ridges or cordilleras, in an extent of 350 miles, passing through the
republic of the Equator to the mountain-group of Los Pastos in that of
New Grenada. These ridges enclose a vast longitudinal valley, which,
divided by the cross ridges of Assuay and Chisinche into three basins,
form the valleys of Cuença, Tapia, and Quito. The plain of Cuença offers
little interest; that of Tapia is magnificent; whilst the valley of
Quito is one of extraordinary beauty: on either side rise a series of
snow-capped peaks, celebrated in every way in the history of science, as
the valley itself is in that of the aboriginal races of the New World.
Here the energies of volcanic action have been studied with the greatest
fruits; here, now one hundred years ago, took place that measurement of
an arc of the meridian which afforded the most accurate data at the time
towards the determination of the mass and form of our planet, and which
has conferred eternal honour on the body with which it originated, the
French Academy of Sciences; and celebrity on the names of Bouguier, La
Condamine, and Godin, Don George Juan and Ulloa, who conducted it on the
part of the crowns of France and of Spain.
The Cordillera or ridge which hems in the valley of Quito on the east
contains the snow-capped peaks of Antisana, Cotopaxi, one of the most
beautiful of active volcanoes, whose dazzling cone rises to a height of
18,775 feet, of Tungaragua and el-Altar, the latter once equal to
Chimborazo in height, and Sangay. The western range includes the
gigantic Chimborazo, which may be seen from the coast of the Pacific,
the pyramidal peak of Illinissa, the wreck of an ancient volcano. The
height of Illinissa was measured by the French Academicians, by very
careful operations, directly above the level of the ocean, the latter
being visible from it; and by its means the absolute elevation of the
valley of Quito, and of the other peaks that encircle it, was deduced,
as well as the first approximate value of the barometrical coefficient.
North of Chimborazo and near it is the Carguäirazo, and close to the
city of Quito rises the scarcely less celebrated volcano of Pichincha,
whilst the Nevado of Cayambè, whose summit, elevated 19,535 feet, is
traversed by the terrestrial equator, perhaps the greatest and most
remarkable landmark on the surface of our planet, closes the north-east
extremity of the valley.
The valley of Quito, one of the finest in the Andes, is 200 miles long
and 30 wide, with a mean altitude of 10,000 feet, bounded by the most
magnificent series of volcanoes and mountains in the New World. A
peculiar interest is attached to two of the many volcanos in the
parallel Cordilleras that flank it on each side. The beautiful snow-clad
cone of Cayambè Urcu, as already stated, traversed by the equator, the
most remarkable division of the globe closes it on the north; and in the
western Cordillera the cross still stands on the summit of Pichincha,
15,924 feet above the Pacific, which served for a signal to Bouguier and
La Condamine in their memorable measurement of an arc of the
meridian.[46]
Some parts of the plain of Quito to the south are sterile, but the soil
generally is good, and perpetual spring clothes it with exuberant
vegetation. The city of Quito, containing 70,000 inhabitants, on the
side of Pichincha has an absolute height of 9540 feet. The city is well
built and handsome; the churches are splendid; it possesses
universities, the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, in a
situation of unrivalled grandeur and beauty. Thus, on the very summit of
the Andes there is a world by itself, with its mountains and its
valleys, its lakes and rivers, populous towns and cultivated fields.
Many monuments of the Incas are still found in good preservation in
these plains, where the scenery is most noble—eleven volcanic cones are
visible from one spot. Although the Andes are inferior in height to the
Himalaya, yet the domes of trachyte, the truncated cones of the active
volcanos, and the serrated ruins of those that are extinct, mixed with
the bold features of primary mountains, give an infinitely greater
variety to the scene, while the smoke, and very often the flame, issuing
from these regions of perpetual snow increase its sublimity. Stupendous
as these mountains appear even from the plains of the table-land, they
are merely the inequalities of the tops of the Andes, the serrated
summit of that mighty chain.
Between the large group of Los Pastos, containing several active
volcanos, and the group of Las Papas, in the second degree of north
latitude, the bottom of the valley is only 6900 feet above the sea; and
north of the latter mountain-knot the crest of the Andes splits into
three Cordilleras, which diverge not again to unite. The most westerly
of these, the chain of Choco, which may be considered the continuation
of the great chain, divides the valley of the river Cauca from the
Pacific; it is only 5000 feet high, and the lowest of the three. Though
but 20 miles broad, it is so steep, and so difficult of access, that
travellers cannot cross it on mules, but are carried on men’s shoulders:
it is rich in gold and platina. The central branch, or Cordillera of
Quindiu, runs due north between the Magdalena and Cauca, rising to a
great height in the volcanic Peak of Tolima. The two last chains are
united by the mountain-knot of Antioquia, of which little more is known
than that it forms two great masses, which, after separating the streams
of the Magdalena, Cauca, and Atrato, trends to the N.W., greatly reduced
in height, and with the chain of Choco forms the low mountains of the
Isthmus of Panamá. The most easterly of the three Cordilleras, called
the Sierra de la Summa Paz, spreads out on its western declivity into
the table-lands of Bogota, Tunja, and others, the ancient Cundinamarca,
which have an elevation of about 9000 feet; whilst on its eastern slope
rise the rivers Guaviari and Meta, which form the head waters of the
Orinoco. The tremendous crevice of Icononzo occurs in the path leading
from the city of Santa Fé de Bogota to the banks of the Magdalena. It
probably was formed by an earthquake, and is like an empty mineral vein,
across which are two natural bridges: the lowest is composed of stones
that have been jammed between the rocks in their fall.[47] This
Cordillera comprises the Andes of Cundinamarca and Merida, and goes
north-east through New Grenada to the 10th northern parallel, where it
joins the coast-chain of Venezuela or Caraccas, which runs due east, and
ends at Cape Paria in the Caribbean Sea, or rather at the eastern
extremity of the island of Trinidad. This coast-chain is so majestic and
beautiful that Baron Humboldt says it is like the Alps rising out of the
sea without their snow. The insulated group of Santa Martha, 19,000 feet
high, deeply covered with snow, stands on an extensive plain between the
delta of the Magdalena and the sea-lake of Maracaybo, and is a landmark
to mariners far off in the Caribbean Sea.
The passes over the Chilian Andes are numerous; that of the Portillo,
leading from St. Jago to Mendoza, is the highest; it crosses two ridges,
offering a valley between, a diminutive representation of the great
Peru-Bolivian depression and of the valley of Quito; the most elevated
is so high that vegetation ceases far below its summit. Those in Peru
are higher, though very few reach the snow-line. In Bolivia the mean
elevation of the passes in the western and eastern Cordillera is 14,892
and 14,422 feet respectively. That leading from Sorata to the auriferous
valley of Tipauni is perhaps the highest in Bolivia. From the total
absence of vegetation, and the intense cold, it is supposed to be 16,000
feet above the Pacific; those to the north are but little lower. The
pass of Quindiu in Colombia, though not so high, is the most difficult
of all across the Andes: but those crossing the mountain-knots from one
table-land to another are the most dangerous; for example, that over the
Paramo del Assuay, in the plain of Quito, where the road is nearly as
high as Mont Blanc, and travellers not unfrequently perish from cold
winds in attempting it.[48]
On the western side of the Andes little or no rain falls, except at
their most southern extremity, and scanty vegetation appears only on
spots or in small valleys, watered by streams from the Andes. Excessive
heat and moisture combine to cover the eastern side and its offsets with
tangled forests of large trees and dense brushwood. This exuberance
diminishes as the height increases, till at last the barren rocks are
covered only by snow and glaciers. In the Andes near the equator,
glaciers descending below the snow-line are unknown. The steepness of
the declivities and the dryness of the air, at such great elevations,
prevent any accumulation of infiltrated water: the annual changes of
temperature besides are small. Nothing can surpass the desolation of
these regions, where nature has been shaken by terrific convulsions. The
dazzling snow fatigues the eye; the huge masses of bold rock, the mural
precipices, and the chasms yawning into dark unknown depths, strike the
imagination; while the crash of the avalanche, or the rolling thunder of
the volcano, startles the ear. In the dead of night, when the sky is
clear and the wind hushed, the hollow moaning of the volcanic fire fills
the Indian with superstitious dread in the deathlike stillness of these
solitudes.
In the very elevated plains in the transverse groups, such as that of
Bombon, however pure the sky, the landscape is lurid and colourless: the
dark-blue shadows are sharply defined, and from the thinness of the air
it is hardly possible to make a just estimate of distance. Changes of
weather are sudden and violent; clouds of black vapour arise and are
carried by fierce winds over the barren plains; snow and hail are driven
with irresistible impetuosity; and thunder-storms come on, loud and
awful, without warning. Notwithstanding the thinness of the air, the
crash of the peals is quite appalling; while the lightning runs along
the scorched grass, and, sometimes issuing from the ground, destroys a
team of mules or a flock of sheep at one flash.[49]
Currents of warm air are occasionally met with on the crest of the
Andes—an extraordinary phenomenon on such gelid heights, which is not
yet accounted for: they generally occur two hours after sunset, are
local and narrow, not exceeding a few fathoms in width, similar to the
equally partial blasts of hot air in the Alps. A singular instance,
probably, of earth-light occurs in crossing the Andes from Chile to
Mendoza. On this rocky scene a peculiar brightness occasionally rests, a
kind of undescribable reddish light, which vanishes during the winter
rains, and is not perceptible on sunny days. Dr. Pœppig ascribes the
phenomenon to the dryness of the air: he was confirmed in his opinion
from afterwards observing a similar brightness on the coast of Peru, and
it has also been seen in Egypt.
The Andes descend to the eastern plains by a series of cultivated
levels, as those of Tucuman, Salta, and Jujuy, in the Republic of La
Plata, with many others. That of Tucuman is 2500 feet above the sea—the
garden of the republic.
The low lands to the east of the Andes are divided by the table-lands
and mountains of Parima and Brazil into three parts of very different
aspect—the deserts and pampas of Patagonia and Buenos Ayres, the Silvas
or woody basin of the Amazons, and the Llanos or grassy steppes of the
Orinoco. The eastern table-lands nowhere exceed 2500 feet of absolute
height; the plains are so low and flat, especially at the foot of the
Andes, that a rise of 1000 feet in the Atlantic Ocean would submerge
more than half the continent of South America.
The system of Parima is a group of mountains scattered over a table-land
not more than 2000 feet above the sea, which extends 600 or 700 miles
from east to west, between the river Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the
Amazons, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is quite unconnected with the Andes,
being 80 leagues east from the mountains of New Grenada. It begins 60 or
70 miles from the coast of Venezuela, and ascends by four successive
terraces to undulating plains, which come within one or two degrees of
the equator, and is twice as long as it is broad.
Seven chains, besides groups of mountains, cross the table-land from
west to east, of which the chief is the Sierra del Parima. Beginning at
the mouth of the Meta, it crosses the plains of Esmeralda to the borders
of Brazil. This chain is not more than 600 feet high, is everywhere
escarped, and forms the watershed between the tributaries of the Amazons
and those of the Orinoco. The Orinoco rises on the northern side of the
Sierra del Parima, and in its circuitous course over the plains of
Esmeralda it breaks through that chain and the parallel chain of the
Maypures 37 miles to the south: dashing with violence against the
transverse shelving rocks and dykes, it forms the magnificent series of
rapids and cataracts of Maypures and Atures, from whence the Parima
mountains have got the name of the Cordillera of the cataracts of the
Orinoco. The chain is of granite, which forms the banks and fills the
bed of the river, covered with luxuriant tropical vegetation, especially
palm-forests. In the district of the Upper Orinoco, near Charichana,
there is a granite rock which emits musical sounds at sunrise, like the
notes of an organ, occasioned by the difference of temperature of the
external air and that which fills the deep narrow crevices with which
the rock is everywhere torn. Something of the same kind occurs at Mount
Sinai.[50]
The other parallel chains that extend over the table-land in Venezuela
and Guiana, though not of great height, are very rugged and often
crowned with mural ridges; they are separated by flat savannahs,
generally barren in the dry season, but after the rains covered with a
carpet of emerald-green grass, often six feet high, mixed with flowers.
The vegetation in these countries is beautiful beyond imagination: the
regions of the Upper Orinoco and Rio Negro, and of almost all the
mountains and banks of rivers in Guiana, are clothed with majestic and
impenetrable forests, whose moist and hot recesses are the abode of the
singular and beautiful race of the Orchideæ and tangled creepers of many
kinds.
Although all the mountains of the system of Parima are wild and rugged,
they are not high; the inaccessible peak of the Cerro Duida, which rises
insulated 7155 feet above the plain of Esmeralda, is the culminating
point, and one of the highest mountains in South America east of the
Andes. The fine savannahs of the Rupununi were the country of romance in
the days of Queen Elizabeth. South of Pacaraime, near an inlet of the
river, the far-famed city of Manoa was supposed to stand, the object of
the unfortunate expedition of Sir Walter Raleigh; about 11 miles
south-west of which is situated the lake Amucu, “the Great Lake with
golden banks,”—great only during the periodical floods.[51]
On the southern side of the basin of the river Amazons lies the
table-land of Brazil, nowhere more than 2500 feet high, which occupies
half that empire, together with part of the Argentine republic and
Uruguay Orientale. Its form is a triangle, whose apex is at the
confluence of the rivers Mamore and Beni, and its base extends, near the
shore of the Atlantic, from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to within
three degrees of the equator. It is difficult to define the limits of
this vast territory, but some idea may be formed of it by following the
direction of the rapids and cataracts of the rivers descending from it
to the plains around. Thus, a line drawn from the fall of the river of
the Tocantins, in 3° 30ʹ S. latitude, to the cataracts of the Madeira,
in the eighth degree of south latitude, will nearly mark its northern
boundary; from thence the line would run S.W. to the junction of the
Mamore and Beni; then turning to the S.E. along the ridges of mountains
called the Cordillera Geral, and Sierra Parecis, it would proceed south
to the cataract of the Paraná, called the Sete Quedas, in 24° 30ʹ S.
lat.; and lastly from thence, by the great falls of the river Iguassu,
to the Morro de Santa Martha, in lat. 28° 40ʹ, south of the island of
St. Catherine.
Chains of mountains, nearly parallel, extend from south-west to
north-east, 700 miles along the base of the triangle, with a breadth of
about 400 miles. Of these, the Sierra de Mar, or the “coast-chain,”
reaches from the river Uruguay to Cape San Roque, never more distant
than 20 miles from the Atlantic, except to the south of the bay of
Santos, where it is 80. Offsets diverge to the right and left; the
granitic peaks of the Corcovado and Tejuco, which form such picturesque
objects in that most magnificent of panoramas the bay of Rio de Janeiro,
are the ends of one. The parallel chain of Espenhaço, beginning near the
town of San Paolo, and the continuous chains of the Serro Frio, and
forming the western boundary of the basin of the Rio San Francisco, is
the highest in Brazil, one of its mountains, Itambe, being 8426 feet
above the sea. All the mountains in Brazil have a general tendency from
S.W. to N.E., except the transverse chain of the Sierra dos Vertentes,
which begins 60 miles south of Villa Rica, and runs in a tortuous line
to its termination near the junction of the Mamore and Beni. It forms
the watershed of the tributaries of the San Francisco and Amazons on the
north, and those of the Rio de la Plata on the south; its greatest
height is 3500 feet above the sea: its western part, the Sierra Parecis,
is merely a succession of detached hills. This chain, the coast-chain of
Venezuela, and the mountains of Parima, are the only ranges in the
continent of America that do not entirely, or in some degree, lie in the
direction of the meridians.
Magnificent forests of tall trees, bound together by tangled creeping
and parasitical plants, clothe the declivities of the mountains and line
the borders of the Brazilian rivers, where the soil is rich and the
verdure brilliant. Many of the plains on the table-land bear a coarse
nutritious grass after the rains only, others forests of dwarf trees;
but vast undulating tracts are always verdant with excellent pasture
intermixed with fields of corn: some parts are bare sand and rolled
quartz, and the Campos Parecis, north of the Sierre dos Vertentes, in
the province of Matto Grosso, is a sandy desert of unknown extent,
similar to the Great Gobi on the table-land of Tibet.