DESERTS OF THE NEW WORLD:--PRAIRIES, PAMPAS, LLANOS.
They who study the philosophy of history, of which men talk so much, and
know so little; they who seek in the general laws of nature and the
physical economy of the globe an explanation of its ethnological
phenomena, may find, it seems to me, a curious subject for investigation
in the singular destiny of the New World. They will have to ascertain by
what concurrence of circumstances the two Americas, separated from us
by an immensity of waters, and revealed to the world of the East but
some four centuries ago, shall have traversed in so brief a period the
successive phases of conquest, colonization, and emancipation; why
European emigration was directed thitherward at the very beginning; and
thitherward continues still to flow from every quarter; finally, by what
tacit and unanimous agreement this New World has become the adopted
country of all the proscribed and disinherited of the Old; while almost
the entire area of the African continent, which is so much more readily
accessible, is scarcely less favoured in its climatic conditions, and
upon which the white race has rested, from the remotest antiquity, its
political institutions, its arts, and its industry, has remained
uninfluenced by the advancing tide of civilization.
[Illustration: PRAIRIES OF NORTH AMERICA--STAMPEDO OF WILD BISONS.]
I limit myself to indicating this problem, which, however, it is not
within my present province to examine, but which naturally suggests
itself when we think of the swift development undergone by the European
societies planted on the American continent--when we remember how
rapidly they are narrowing the area of the desert and the wilderness. At
the epoch of the discovery of the New World it was one vast desolation,
with the exception of Mexico and Peru; and these were but the seats of a
civilization which seemed to have passed without transition from infancy
to old age, from vigour to decrepitude, and which crumbled into dust
under the pitiless blows of the Spanish conquerors. Neither Cortez nor
Pizarro would have overthrown a great empire with a handful of
foot-soldiers and men-at-arms, a squadron or two of horse, and a few
unwieldy guns, had not the Colossus already nodded to its fall, had not
the Column been hollow at the base. But soon the European nations shared
among themselves this immense country and the neighbouring islands. The
Slave race, whose destiny it seemed to be to reign among the polar ice
and snow, long contented itself with the inclement and inhospitable
region of the extreme north-west, which it has but recently surrendered
to the United States Government. The Anglo-Saxon race, in the northern
continent, has seized the lion's share. It now holds between the two
oceans, from the fifty-fifth to the thirtieth parallels of north
latitude, a fertile and life-breathing territory, well fitted to be the
cradle of great empires; the flourishing Confederation of Canada, the
colony of British Columbia, and the mighty republic of the United
States. Virgin forests have fallen before the restless axe of the hardy
pioneer; hundreds of populous cities have risen as if by enchantment in
districts haunted within the memory of men by the bear and the wild
buffalo; a network of railways spreads from the Atlantic almost to the
base of the Rocky Mountains; crops of waving corn bloom over wide
prairies that a few years ago yielded only the tall grass and waving
reed; the aboriginal tribes of the Red Indians have melted away before
the impetuous tide of an ever-advancing civilization; and the
exhaustless energies of our race have already raised in less than a
century two mighty empires on the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence,
destined to a marvellous, a changeful, and doubtlessly a glorious
history. And both these empires have sprung from the loins of England,
are governed in the main by the same laws, hold the same religion, are
animated by the same aspiring and unwearied genius, and
"Speak the tongue
That Shakspeare spoke; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held;"
in everything, as we believe,
"Are sprung
Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold."[88]
Southward from the thirtieth parallel stretches the domain of the Latin
races, already mingled with and being absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon, in
Canada, California, and the Southern States of the Union. Vast as this
region is, for it comprehends all Central America and all the Southern
Continent, it is infinitely less prosperous, less powerful, less
peopled, than what we may call Saxon America. Mexico is a byword and a
reproach for savage anarchy and murderous license. Neither Chili, nor
Peru, nor even Brazil approaches Canada in solid power and the
auspicious promise of future greatness. The Latin race seems dwarfed
and cowed by the neighbourhood of the energetic Anglo-Saxon, is swiftly
retiring before it in North America, and in the course of centuries will
probably be subjugated by it, even in the southern division of the great
Continent.
A considerable portion of South America, however, is uncultivated,
unpeopled, and but imperfectly explored. There the Desert re-appears
with--
"The pale, cold aspect of a wearied friend,"[89]
under its most sharply defined forms and most impressive conditions. The
supremacy of the whites over the indigenous tribes is almost nominal;
and if the latter are gradually dying out, the catastrophe, in this
instance, is due rather to their own lack of vigour, energy, and
capacity, than to the pressure of civilization.
However rapid may be the growth of population in North America, however
great the rapidity--shall we say the avidity?--of the American
_squatters_ in their conquest and appropriation of the soil, the Desert
still occupies, principally in "the far West" and the North--that is to
say, in the angle comprised between the line of the great lakes and the
Rocky Mountains--an area almost equal to the whole of Continental
Europe. There we find, as Mr. Johnstone points out, the largest plains
in the world. One such, for example, is that immense basin which extends
from the mouths of the Mackenzie, in the icy Arctic Sea, even to the
remote Delta of the Mississippi, and from the huge chain of the Rocky
Mountains, with their piny recesses and snowy peaks, to the less rugged
and more pastoral range of the Alleghanies; a total area of
4,400,000,000 square yards (3,245,000 square miles). A table-land of
gentle elevation, nowhere above 1500 feet, and rarely more than 700 feet
high, separates this territory into two secondary basins.
The _north-east_, which pours its waters into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson's
Bay, and through the Canadian lakes and River St. Lawrence, into the
Atlantic; and,
The _south_ basin, of the Missouri-Mississippi, whose mighty waters flow
into the Gulf of Mexico.
It is in the latter that the traveller encounters the great grassy
plains of the _Prairies_ or _Savannahs_ which are so remarkable a
feature of North America, and which chiefly lie along the western bank
of the Mississippi. "There are no prairies," says Sir J. Richardson, "to
the north of Peace River, and the level lands which border the Rocky
Mountains do not extend beyond the Great Salt Lake."
Under so wide a range of latitude the plain necessarily embraces a great
variety of soil, climate, and productions; but being almost in a state
of nature, it is characterized in its central and southern parts by
interminable grassy savannahs and enormous forests, and in the far north
by deserts not less dreary than those of Siberia.[90]
Southward, a bare sandy waste, 400 or 500 miles wide, skirts the base of
the Rocky Mountains to the forty-first parallel of north latitude. The
dry plains of Texas and the upper region of the Arkansas have all the
features of Asiatic table-lands; further to the north, the lifeless,
treeless steppes on the high grounds of the far West are burnt up in
summer, and frozen in winter by biting blasts from the Rocky Mountains.
Towards the Mississippi the soil improves, but its delta is a labyrinth
of streams, and lakes, and dense brushwood, and the rank marshes at its
mouth cover an area of 35,000 square miles. "There are also," says Mrs.
Somerville, "large tracts or forest and saline ground, especially the
Grand Saline between the rivers Arkansas and Neseikelongo, which is
often covered two or three inches deep with salt, like a fall of snow.
All the cultivation on the right bank of the river is along the Gulf of
Mexico and in the adjacent provinces, and is entirely tropical,
consisting of sugar-cane, cotton, and indigo. The prairies, so
characteristic of North America, then begin."
And what are these prairies?
Leagues upon leagues of rolling meadow-land, sometimes as level as an
English pasture, always as boundless, apparently, as the sea; richly
covered with long rank grass of tender green, and lighted up by flowers
of the liliaceous kind which scent the air with fragrance. Here and
there, in the north, occur clumps of oak and black walnut; in the south,
groups of tulip, and cotton, and magnolia trees. Occasionally the
monotonous scene is relieved by a lazy brook, whose banks bloom with a
brilliant mass of azaleas, kalmias, rhododendrons, and andromedas; the
low howl of the cayeute, or prairie dog, breaks the silence; and life is
given to the landscape by the frequent appearance of herds of bison,
deer, and wild horses. At times, in the remote districts, the prairie
wolves will be seen in some leafy covert awaiting the approach of a
victim; or flights of birds darken the air, and tempt the traveller with
the promise of an abundant provision.
On the right bank of the Missouri, and on the borders of the White
River, in the territory of Nebraska, lies a dreary desert valley, some
30 feet deep, which the French expressively designate les
_Mauvaises-Terres_. It may be doubted whether the whole world offers a
stranger or a more impressive landscape. Here geology recognizes the
vestiges of an astonishing diluvian labour, and it is impossible to
venture a step without striking one's foot against the fossil relics of
vanished animals.
It is a kind of world apart, says an American writer; a large valley
which seems to have been excavated, in the first place, by an immense
vertical out-throw, and then modelled by the prolonged and incessant
action of denudating agents. With a mean breadth of 28, and a total
length of 90 miles, it develops itself in a westerly direction, at the
foot of the sombre mountain-chain known as the _Black Hills_. On issuing
from the immense, uniform, and monotonous prairie, the traveller finds
himself suddenly transported, after a descent of 100 to 200 feet, into a
depression of the soil where rise a myriad of abrupt rocks, irregular or
prismatic, or like columns dressed with enormous pyramids, and from 110
to 220 feet in height.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE "MAUVAISES-TERRES," NEBRASKA, U.S.]
These natural towers are so multiplied over the surface of this
extraordinary region, that the roads wind through them in narrow
passages, and the labyrinth may be likened to the irregular streets and
narrow alleys of some mediæval European city. Seen from afar, the
interminable succession of rocks resembles the massive monuments of
antiquity; nor are turrets wanting, nor flying buttresses, nor graceful
arches, nor vaulted portals, groups of columns, façades, and taper
spires. If at one place the eye lights upon the ruins of a feudal
fortress, at another it surveys the graceful ensemble of a Saracenic
mosque. Or you might almost say, in the distance, that it is a fantastic
"city of the dead" which looms before you; or the gigantic palace of a
race of unseen beings, fashioned by the power of spell and enchantment.
And if the illusion vanishes when, descending from the heights, you
penetrate into the mazes of this Dædalian marvel, the reality is not
less calculated to inspire you with astonishment, and the imagination
remains confused before this wild, this grand, yet ominous freak of
Nature--ominous, for the place seems like a colossal Golgotha, and the
rocks may be the monuments consecrated by invisible hands to the things
and creatures, the life and majesty, of a forgotten Past!
A spectacle unexpected by the European traveller comes at intervals to
heighten and confirm the illusion. Here and there are reared
constructions of manifest human work, but of a truly primitive
character. They consist of four poles, supporting a rude platform of
wicker. Mount any adjacent hillock, and you will see corpses and human
skeletons outstretched upon the platform. These constructions are, in
truth, the burial-places of the Sioux Indians, who wander still in the
neighbouring districts.
The whole coast of the Mexican Gulf, from the Pearl River eastward,
through Alabama and a great part of Florida, is occupied by the
so-called "pine barrens," which extend far into the interior. These
"vast monotonous tracts of sand, covered with forests of gigantic pine
trees," are not less a characteristic feature of North America than the
"rolling prairies." They are not limited to this part of the United
States, but occur to a great extent in Virginia, North Carolina, and
elsewhere. Tennessee and Kentucky, though the plough has passed over
extensive areas, still possess large forests, and the Ohio flows for
hundreds of miles among patriarchal trees, with a rich undergrowth of
azaleas, rhododendrons, and other beautiful shrubs, bound together in
chains of flowers by creeping plants. When America was discovered, one
mass of unbroken forest spread over the mainland, from the Gulf of St.
Lawrence and the Canadian Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the
Atlantic Ocean it crossed the Alleghany Mountains, and spread in gloom
and grandeur over the valley of the Mississippi--an ocean of vegetation
swelling and sinking for upwards of one million of square miles.
"Then all the broad and boundless mainland lay,
Cooled by the interminable wood, that frowned
O'er mound and vale, where never summer ray
Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way
Through the gray giants of the sylvan wild;
Yet many a sheltered glade, with blossoms gay,
Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild,
Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled."[91]
Prairies which, in their general aspect, resemble those of the Missouri
and the Mississippi, are found to the east and west of the American
Desert, in Arrisona, in Texas, in California, and various provinces of
Mexico. Vegetation, however, nevertheless differs according to the
conditions of each region, and the alternatives of deluging rains and
extreme dryness become more and more conspicuous as we approach the
Equator. Nevertheless--and this, perhaps, is the feature most
distinctive of the Prairies, or Savannahs, from the Pampas and
Llanos--the dryness is never sufficiently severe in the former to
destroy vegetation, as is the case in the latter. But the herbs and
grasses often grow so dry in summer that the most trivial accident--such
as a lighted match flung carelessly away, or the ashes dropped from a
hunter's pipe--will kindle the most awful conflagrations, and the flames
will spread devouringly over leagues of open ground, consuming trees and
shrubs, and burning to death the cattle or wild animals which haply fall
within their range. With the crackling, hissing, seething noises of the
fire mingle the groans of the perishing beasts, while huge clouds of
smoke roll before the wind, like the billows of a wind-swept ocean,
and live tongues of flame ever and anon light up the terrible scene with
lurid splendour. These "Prairie-fires" are sometimes kindled in revenge
by the Indians, and occasionally the settlers resort to this dangerous
but summary method of clearing the encumbered ground. However caused,
the spectacle is one of infinite grandeur, which might have furnished
Dante with a fresh image of horror for his "Inferno."
[Illustration: A PRAIRIE ON FIRE IN CENTRAL AMERICA.]
From the fortieth to the thirty-fifth parallels of north latitude the
Desert appears in North America under a form more like the "seas of
sand" of Africa and Arabia; the vast areas of the _Llanos_ and the
_Pampas_. These two words are nearly synonymous. They are used to
designate wide level plains, inundated and fertile in the rainy season,
but in the hot season stripped by the sun's rays of every apparent trace
of vegetation. Between the Californian Alps and the Rio-Colorado withers
a grand, sandy, and utterly barren plain, which touches the northern
borders of La Sonora. Somewhat further to the east extends the
Llano-Estacado, which eventually merges into the American Desert. But
the most considerable Pampas and Llanos belong to South America. Of
these, the most arid and the most desolate--which most vividly recall
the rainless deserts of the Old World--are the Pampa of Atacama, between
the Andes and the Pacific, with Taracapa on the north, and Copiapo on
the south; that of Sechura, which forms a great portion of the littoral
of the Peruvian department of Truxillo; and that of Pernambuco, which
forms the major part of the plateau north-east of Brazil.
These Deserts, no less than those of Africa and Arabia, merit the name
of the "Land of Fear."
Their surface is as smooth as that of the calm sea, and bounded only by
the circular line of the horizon; the eye frequently ranges over a space
of twenty-five square miles without meeting a clump of trees on which to
rest; nor is the monotony relieved by the slightest undulation of the
soil. Everywhere is nothingness, silence, desolation, death. More than
one wayfarer has never escaped from their mazy solitudes. Fatigue,
hunger, thirst, decimate the caravans which undertake to traverse them,
and the track is marked by whitened skeletons, whose flesh has been
devoured by vultures, and which unknown hands have piled up and arranged
with a ghastly symmetry of order.
However, since the discovery of America, certain portions of the Llanos
have become habitable. Towns have risen at intervals on the banks of the
rivers which water them. These centres of population are connected with
each other by huts of reeds, covered with ox-hides, and separated by
about a day's march. Here reside the _Llaneros_, to whose charge are
intrusted the innumerable herds of cattle, horses, and mules, which
subsist on the pasturage of the Steppes.
The inhabitants of the Llanos possess characteristics as marked as those
of their plains. The _hatos_ wherein they assemble are situated at long
distances apart; but the true home of the llanero, a bold and skilful
horseman, is his saddle. Firmly seated on his rapid steed, he gallops at
will across the trackless plain, and combining the two extremes of
solitude and activity, confines his half-savage existence to the custody
or the ownership of his herds of horses and cattle. Thus, born in the
Llanos like his father, a descendant of the first Spanish settlers, he
has no idea of any other country than his southern pastures, of any
other career than his dreamy pastoral life. Clothed in a picturesque
costume, half Spanish, half Indian; his _machete_ (or cutlass) thrust
through a belt of leather, his _poncho_ (a chequered mantle) over his
shoulder, and the redoubtable _lasso_ suspended in a coil to his
saddle-bow; armed with the clumsy lance, which serves to drive his herd
before him, and, at need, to vindicate its owner's courage in some
partisan affray; the llanero, never thinking of the past, never dreaming
of the future, on the alert in every danger, and accustomed to the
severest privations, enjoys with intoxication the rude happiness of his
wild freedom.
[Illustration: PAMPAS OF SOUTH AMERICA.]
The Llanos of Venezuela occupy a superficial area, estimated, according
to Humboldt, at 153,000 square miles, between the deltas of the Orinoco
and the river Coqueta. They are as flat as the surface of the sea, and
covered with long rank grass. You might travel over the dreary level for
1100 miles from the delta of the Orinoco to the foot of the Andes of
Pasto, and frequently not encounter an eminence a foot high in 270
square miles. Their length is twice that of their breadth; and as the
wind blows constantly from the east, the climate is the more ardent the
further west. "These Steppes, for the most part," says Mrs.
Somerville,[92] "are destitute of trees or bushes, yet in some places
they are dotted with the mauritia and other palms." Flat as they are,
two kinds of inequalities will sometimes occur: one consists of banks or
shoals of grit or compact limestone, five or six feet high, perfectly
level for several leagues, and imperceptible except on their edges; the
other inequality can only be detected by the barometer or levelling
instruments; it is called a _Mesa_, and is a gentle knoll swelling very
gradually to an elevation of a few fathoms. Yet slight as is this
altitude, a Mesa forms the watershed from south-west to north-east,
between the affluents of the Orinoco and the streams flowing to the
northern coast of Terra Firma. In the wet season, from April to the end
of October, the tropical rains pour down in torrents, and hundreds of
square miles of the Llanos are inundated by the overflow of the rivers.
In the hollows the water is sometimes twelve feet deep, and such numbers
of horses and other animals perish, that the ground smells strongly of
musk, an odour peculiar to many quadrupeds. "From the flatness of the
country, too, the waters of some affluents of the Orinoco are driven
backwards by the floods of that river, especially when aided by the
wind, and form temporary lakes. When the waters subside, these Steppes,
manured by the sediment, are mantled with verdure, and produce ananas,
while occasional groups of fan palm-trees and mimosas skirt the rivers.
When the dry weather returns, the grass is burnt to powder; the air is
filled with dust raised by currents occasioned by difference of
temperature, even when there is no wind. If by any accident a spark of
fire falls on the scorched plains, a conflagration spreads from river to
river, destroying every animal, and leaves the clayey soil sterile for
years, till vicissitudes of weather crumble the brick-like surface into
earth."
When this takes place, the rending of the indurated soil is sudden and
violent, as if from the shock of an earthquake. If at such a time two
opposing currents of air, whose conflict produces a rotatory motion,
come in contact with the surface of the earth, the Llanos assume a
strange and singular aspect. Like cone-shaped clouds, whose extremities
seem to touch the ground, the sand rises through the rarefied air in the
electrically-charged centre of the whirling current; like the
sand-spouts of the Saharan Desert, or the waterspouts which formerly
were the awe and dread of the mariner. Then does the lowering sky cast a
"dim uncertain light," like a November fog in London, on the desolate
plain. The horizon draws suddenly nearer; the Steppe seems to contract,
and a nameless terror seizes the heart of the wanderer. The hot dusty
air increases in suffocating heat; and the east wind, blowing over the
long-heated soil, yields no refreshment, but rather oppresses with its
burning glow. The pools, hitherto protected from evaporation by the
yellow fading branches of the fan palm, begin to disappear. As in the
north the animals grow torpid with the mortal cold, so under the
influence of the parching drought the boa and the crocodile fall asleep,
buried deeply in the dry mud. Everywhere the drought prevails, and yet
everywhere the refracted rays of light delude the traveller with the
image of gleaming lakes and rushing rivers. The distant palm bush hovers
above the ground like a spectre, apparently raised by the influence of
the contact of unequally heated, and, therefore, unequally dense strata
of air. Half hidden by the rolling clouds of dust, restless with the
pangs of thirst and hunger, the horses and cattle roam around, the
cattle dismally lowing, and the horses stretching out their long necks
and snuffing the wind, in the hope some moister current may betray the
neighbourhood of a not wholly failing pool. More sagacious and astute,
the wary mule seeks a different mode of alleviating his thirst. Under
its prickly envelope the melon-cactus conceals a watery pith. The mule
first strikes the prickles aside with his fore-feet, and then cautiously
approaches his lips to the plant and drinks the cool juice. But the
experiment is not always without danger, and many animals are lamed by
the spines of the cactus.
When the overpowering heat of the day is followed by the cooler
temperature of the night, which is always of the same length in these
latitudes, even then the cattle can obtain no repose. Enormous bats suck
their blood like the fabled vampires during their sleep, or attach
themselves to their backs, causing festering wounds in which mosquitoes,
horse-flies, and a host of stinging insects, niche themselves. Thus the
animals lead a weary life during the hot season. But at length, after
the long drought and the parching glow, comes the welcome rain! Then
takes place a transformation such as the fancy of the poet never
surpassed or equalled. The deep blue of the hitherto unclouded sky grows
lighter; the dark space in the constellation of the Southern Cross is
hardly distinguishable at night; the soft phosphorescent lustre of the
so-called Magellanic clouds "fades, fades, and falls away;" even the
stars in Aquila and Ophiucus in the zenith beam with a tremulous and
less planetary radiance. And lo, yonder in the south, a single cloud,
like the peak of some remote mountain, soars perpendicularly from the
horizon. Gradually the gathering vapours fold over the sky. Hark! The
thunder is pealing in the distance, and louder and nearer come its awful
reverberation. It heralds the life-restoring rain! Scarcely has the
genial moisture refreshened earth, before a blessed fragrance breathes
from the previously barren Steppe, and its nakedness is clothed upon
with the bloom and beauty of a thousand grasses. The herbaceous mimosas,
with renewed sensibility to the influence of light, open their drooping
leaves to greet the rising sun; and the rosy-fingered morn is saluted
with a glad chorus of birds, and by the opening blossoms of the
water-plants. Now the horse bounds over the plain in keen ecstasy of
spirit, and the cattle grazes plentifully on the fresh green herbage.
Yet the new life is not without its peril. _Anguis latet in herbâ._
Among the tall thick grass lurks the spotted jaguar, the tiger of the
New World, and measures carefully the distance that separates him from
his unsuspecting victim.
Sometimes (so say the natives) the moistened clay on the margin of the
swamps will blister and swell slowly into a kind of mound until, with a
violent noise, like the outbreak of a small mud volcano, the accumulated
earth is cast high into the air. The spectator who comprehends the
purport of this strange scene immediately retreats, for he knows that
the birth of the portentous travail will be a gigantic water-snake or
huge crocodile roused from its torpidity.
The rivers which bound the plain to the south--the Arauca, the Apure,
and the Pajara--gradually swell, and now Nature compels the same
animals, which in the first half of the year panted with thirst on the
dry and dusty soil, to adopt an amphibious life. A portion of the Steppe
now assumes the aspect of a vast inland sea.[93] The brood mares retire
with their foals to the more elevated banks, which rise like islands
above the watery expanse. Every day the dry space grows smaller. It is a
miniature reproduction of the Noachian Deluge. The animals, crowded
together, swim about for hours in quest of other pasture, and feed
sparingly on the tops of the flowering grasses that spring above the
seething surface of the turbid waters. Many foals are drowned, and many
are surprised by the crocodiles, killed by a blow from their powerful
tails, and devoured. It is no uncommon thing to see the marks of these
monsters' cruel teeth on the legs of horses and cattle which have
narrowly escaped from their blood-thirsty jaws. Such a sight reminds the
thoughtful observer of that capability of adaptation to the most varied
circumstances with which the all-powerful Creator has endowed certain
animals and plants.[94]
The Pampas of Pernambuco and Buenos Ayres have three times the
superficial area of the Llanos of Venezuela. So great is their extent,
that while forests of palms border them on the north, they are covered
with snow in the south, during a great part of the year, like the
northern Steppes of Tartary. According to the climatic divisions
generally adopted, these regions belong to the Temperate Zone; but in
truth they comprehend a great variety of climates. Their character is
not less grand or original than that of the Llanos which precede them.
"The Pampas," says an American writer, "surpass in majesty all the
marvels of the new continent, and yet they astonish the traveller by the
air of abandonment and sadness which is impressed upon them, especially
in the low country watered by the Plata. Traces of life are there
infrequent; still rarer are the objects which attract attention. Here,
at the bottom of a crevasse, a cactus conceals its head bristling with
spines; there, a solitary tree rises majestically toward heaven.
Sometimes, upon the plain, the eye discovers the monstrous skeleton of
an animal which flourished in those remote times when the Alps still
slept in the depths of ocean, and dreamed not of blending their
snow-burdened peaks with the clouds. The Pampas serve as the
burial-place for races of gigantic men, now extinct, who seem to issue
from their silent graves in testimony to the former being of vanished
generations, and to bear witness to the Creator of all things. Above
your head, and far away in the azure of heaven, you perceive a black
point; it is a condor describing slowly its sinister circles. In the
distance passes and disappears the ungainly figure of an ostrich. The
inexpressible charm of these solitudes is their absolute freedom. And
while traversing them the wayfarer comprehends the love with which they
inspire the Indian, whose hope it is to meet beyond this world with yet
vaster horizons for the indulgence of his wandering tastes."
At the southern extremity of South America spreads a sterile plain, sown
with pebbles and blocks of porphyry: it is Patagonia. As we retrace our
steps towards the north, the soil rises before us in terrace after
terrace, till it reaches the base of the Cordilleras. In the northern
districts the pebbly soil gives place to verdant meadows, where the
Patagonians breed numerous herds of horses and cattle. Water is wanting
in this country. The rains are rare, and the dry seasons very prolonged.
The summer heat is overwhelming; in winter violent winds sweep the
Savannahs, which are covered with nocturnal frosts. Under such climatic
influences the soil produces only a dry coarse grass. In the interior a
few beeches and cacti are met with, and then broad swamps, fringed with
reeds and rushes. In the spring a mantle of clover spreads over the
earth, but only to be withered up by the first heats of summer.
Along the banks of the Rio Negro the Pampas of Buenos Ayres stretch from
the coast of the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes. On a considerable
portion of this vast area marshes of salt water encroach--a phenomenon
all the more curious because the salt lies only on the surface, and all
the wells artificially excavated yield fresh water. During the rains the
low grounds are flooded; but as soon as the sun has dried up the plain,
it is clothed in rich pasturage, while the elevated table-lands are dry
and withered. There, too, the dryness is often attended with disastrous
results. From 1827 to 1830, as Mr. Darwin records, not a drop of water
fell; all traces of vegetation disappeared; the rivers ran dry, and the
herds perished in incalculable numbers; in the single province of Buenos
Ayres, the loss was estimated at more than a million head of cattle.
To the north of the Rio Salado, at the portals of the Andes, the country
assumes a look of implacable desolation; no winds ever agitate the lower
strata of the atmosphere. The water-courses which descend from the
mountains lose themselves in the sand; salt marshes, whence the very
birds hold aloof, alone alternate with a soil everywhere intersected by
crevices. The district of the Pampas which stretches northward to the
spurs of the Andes consists of a sandy soil, free from salt, but wholly
unproductive. These solitudes, however, are ploughed by running streams,
none of which communicate with the sea. They descend from the Andes,
traverse the Pampas from east to west, and empty themselves into the
saline lakes. Somewhat further to the north, and nearer the Equator,
lies an almost unknown region of salt--a region of indescribable gloom,
where neither tree, nor bush, nor blade of emerald grass, delights the
eye. Eighteen months frequently elapse in this land of desolation,
worthy of being one of the circles in Dante's "Inferno," without the
cheering sound of a shower of rain, and when at length it arrives, it
splits the rocks of salt and melts them into wide pools of brackish
mud. As soon as the sun has absorbed the excessive humidity of the soil,
myriads of salt crystals glitter on the surface, and convert the Desert
into one immense mirror.
To the north-west of La Plata extends a desert of very different
character--the _Despoblado_, or uninhabited land, a plateau of the
Andes, rising some 4200 feet above the level of the sea. This desert is
cloven into two portions by a deep valley, bordered with sharp rocks,
which affords the only practicable route from Bolivia to Buenos Ayres.
Winter, in this sombre world within a world, is a time of horror, when
the spirit of Desolation goes to and fro in wrath unchained. Yet even
here humanity drags about the fetters of existence. The traveller
occasionally alights upon the wretched huts where the unfortunate
descendants of the ancient Peruvians linger through life. Their wealth
consists in a few llamas. Their occupation, in hunting the alpaca, the
guanaco, and the chinchilla; in filtering the river sands for scanty
grains of gold; in collecting salt, and disposing of it to the
inhabitants of the nearest towns.
"The aspect of the Puna, or Despoblado," says Von Tschudi,[95] "is
singularly monotonous and dreary. The expansive levels are scantily
covered with grasses of a yellowish-brown hue, and are never enlivened
by fresh-looking verdure. Here and there, at distant intervals, may be
seen a few stunted Quenera trees,[96] or large patches of ground covered
with the Ratanbia shrub.[97] Both are used by the Indians as fuel, and
for roofing their huts. The cold climate and sterile soil are formidable
impediments to agriculture. Only one plant is cultivated in these
regions with any degree of success. It is the _maca_, a tuberous root
grown like the potato, and, like it, used as an article of food. In many
of the Puna districts it constitutes the principal sustenance of the
inhabitants. It has an agreeable and somewhat sweetish flavour, and when
boiled in milk it tastes like the chestnut."
The most imposing spectacle presented by the Deserts of South America is
that of their frequent hurricanes. As the Simoom to the Sahara, so is
the Pampero to the Pampas. Its approach is foretold by signs which the
native's experienced eye readily recognizes. All at once the air seems
stricken motionless, and over the solitude broods a solemn silence. A
cloud white and light as snow--a cloud "no bigger than a man's
hand"--rises in the south-west. It advances, and as it advances enlarges
its proportions. Other clouds appear, and all gather into one imposing
mass. The dust rises and whirls round in thick columns suspended between
heaven and earth. Lower and lower descend the congregated vapours, until
they envelop the earth in a funeral shroud, whose folds the hurricane
incessantly agitates, and which the forked lightnings seem to rend in
fragments. Suffocating gusts of a fiery wind traverse space. And now the
sudden tempest stoops down from the summit of the Andes, and sweeps the
Savannah with resistless fury. Enormous masses of sand, upgathered by
the _rafale_, obscure the clearness of day; at noon the earth is covered
with a darkness that may be felt. The thunder mingles its roar with the
strident voices of the storm. All that lives, all that breathes, is at
the mercy of the unchained elements, which are as pitiless in their
wrath as a roused people. Thousands of animals perish in the Savannahs;
and prostrate, with his face to the earth, man tremblingly awaits the
expiring breath of the grand convulsion!
The horses and cattle of Europe are replaced in the Pampas of South
America by the herds of guanacos and llamas which covered them at the
epoch of the Spanish conquest. Their owners, descendants of the
Spaniards intermingled with the native races, possess many of the
characteristics of the Arab.
Like the llanero of Venezuela, the guacho of the Pampas realizes the
idea of the ancient centaur; and from the throne of his saddle, to which
hangs the inseparable _lasso_, he surveys the plains where he is lord
and king with the fiery glance of a free and independent spirit. He owes
scant allegiance to any established authority, and under the blue sky of
heaven enjoys the blessings of uncontrolled freedom. And what to him
the fever and turmoil of civilization, when, mounted on his noble steed,
he can roam at will, with none to say him nay, over leagues and leagues
of grassy prairies!