CHAPTER 2.17.

MOUNTAINS WHICH SEPARATE THE VALLEYS OF ARAGUA FROM THE LLANOS OF

CARACAS.

VILLA DE CURA.

PARAPARA.

LLANOS OR STEPPES.

CALABOZO.

The chain of mountains, bordering the lake of Tacarigua towards the

south, forms in some sort the northern shore of the great basin of the

Llanos or savannahs of Caracas. To descend from the valleys of Aragua

into these savannahs, it is necessary to cross the mountains of Guigue

and of Tucutunemo. From a peopled country embellished by cultivation,

we plunge into a vast solitude. Accustomed to the aspect of rocks, and

to the shade of valleys, the traveller beholds with astonishment these

savannahs without trees, these immense plains, which seem to ascend to

the horizon.

Before I trace the scenery of the Llanos, or of the region of

pasturage, I will briefly describe the road we took from Nueva

Valencia, by Villa de Cura and San Juan, to the little village of

Ortiz, at the entrance of the steppes. We left the valleys of Aragua

on the 6th of March before sunrise. We passed over a plain richly

cultivated, keeping along the south-west side of the lake of Valencia,

and crossing the ground left uncovered by the waters of the lake. We

were never weary of admiring the fertility of the soil, covered with

calabashes, water-melons, and plantains. The rising of the sun was

announced by the distant noise of the howling monkeys. Approaching a

group of trees, which rise in the midst of the plain, between those

parts which were anciently the islets of Don Pedro and La Negra, we

saw numerous bands of araguatos moving as in procession and very

slowly, from one tree to another. A male was followed by a great

number of females; several of the latter carrying their young on their

shoulders. The howling monkeys, which live in society in different

parts of America, everywhere resemble each other in their manners,

though the species are not always the same. The uniformity with which

the araguatos* (* Simia ursina.) perform their movements is extremely

striking. Whenever the branches of neighbouring trees do not touch

each other, the male who leads the party 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 performs the same movements on

the same spot. It is almost superfluous to add how dubious is the

assertion of Ulloa, and so many otherwise well-informed travellers,

according to whom, the marimondos,* (* Simia belzebuth.) the

araguatos, and other monkeys with a prehensile tail, form a sort of

chain, in order to reach the opposite side of a river.* (* Ulloa has

not hesitated to represent in an engraving this extraordinary feat of

the monkeys with a prehensile tail.--See Viage a la America

Meridional, Madrid 1748.) We had opportunities, during five years, of

observing thousands of these animals; and for this very reason we

place no confidence in statements possibly invented by the Europeans

themselves, though repeated by the Indians of the Missions, as if they

had been transmitted to them by their fathers. Man, the most remote

from civilization, enjoys the astonishment he excites in recounting

the marvels of his country. He says he has seen what he imagines may

have been seen by others. Every savage is a hunter, and the stories of

hunters borrow from the imagination in proportion as the animals, of

which they boast the artifices, are endowed with a high degree of

intelligence. Hence arise the fictions of which foxes, monkeys, crows,

and the condor of the Andes, have been the subjects in both

hemispheres.

The araguatos are accused of sometimes abandoning their young, that

they may be lighter for flight when pursued by the Indian hunters. It

is said that mothers have been seen removing their young from their

shoulders, and throwing them down to the foot of the tree. I am

inclined to believe that a movement merely accidental has been

mistaken for one premeditated. The Indians have a dislike and a

predilection for certain races of monkeys; they love the viuditas, the

titis, and generally all the little sagoins; while the araguatos, on

account of their mournful aspect, and their uniform howling, are at

once detested and abused. In reflecting on the causes that may

facilitate the propagation of sound in the air during the night, I

thought it important to determine with precision the distance at

which, especially in damp and stormy weather, the howling of a band of

araguatos is heard. I believe I obtained proof of its being

distinguished at eight hundred toises distance. The monkeys which are

furnished with four hands cannot make excursions in the Llanos; and it

is easy, amidst vast plains covered with grass, to recognize a

solitary group of trees, whence the noise proceeds, and which is

inhabited by howling monkeys. Now, by approaching or withdrawing from

this group of trees, the maximum of the distance may be measured, at

which the howling is heard. These distances appeared to me sometimes

one-third greater during the night, especially when the weather was

cloudy, very hot, and humid.

The Indians pretend that when the araguatos fill the forests with

their howling, there is always one that chaunts as leader of the

chorus. The observation is pretty accurate. During a long interval one

solitary and strong voice is generally distinguished, till its place

is taken by another voice of a different pitch. We may observe from

time to time the same instinct of imitation among frogs, and almost

all animals which live together and exert their voices in union. The

Missionaries further assert, that, when a female among the araguatos

is on the point of bringing forth, the choir suspends its howlings

till the moment of the birth of the young. I could not myself judge of

the accuracy of this assertion; but I do not believe it to be entirely

unfounded. I have observed that, when an extraordinary incident, the

moans for instance of a wounded araguato, fixed the attention of the

band, the howlings were for some minutes suspended. Our guides assured

us gravely, that, to cure an asthma, it is sufficient to drink out of

the bony drum of the hyoidal bone of the araguato. This animal having

so extraordinary a volume of voice, it is supposed that its larynx

must necessarily impart to the water poured into it the virtue of

curing affections of the lungs. Such is the science of the vulgar,

which sometimes resembles that of the ancients.

We passed the night at the village of Guigue, the latitude of which I

found by observations of Canopus to be 10 degrees 4 minutes 11

seconds. The village, surrounded with the richest cultivation, is only

a thousand toises distant from the lake of Tacarigua. We lodged with

an old sergeant, a native of Murcia, a man of a very original

character. To prove to us that he had studied among the Jesuits, he

recited the history of the creation of the world in Latin. He knew the

names of Augustus, Tiberius, and Diocletian; and while enjoying the

agreeable coolness of the nights in an enclosure planted with bananas,

he employed himself in reading all that related to the courts of the

Roman emperors. He inquired of us with earnestness for a remedy for

the gout, from which he suffered severely. "I know," said he, "a Zambo

of Valencia, a famous curioso, who could cure me; but the Zambo would

expect to be treated with attentions which I cannot pay to a man of

his colour, and I prefer remaining as I am."

On leaving Guigue we began to ascend the chain of mountains, extending

on the south of the lake towards Guacimo and La Palma. From the top of

a table-land, at three hundred and twenty toises of elevation, we saw

for the last time the valleys of Aragua. The gneiss appeared

uncovered, presenting the same direction of strata, and the same dip

towards the north-west. Veins of quartz, that traverse the gneiss, are

auriferous; and hence the neighbouring ravine bears the name of

Quebrada del Oro. We heard with surprise at every step the name of

"ravine of gold," in a country where only one single mine of copper is

wrought. We travelled five leagues to the village of Maria Magdalena,

and two leagues more to the Villa de Cura. It was Sunday, and at the

village of Maria Magdalena the inhabitants were assembled before the

church. They wanted to force our muleteers to stop and hear mass. We

resolved to remain; but, after a long altercation, the muleteers

pursued their way. I may observe, that this is the only dispute in

which we became engaged from such a cause. Very erroneous ideas are

formed in Europe of the intolerance, and even of the religious fervour

of the Spanish colonists.

San Luis de Cura, or, as it is commonly called, the Villa de Cura,

lies in a very barren valley, running north-west and south-east, and

elevated, according to my barometrical observations, two hundred and

sixty-six toises above the level of the ocean. The country, with the

exception of some fruit-trees, is almost destitute of vegetation. The

dryness of the plateau is the greater, because (and this circumstance

is rather extraordinary in a country of primitive rocks) several

rivers lose themselves in crevices in the ground. The Rio de Las

Minas, north of the Villa de Cura, is lost in a rock, again appears,

and then is ingulphed anew without reaching the lake of Valencia,

towards which it flows. Cura resembles a village more than a town. We

lodged with a family who had excited the resentment of government

during the revolution at Caracas in 1797. One of the sons, after

having languished in a dungeon, had been sent to the Havannah, to be

imprisoned in a strong fortress. With what joy his mother heard that

after our return from the Orinoco, we should visit the Havannah! She

entrusted me with five piastres, "the whole fruit of her savings." I

earnestly wished to return them to her; but I feared to wound her

delicacy, and give pain to a mother, who felt a pleasure in the

privations she imposed on herself.

All the society of the town was assembled in the evening, to admire in

a magic lantern views of the great capitals of Europe. We were shown

the palace of the Tuileries, and the statue of the Elector at Berlin.

An apothecary who had been ruined by an unhappy propensity for working

mines, accompanied us in our excursion to the Serro de Chacao, very

rich in auriferous pyrites. We continued to descend the southern

declivity of the Cordillera of the coast, in which the plains of

Aragua form a longitudinal valley. We passed a part of the night of

the 11th of March at the village of San Juan, remarkable for its

thermal waters, and the singular form of two neighbouring mountains,

called the Morros of San Juan. They form slender peaks, which rise

from a wall of rocks with a very extensive base. The wall is

perpendicular, and resembles the Devil's Wall, which surrounds a part

of the group of mountains in the Hartz.* (* Die Teufels Mauer near

Wernigerode in Germany.) These peaks, when seen from afar in the

Llanos, strike the imagination of the inhabitants of the plain, who

are not accustomed to the least unequal ground, and the height of the

peaks is singularly exaggerated by them. They were described to us as

being in the middle of the steppes (which they in reality bound on the

north) far beyond a range of hills called La Galera. Judging from

angles taken at the distance of two miles, these hills are scarcely

more than a hundred and fifty-six toises higher than the village of

San Juan, and three hundred and fifty toises above the level of the

Llanos. The thermal waters glide out at the foot of these hills, which

are formed of transition-limestone. The waters are impregnated with

sulphuretted hydrogen, like those of Mariara, and form a little pool

or lagoon, in which the thermometer rose only to 31.3 degrees. I

found, on the night of the 9th of March, by very satisfactory

observations of the stars, the latitude of Villa de Cura to be 10

degrees 2 minutes 47 seconds.

The Villa de Cura is celebrated in the country for the miracles of an

image of the Virgin, known by the name of Nuestra Senora de los

Valencianos. This image was found in a ravine by an Indian, about the

middle of the eighteenth century, when it became the object of a

contest between the towns of Cura and San Sebastian de los Reyes. The

vicars of the latter town asserting that the Virgin had made her first

appearance on the territory of their parish, the Bishop of Caracas, in

order to put an end to the scandal of this long dispute, caused the

image to be placed in the archives of his bishopric, and kept it

thirty years under seal. It was not restored to the inhabitants of

Cura till 1802.

After having bathed in the cool and limpid water of the little river

of San Juan, the bottom of which is of basaltic grunstein, we

continued our journey at two in the morning, by Ortiz and Parapara, to

the Mesa de Paja. The road to the Llanos being at that time infested

with robbers, several travellers joined us so as to form a sort of

caravan. We proceeded down hill during six or seven hours; and we

skirted the Cerro de Flores, near which the road turns off, leading to

the great village of San Jose de Tisnao. We passed the farms of Luque

and Juncalito, to enter the valleys which, on account of the bad road,

and the blue colour of the slates, bear the names of Malpaso and

Piedras Azules.

This ground is the ancient shore of the great basin of the steppes,

and it furnishes an interesting subject of research to the geologist.

We there find trap-formations, probably more recent than the veins of

diabasis near the town of Caracas, which seem to belong to the rocks

of igneous formation. They are not long and narrow streams as in

Auvergne, but large sheets, streams that appear like real strata. The

lithoid masses here cover, if we may use the expression, the shore of

the ancient interior sea; everything subject to destruction, such as

the liquid dejections, and the scoriae filled with bubbles, has been

carried away. These phenomena are particularly worthy of attention on

account of the close affinities observed between the phonolites and

the amygdaloids, which, containing pyroxenes and

hornblende-grunsteins, form strata in a transition-slate. The better

to convey an idea of the whole situation and superposition of these

rocks, we will name the formations as they occur in a profile drawn

from north to south.

We find at first, in the Sierra de Mariara, which belongs to the

northern branch of the Cordillera of the coast, a coarse-grained

granite; then, in the valleys of Aragua, on the borders of the lake,

and in the islands, it contains, as in the southern branch of the

chain of the coast, gneiss and mica-slate. These last-named rocks are

auriferous in the Quebrada del Oro, near Guigue; and between Villa de

Cura and the Morros de San Juan, in the mountain of Chacao. The gold

is contained in pyrites, which are found sometimes disseminated almost

imperceptibly in the whole mass of the gneiss,* and sometimes united

in small veins of quartz. (* The four metals, which are found

disseminated in the granite rocks, as if they were of contemporaneous

formation, are gold, tin, titanium, and cobalt.) Most of the torrents

that traverse the mountains bear along with them grains of gold. The

poor inhabitants of Villa de Cura and San Juan have sometimes gained

thirty piastres a-day by washing the sand; but most commonly, in spite

of their industry, they do not in a week find particles of gold of the

value of two piastres. Here, however, as in every place where native

gold and auriferous pyrites are disseminated in the rock, or by the

destruction of the rocks, are deposited in alluvial lands, the people

conceive the most exaggerated ideas of the metallic riches of the

soil. But the success of the workings, which depends less on the

abundance of the ore in a vast space of land than on its accumulation

in one point, has not justified these favourable prepossessions. The

mountain of Chacao, bordered by the ravine of Tucutunemo, rises seven

hundred feet above the village of San Juan. It is formed of gneiss,

which, especially in the superior strata, passes into mica-slate. We

saw the remains of an ancient mine, known by the name of Real de Santa

Barbara. The works were directed to a stratum of cellular quartz,*

full of polyhedric cavities, mixed with iron-ore, containing

auriferous pyrites and small grains of gold, sometimes, it is said,

visible to the naked eye. (* This stratum of quartz, and the gneiss in

which it is contained, lie hor 8 of the Freyberg compass, and dip 70

degrees to the south-west. At a hundred toises distance from the

auriferous quartz, the gneiss resumes its ordinary situation, hor 3 to

4, with 60 degrees dip to the north-west. A few strata of gneiss

abound in silvery mica, and contain, instead of garnets, an immense

quantity of small octohedrons of pyrites. This silvery gneiss

resembles that of the famous mine of Himmelsfurst, in Saxony.) It

appears that the gneiss of the Cerro de Chacao also furnishes another

metallic deposit, a mixture of copper and silver-ores. This deposit

has been the object of works attempted with great ignorance by some

Mexican miners under the superintendance of M. Avalo. The gallery*

directed to the north-east, is only twenty-five toises long. (* La

Cueva de los Mexicanos.) We there found some fine specimens of blue

carbonated copper mingled with sulphate of barytes and quartz; but we

could not ourselves judge whether the ore contained any argentiferous

fahlerz, and whether it occurred in a stratum, or, as the apothecary

who was our guide asserted, in real veins. This much is certain, that

the attempt at working the mine cost more than twelve thousand

piastres in two years. It would no doubt have been more prudent to

have resumed the works on the auriferous stratum of the Real de Santa

Barbara.

The zone of gneiss just mentioned is, in the coast-chain from the sea

to the Villa de Cura, ten leagues broad. In this great extent of land,

gneiss and mica-slate are found exclusively, and they constitute one

formation.* (* This formation, which we shall call gneiss-mica-slate,

is peculiar to the chain of the coast of Caracas. Five formations must

be distinguished, as MM. von Buch and Raumer have so ably demonstrated

in their excellent papers on Landeck and the Riesengebirge, namely,

granite, granite-gneiss, gneiss, gneiss-mica-slate, and mica-slate.

Geologists whose researches have been confined to a small tract of

land, having confounded these formations which nature has separated in

several countries in the most distinct manner, have admitted that the

gneiss and mica-slate alternate everywhere in superimposed beds, or

furnish insensible transitions from one rock to the other. These

transitions and alternating superpositions take place no doubt in

formations of granite-gneiss and gneiss-mica-slate; but because these

phenomena are observed in one region, it does not follow that in other

regions we may not find very distinct circumscribed formations of

granite, gneiss, and mica-slate. The same considerations may be

applied to the formations of serpentine, which are sometimes isolated,

and sometimes belong to the eurite, mica-slate, and grunstein.) Beyond

the town of Villa de Cura and the Cerro de Chacao the aspect of the

country presents greater geognostic variety. There are still eight

leagues of declivity from the table-land of Cura to the entry of the

Llanos; and on the southern slope of the mountains of the coast, four

different formations of rock cover the gneiss. We shall first give the

description of the different strata, without grouping them

systematically.

On the south of the Cerro de Chacao, between the ravine of Tucutunemo

and Piedras Negras, the gneiss is concealed beneath a formation of

serpentine, of which the composition varies in the different

superimposed strata. Sometimes it is very pure, very homogeneous, of a

dusky olive-green, and of a conchoidal fracture: sometimes it is

veined, mixed with bluish steatite, of an unequal fracture, and

containing spangles of mica. In both these states I could not discover

in it either garnets, hornblende, or diallage. Advancing farther to

the south (and we always passed over this ground in that direction)

the green of the serpentine grows deeper, and feldspar and hornblende

are recognised in it: it is difficult to determine whether it passes

into diabasis or alternates with it. There is, however, no doubt of

its containing veins of copper-ore.* (* One of these veins, on which

two shafts have been sunk, was directed hor. 2.1, and dipped 80

degrees east. The strata of the serpentine, where it is stratified

with some regularity, run hor. 8, and dip almost perpendicularly. I

found malachite disseminated in this serpentine, where it passes into

grunstein.) At the foot of this mountain two fine springs gush out

from the serpentine. Near the village of San Juan, the granular

diabasis appears alone uncovered, and takes a greenish black hue. The

feldspar intimately mixed with the mass, may be separated into

distinct crystals. The mica is very rare, and there is no quartz. The

mass assumes at the surface a yellowish crust like dolerite and

basalt.

In the midst of this tract of trap-formation, the Morros of San Juan

rise like two castles in ruins. They appear linked to the mornes of

St. Sebastian, and to La Galera which bounds the Llanos like a rocky

wall. The Morros of San Juan are formed of limestone of a crystalline

texture; sometimes very compact, sometimes spongy, of a greenish-grey,

shining, composed of small grains, and mixed with scattered spangles

of mica. This limestone yields a strong effervescence with acids. I

could not find in it any vestige of organized bodies. It contains in

subordinate strata, masses of hardened clay of a blackish blue, and

carburetted. These masses are fissile, very heavy, and loaded with

iron; their streak is whitish, and they produce no effervescence with

acids. They assume at their surface, by their decomposition in the

air, a yellow colour. We seem to recognize in these argillaceous

strata a tendency either to the transition-slates, or to the

kieselschiefer (schistose jasper), which everywhere characterise the

black transition-limestones. When in fragments, they might be taken at

first sight for basalt or hornblende.* (* I had an opportunity of

examining again, with the greatest care, the rocks of San Juan, of

Chacao, of Parapara, and of Calabozo, during my stay at Mexico, where,

conjointly with M. del Rio, one of the most distinguished pupils of

the school of Freyberg, I formed a geognostical collection for the

Colegio de Mineria of New Spain.) Another white limestone, compact,

and containing some fragments of shells, backs the Morros de San Juan.

I could not see the line of junction of these two limestones, or that

of the calcareous formation and the diabasis.

The transverse valley which descends from Piedras Negras and the

village of San Juan, towards Parapara and the Llanos, is filled with

trap-rocks, displaying close affinity with the formation of green

slates, which they cover. Sometimes we seem to see serpentine,

sometimes grunstein, and sometimes dolerite and basalt. The

arrangement of these problematical masses is not less extraordinary.

Between San Juan, Malpaso, and Piedras Azules, they form strata

parallel to each other; and dipping regularly northward at an angle of

40 or 50 degrees, they cover even the green slates in concordant

stratification. Lower down, towards Parapara and Ortiz, where the

amygdaloids and phonolites are connected with the grunstein,

everything assumes a basaltic aspect. Balls of grunstein heaped one

upon another, form those rounded cones, which are found so frequently

in the Mittelgebirge in Bohemia, near Bilin, the country of

phonolites. The following is the result of my partial observations.

The grunstein, which at first alternated with strata of serpentine, or

was connected with that rock by insensible transitions, is seen alone,

sometimes in strata considerably inclined, and sometimes in balls with

concentric strata, imbedded in strata of the same substance. It lies,

near Malpaso, on green slates, steatitic, mingled with hornblende,

destitute of mica and grains of quartz, dipping, like the grunsteins,

45 degrees toward the north, and directed, like them, 75 degrees

north-west.

A great sterility prevails where these green slates predominate, no

doubt on account of the magnesia they contain, which (as is proved by

the magnesian-limestone of England*) is very hurtful to vegetation. (*

Magnesian limestone is of a straw-yellow colour, and contains

madrepores: it lies beneath red marl, or muriatiferous red sandstone.)

The dip of the green slates continues the same; but by degrees the

direction of their strata becomes parallel to the general direction of

the primitive rocks of the chain of the coast. At Piedras Azules these

slates, mingled with hornblende, cover in concordant stratification a

blackish-blue slate, very fissile, and traversed by small veins of

quartz. The green slates include some strata of grunstein, and even

contain balls of that substance. I nowhere saw the green slates

alternate with the black slates of the ravine of Piedras Azules: at

the line of junction these two slates appear rather to pass one into

the other, the green slates becoming of a pearl-grey in proportion as

they lose their hornblende.

Farther south, towards Parapara and Ortiz, the slates disappear. They

are concealed under a trap-formation more varied in its aspect. The

soil becomes more fertile; the rocky masses alternate with strata of

clay, which appear to be produced by the decomposition of the

grunsteins, the amygdaloids, and the phonolites.

The grunstein, which farther north was less granulous, and passed into

serpentine, here assumes a very different character. It contains balls

of mandelstein, or amygdaloid, eight or ten inches in diameter. These

balls, sometimes a little flattened, are divided into concentric

layers: this is the effect of decomposition. Their nucleus is almost

as hard as basalt, and they are intermingled with little cavities,

owing to bubbles of gas, filled with green earth, and crystals of

pyroxene and mesotype. Their basis is greyish blue, rather soft, and

showing small white spots which, by the regular form they present, I

should conceive to be decomposed feldspar. M. von Buch examined with a

powerful lens the species we brought. He discovered that each crystal

of pyroxene, enveloped in the earthy mass, is separated from it by

fissures parallel to the sides of the crystal. These fissures seem to

be the effect of a contraction which the mass or basis of the

mandelstein has undergone. I sometimes saw these balls of mandelstein

arranged in strata, and separated from each other by beds of grunstein

of ten or fourteen inches thick; sometimes (and this situation is most

common) the balls of mandelstein, two or three feet in diameter, are

found in heaps, and form little mounts with rounded summits, like

spheroidal basalt. The clay which separates these amygdaloid

concretions arises from the decomposition of their crust. They acquire

by the contact of the air a very thin coating of yellow ochre.

South-west of the village of Parapara rises the little Cerro de

Flores, which is discerned from afar in the steppes. Almost at its

foot, and in the midst of the mandelstein tract we have just been

describing, a porphyritic phonolite, a mass of compact feldspar of a

greenish grey, or mountain-green, containing long crystals of vitreous

feldspar, appears exposed. It is the real porphyrschiefer of Werner;

and it would be difficult to distinguish, in a collection of stones,

the phonolite of Parapara from that of Bilin, in Bohemia. It does not,

however, here form rocks in grotesque shapes, but little hills covered

with tabular blocks, large plates extremely sonorous, translucid on

the edges, and wounding the hands when broken.

Such are the successions of rocks, which I described on the spot as I

progressively found them, from the lake of Tacarigua to the entrance

of the steppes. Few places in Europe display a geological arrangement

so well worthy of being studied. We saw there in succession six

formations: namely, mica-slate-gneiss, green transition-slate, black

transition-limestone, serpentine and grunstein, amygdaloid (with

pyroxene), and phonolite.

I must observe, in the first place, that the substance just described

under the name of grunstein, in every respect resembles that which

forms layers in the mica-slate of Cabo Blanco, and veins near Caracas.

It differs only by containing neither quartz, garnets, nor pyrites.

The close relations we observed near the Cerro de Chacao, between the

grunstein and the serpentine, cannot surprise these geologists who

have studied the mountains of Franconia and Silesia. Near Zobtenberg*

(* Between Tampadel and Silsterwiz.) a serpentine rock alternates also

with gabbro. In the district of Glatz the fissures of the gabbro are

filled with a steatite of a greenish white colour, and the rock which

was long thought to belong to the grunsteins* is a close mixture of

feldspar and diallage. (* In the mountains of Bareuth, in Franconia,

so abundant in grunstein and serpentine, these formations are not

connected together. The serpentine there belongs rather to the

schistose hornblende (hornblendschiefer), as in the island of Cuba.

Near Guanaxuato, in Mexico, I saw it alternating with syenite. These

phenomena of serpentine rocks forming layers in eurite (weisstein), in

schistose hornblende, in gabbro, and in syenite, are so much the more

remarkable, as the great mass of garnetiferous serpentines, which are

found in the mountains of gneiss and mica-slate, form little distinct

mounts, masses not covered by other formations. It is not the same in

the mixtures of serpentine and granulated limestone.)

The grunsteins of Tucutunemo, which we consider as constituting the

same formation as the serpentine rock, contain veins of malachite and

copper-pyrites. These same metalliferous combinations are found also

in Franconia, in the grunsteins of the mountains of Steben and

Lichtenberg. With respect to the green slates of Malpaso, which have

all the characters of transition-slates, they are identical with those

which M. von Buch has so well described, near Schonau, in Silesia.

They contain beds of grunstein, like the slates of the mountains of

Steben just mentioned.* (* On advancing into the adit for draining the

Friedrich-Wilhelmstollen mine, which I caused to be begun in 1794,

near Steben, and which is yet only 340 toises long, there have

successively been found, in the transition-slate subordinate strata of

pure and porphyritic grunstein, strata, of Lydian stone and ampelite

(alaunschiefer), and strata of fine-grained grunstein. All these

strata characterise the transition-slates.) The black limestone of the

Morros de San Juan is also a transition-limestone. It forms perhaps a

subordinate stratum in the slates of Malpaso. This situation would be

analogous to what is observed in several parts of Switzerland.* (* For

Instance, at the Glyshorn, at the Col de Balme, etc.) The slaty zone,

the centre of which is the ravine of Piedras Azules, appears divided

into two formations. On some points we think we observe one passing

into the other.

The grunsteins, which begin again to the south of these slates, appear

to me to differ little from those found north of the ravine of Piedras

Azules. I did not see there any pyroxene; but on the very spot I

recognized a number of crystals in the amygdaloid, which appears so

strongly linked to the grunstein that they alternate several times.

The geologist may consider his task as fulfilled when he has traced

with accuracy the positions of the diverse strata; and has pointed out

the analogies traceable between these positions and what has been

observed in other countries. But how can he avoid being tempted to go

back to the origin of so many different substances, and to inquire how

far the dominion of fire has extended in the mountains that bound the

great basin of the steppes? In researches on the position of rocks we

have generally to complain of not sufficiently perceiving the

connection between the masses, which we believe to be superimposed on

one another. Here the difficulty seems to arise from the too intimate

and too numerous relations observed in rocks that are thought not to

belong to the same family.

The phonolite (or leucostine compacte of Cordier) is pretty generally

regarded by all who have at once examined burning and extinguished

volcanoes, as a flow of lithoid lava. I found no real basalt or

dolerite; but the presence of pyroxene in the amygdaloid of Parapara

leaves little doubt of the igneous origin of those spheroidal masses,

fissured, and full of cavities. Balls of this amygdaloid are enclosed

in the grunstein; and this grunstein alternates on one side with a

green slate, on the other with the serpentine of Tucutunemo. Here,

then, is a connexion sufficiently close established between the

phonolites and the green slates, between the pyroxenic amygdaloids and

the serpentines containing copper-ores, between volcanic substances

and others that are included under the vague name of transition-traps.

All these masses are destitute of quartz like the real

trap-porphyries, or volcanic trachytes. This phenomenon is the more

remarkable, as the grunsteins which are called primitive almost always

contain quartz in Europe. The most general dip of the slates of

Piedras Azules, of the grunsteins of Parapara, and of the pyroxenic

amygdaloids embedded in strata of grunstein, does not follow the slope

of the ground from north to south, but is pretty regular towards the

north. The strata incline towards the chain of the coast, as

substances which had not been in fusion might be supposed to do. Can

we admit that so many alternating rocks, imbedded one in the other,

have a common origin? The nature of the phonolites, which are lithoid

lavas with a feldspar basis, and the nature of the green slates

intermixed with hornblende, oppose this opinion. In this state of

things we may choose between two solutions of the problem in question.

In one of these solutions the phonolite of the Cerro de Flores is to

be regarded as the sole volcanic production of the tract; and we are

forced to unite the pyroxenic amygdaloids with the rest of the

grunsteins, in one single formation, that which is so common in the

transition-mountains of Europe, considered hitherto as not volcanic.

In the other solution of the problem, the masses of phonolite,

amygdaloid, and grunstein, which are found in the south of the ravine

of Piedras Azules, are separated from the grunsteins and serpentine

rocks that cover the declivity of the mountains north of the ravine.

In the present state of knowledge I find difficulties almost equally

great in adopting either of these suppositions; but I have no doubt

that, when the real grunsteins (not the hornblende-grunsteins)

contained in the gneiss and mica-slates, shall have been more

attentively examined in other places; when the basalts (with pyroxene)

forming strata in primitive rocks* (* For instance, at Krobsdorf, in

Silesia, a stratum of basalt has been recognized in the mica-slate by

two celebrated geologists, MM. von Buch and Raumer. (Vom Granite des

Riesengebirges, 1813.) and the diabases and amygdaloids in the

transition mountains, shall have been carefully studied; when the

texture of the masses shall have been subjected to a kind of

mechanical analysis, and the hornblendes better distinguished from the

pyroxenes,* (* The grunsteins or diabases of the Fichtelgebirge, in

Franconia, which belong to the transition-slate, sometimes contain

pyroxenes.) and the grunsteins from the dolerites; a great number of

phenomena which now appear isolated and obscure, will be ranged under

general laws. The phonolite and other rocks of igneous origin at

Parapara are so much the more interesting, as they indicate ancient

eruptions in a granite zone; as they belong to the shore of the basin

of the steppes, as the basalts of Harutsh belong to the shore of the

desert of Sahara; and lastly, as they are the only rocks of the kind

we observed in the mountains of the Capitania-General of Caracas,

which are also destitute of trachytes or trap-porphyry, basalts, and

volcanic productions.* (* From the Rio Negro to the coasts of Cumana

and Caracas, to the east of the mountains of Merida, which we did not

visit.)

The southern declivity of the western chain is tolerably steep; the

steppes, according to my barometrical measurements, being a thousand

feet lower than the bottom of the basin of Aragua. From the extensive

table-land of the Villa de Cura we descended towards the banks of the

Rio Tucutunemo, which has hollowed for itself, in a serpentine rock, a

longitudinal valley running from east to west, at nearly the same

level as La Victoria. A transverse valley, lying generally north and

south, led us into the Llanos, by the villages of Parapara and Ortiz.

It grows very narrow in several parts. Basins, the bottoms of which

are perfectly horizontal, communicate together by narrow passes with

steep declivities. They were, no doubt, formerly small lakes, which,

owing to the accumulation of the waters, or some more violent

catastrophe, have broken down the dykes by which they were separated.

This phenomenon is found in both continents, wherever we examine the

longitudinal valleys forming the passages of the Andes, the Alps,* (*

For example, the road from the valley of Ursern to the Hospice of St.

Gothard, and thence to Airolo.) or the Pyrenees. It is probable, that

the irruption of the waters towards the Llanos have given, by

extraordinary rents, the form of ruins to the Morros of San Juan and

of San Sebastian. The volcanic tract of Parapara and Ortis is now only

30 or 40 toises above the Llanos. The eruptions consequently took

place at the lowest point of the granitic chain.

In the Mesa de Paja, in the ninth degree of latitude, we entered the

basin of the Llanos. The sun was almost at its zenith; the earth,

wherever it appeared sterile and destitute of vegetation, was at the

temperature of 48 or 50 degrees.* (* A thermometer, placed in the

sand, rose to 38.4 and 40 degrees Reaumur.) 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 currents of air which glide only over the surface of the

ground, and are occasioned by the difference of temperature between

the naked sand and the spots covered with grass. These sand-winds

augment the suffocating heat of the air. Every grain of quartz, hotter

than the surrounding air, radiates heat in every direction; and it is

difficult to observe the temperature of the atmosphere, owing to these

particles of sand striking against the bulb of the thermometer. All

around us the plains seemed to ascend to the sky, and the vast and

profound solitude appeared like an ocean covered with sea-weed.

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

mist and strata of vapour the trunks of palm-trees were seen from

afar, stripped of their foliage and their verdant summits, and looking

like the masts of a ship descried upon the horizon.

There is something awful, as well as sad and gloomy, in the uniform

aspect of these steppes. Everything seems motionless; scarcely does a

small cloud, passing across the zenith, and denoting the approach of

the rainy season, cast its shadow on the earth. 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, which recal to mind incessantly, and during

journeys of twenty or thirty days, the smooth surface of the ocean. I

had seen the plains or llanos of La Mancha in Spain, and the heaths

(ericeta) that extend from the extremity of Jutland, through Luneburg

and Westphalia, to Belgium. These last are really steppes, and, during

several ages, only small portions of them have yielded to cultivation;

but the plains of the west and north of Europe present only a feeble

image of the immense llanos of South America. It is in the south-east

of our continent, in Hungary, between the Danube and the Theiss; in

Russia, between the Borysthenes, the Don, and the Volga, that we find

those vast pastures, which seem to have been levelled by a long abode

of the waters, and which meet the horizon on every side. The plains of

Hungary, where I traversed them on the frontiers of Germany, between

Presburg and Oedenburg, strike the imagination of the traveller by the

constant mirage; but their greatest extent is more to the east,

between Czegled, Debreczin, and Tittel. There they present the

appearance of a vast ocean of verdure, having only two outlets, one

near Gran and Waitzen, the other between Belgrade and Widdin.

The different quarters of the world have been supposed to be

characterized by the remark, that Europe has its heaths, Asia its

steppes, Africa its deserts, and America its savannahs; but by this

distinction, contrasts are established that are not founded either on

the nature of things, or the genius of languages. The existence of a

heath always supposes an association of plants of the family of

ericae; the steppes of Asia are not everywhere covered with saline

plants; the savannahs of Venezuela furnish not only the gramina, but

with them small herbaceous mimosas, legumina, and other dicotyledonous

plants. The plains of Songaria, those which extend between the Don and

the Volga, and the puszta of Hungary, are real savannahs, pasturages

abounding in grasses;* (* These vast steppes of Hungary are elevated

only thirty or forty toises above the level of the sea, which is more

than eighty leagues distant from them. See Wahlenberg's Flora

Carpathianica. Baron Podmanitzky, an Hungarian nobleman, highly

distinguished for his knowledge of the physical sciences, caused the

level of these plains to be taken, to facilitate the formation of a

canal then projected between the Danube and the Theiss. He found the

line of division, or the convexity of the ground, which slopes on each

side towards the beds of the two rivers, to be only thirteen toises

above the height of the Danube. The widely extended pastures, which

reach in every direction to the horizon, are called in the country,

Puszta, and, over a distance of many leagues, are without any human

habitation. Plains of this kind, intermingled with marshes and sandy

tracts, are found on the western side of the Theiss, between Czegled,

Csaba, Komloss, and Szarwass; and on the eastern side, between

Debreczin, Karczag, and Szoboszlo. The area of these plains of the

interior basin of Hungary has been estimated, by a pretty accurate

calculation, to be between two thousand five hundred and three

thousand square leagues (twenty to a degree). Between Czegled,

Szolnok, and Ketskemet, the plain resembles a sea of sand.) while the

savannahs to the east and west of the Rocky Mountains and of New

Mexico produce chenopodiums containing carbonate and muriate of soda.

Asia has real deserts destitute of vegetation, in Arabia, in Gobi, and

in Persia. Since we have become better acquainted with the deserts in

the interior of Africa, so long and so vaguely confounded together

under the name of desert of Sahara (Zahra); it has been observed, that

in this continent, towards the east, savannahs and pastures are found,

as in Arabia, situated in the midst of naked and barren tracts. It is

these deserts, covered with gravel and destitute of plants, which are

almost entirely wanting in the New World. I saw them only in that part

of Peru, between Amotape and Coquimbo, on the shores of the Pacific.

These are called by the Spaniards, not llanos, but the desiertos of

Sechura and Atacamez. This solitary tract is not broad, but it is four

hundred and forty leagues long. The rock pierces everywhere through

the quicksands. No drop of rain ever falls on it; and, like the desert

of Sahara, north of Timbuctoo, the Peruvian desert affords, near

Huaura, a rich mine of native salt. Everywhere else, in the New World,

there are plains desert because not inhabited, but no real deserts.*

(* We are almost tempted, however, to give the name of desert to that

vast and sandy table-land of Brazil, the Campos dos Parecis, which

gives birth to the rivers Tapajos, Paraguay, and Madeira, and which

reaches the summit of the highest mountains. Almost destitute of

vegetation, it reminds us of Gobi, in Mongolia.)

The same phenomena are repeated in the most distant regions; and,

instead of designating those vast treeless plains in accordance with

the nature of the plants they produce, it seems natural to class them

into deserts, steppes, or savannahs; into bare lands without any

appearance of vegetation, and lands covered with gramina or small

plants of the dicotyledonous tribe. The savannahs of America,

especially those of the temperate zone, have in many works been

designated by the French term prairies; but this appears to me little

applicable to pastures which are often very dry, though covered with

grass of four or five feet in height. The Llanos and the Pampas of

South America are really steppes. They are covered with beautiful

verdure in the rainy season, but in the time of great drought they

assume the aspect of a desert. The grass is then reduced to powder;

the earth cracks; the alligators 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 mauritia, a

palm, the leaves of which spread out like a fan, and preserve a

brilliant verdure.

The steppes of Asia are all beyond the tropics, and form very elevated

table-lands. America also has savannahs of considerable extent on the

backs of the mountains of Mexico, Peru, and Quito; but its most

extensive steppes, the Llanos of Cumana, Caracas, and Meta, are little

raised above the level of the ocean, and all belong to the equinoctial

zone. These circumstances give them a peculiar character. They have

not, like the steppes of southern Asia, and the deserts of Persia,

those lakes without issue, those small systems of rivers which lose

themselves either in the sands, or by subterranean filtrations. The

Llanos of America incline to the east and south; and their running

waters are branches of the Orinoco.

The course of these rivers once led me to believe, that the plains

formed table-lands, raised at least from one hundred to one hundred

and fifty toises above the level of the ocean. I supposed that the

deserts of interior Africa were also at a considerable height; and

that they rose one above another as in tiers, from the coast to the

interior of the continent. No barometer has yet been carried into the

Sahara. With respect to the Llanos of America, I found by barometric

heights observed at Calabozo, at the Villa del Pao, and at the mouth

of the Meta, that their height is only forty or fifty toises above the

level of the sea. The fall of the rivers is extremely gentle, often

nearly imperceptible; and therefore the least wind, or the swelling of

the Orinoco, causes a reflux in those rivers that flow into it. The

Indians believe themselves to be descending during a whole day, when

navigating from the mouths of these rivers to their sources. The

descending waters are separated from those that flow back by a great

body of stagnant water, in which, the equilibrium being disturbed,

whirlpools are formed very dangerous for boats.

The chief characteristic of the savannahs or steppes of South America

is the absolute want of hills and inequalities--the perfect level of

every part of the soil. Accordingly the Spanish conquerors, who first

penetrated from Coro to the banks of the Apure, did not call them

deserts or savannahs, or meadows, but plains (llanos). Often within a

distance of thirty square leagues there is not an eminence of a foot

high. This resemblance to the surface of the sea strikes the

imagination most powerfully where the plains are altogether destitute

of palm-trees; and where the mountains of the shore and of the Orinoco

are so distant that they cannot be seen, as in the Mesa de Pavones. A

person would be tempted there to take the altitude of the sun with a

quadrant, if the horizon of the land were not constantly misty on

account of the variable effects of refraction. This equality of

surface is still more perfect in the meridian of Calabozo, than

towards the east, between Cari, La Villa del Pao, and Nueva Barcelona;

but it extends without interruption from the mouths of the Orinoco to

La Villa de Araure and to Ospinos, on a parallel of a hundred and

eighty leagues in length; and from San Carlos to the savannahs of

Caqueat, on a meridian of two hundred leagues. It particularly

characterises the New Continent, as it does the low steppes of Asia,

between the Borysthenes and the Volga, between the Irtish and the Obi.

The deserts of central Africa, of Arabia, Syria, and Persia, Gobi, and

Casna, present, on the contrary, many inequalities, ranges of hills,

ravines without water, and rocks which pierce the sands.

The Llanos, however, notwithstanding the apparent uniformity of their

surface, present two kinds of inequalities, which cannot escape the

observation of the traveller. The first is known by the name of banks

(bancos); they are in reality shoals in the basin of the steppes,

fractured strata of sandstone, or compact limestone, standing four or

five feet higher than the rest of the plain. These banks are sometimes

three or four leagues in length; they are entirely smooth, with a

horizontal surface; their existence is perceived only by examining

their margins. The second species of inequality can be recognised only

by geodesical or barometric levellings, or by the course of rivers. It

is called a mesa or table, and is composed of small flats, or rather

convex eminences, that rise insensibly to the height of a few toises.

Such are, towards the east, in the province of Cumana, on the north of

the Villa de la Merced and Candelaria, the Mesas of Amana, of Guanipa,

and of Jonoro, the direction of which is south-west and north-east;

and which, in spite of their inconsiderable elevation, divide the

waters between the Orinoco and the northern coast of Terra Firma. The

convexity of the savannah alone occasions this partition: we there

find the dividing of the waters (divortia aquarum* (* "C. Manlium

prope jugis [Tauri] ad divortia aquarum castra posuisse." Livy lib. 38

c. 75.)), as in Poland, where, far from the Carpathian mountains, the

plain itself divides the waters between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

Geographers, who suppose the existence of a chain of mountains

wherever there is a line of division, have not failed to mark one in

the maps, at the sources of the Rio Neveri, the Unare, the Guarapiche,

and the Pao. Thus the priests of Mongol race, according to ancient and

superstitious custom, erect oboes, or little mounds of stone, on every

point where the rivers flow in an opposite direction.

The uniform landscape of the Llanos; the extremely small number of

their inhabitants; the fatigue of travelling beneath a burning sky,

and an atmosphere darkened by dust; the view of that horizon, which

seems for ever to fly before us; those lonely 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 combine to make the steppes

appear far more extensive than they are in reality. The planters who

inhabit the southern declivity of the chain of the coast see the

steppes extend towards the south, as far as the eye can reach, like an

ocean of verdure. They know that from the Delta of the Orinoco to the

province of Varinas, and thence, by traversing the banks of the Meta,

the Guaviare, and the Caguan, they can advance three hundred and

eighty leagues* (* This is the distance from Timbuctoo to the northern

coast of Africa.) into the plains, first from east to west, and then

from north-east to south-east beyond the Equator, to the foot of the

Andes of Pasto. They know by the accounts of travellers the Pampas of

Buenos Ayres, which are also Llanos covered with fine grass, destitute

of trees, and filled with oxen and horses become wild. They suppose

that, according to the greater part of our maps of America, this

continent has only one chain of mountains, that of the Andes, which

stretches from south to north; and they form a vague idea of the

contiguity of all the plains from the Orinoco and the Apure to the Rio

de la Plata and the Straits of Magellan.

Without stopping here to give a mineralogical description of the

transverse chains which divide America from east to west, it will be

sufficient to notice the general structure of a continent, the

extremities of which, though situated in climates little analogous,

nevertheless present several features of resemblance. In order to have

an exact idea of the plains, their configuration, and their limits, we

must know the chains of mountains that form their boundaries. We have

already described the Cordillera of the coast, of which the highest

summit is the Silla de Caraccas, and which is linked by the Paramo de

las Rosas to the Nevada de Merida, and the Andes of New Grenada. We

have seen that, in the tenth degree of north latitude, it stretches

from Quibor and Barquesimeto as far as the point of Paria. A second

chain of mountains, or rather a less elevated but much larger group,

extends between the parallels of 3 and 7 degrees from the mouths of

the Guaviare and the Meta to the sources of the Orinoco, the Marony,

and the Essequibo, towards French and Dutch Guiana. I call this chain

the Cordillera of Parime, or of the great cataracts of the Orinoco. It

may be followed for a length of two hundred and fifty leagues; but it

is less a chain, than a collection of granitic mountains, separated by

small plains, without being everywhere disposed in lines. The group of

the mountains of Parime narrows considerably between the sources of

the Orinoco and the mountains of Demerara, in the Sierras of

Quimiropaca and Pacaraimo, which divide the waters between the Carony

and the Rio Parime, or Rio de Aguas Blancas. This is the scene of the

expeditions which were undertaken in search of El Dorado, and the

great city of Manoa, the Timbuctoo of the New Continent. The

Cordillera of Parime does not join the Andes of New Grenada, but is

separated from them by a space eighty leagues broad. If we suppose it

to have been destroyed in this space by some great revolution of the

globe (which is scarcely probable) we must admit that it anciently

branched off from the Andes between Santa Fe de Bogota and Pamplona.

This remark serves to fix more easily in the memory of the reader the

geographical position of a Cordillera till now very imperfectly known.

A third chain of mountains unites in 16 and 18 degrees south latitude

(by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the Serranias of Aguapehy, and the famous

Campos dos Parecis) the Andes of Peru, to the mountains of Brazil. It

is the Cordillera of Chiquitos which widens in the Capitania de Minas

Geraes, and divides the rivers flowing into the Amazon from those of

the Rio de la Plata,* (* There is only a portage or carrying-place of

5322 bracas between the Guapore (a branch of the Marmore and of the

Madeira), and the Rio Aguapehy (a branch of the Jaura and of the

Paraguay).) not only in the interior of the country, in the meridian

of Villa Boa, but also at a few leagues from the coast, between Rio

Janeiro and Bahia.* (* The Cordillera of Chiquitos and of Brazil

stretches toward the south-east, in the government of the Rio Grande,

beyond the latitude of 30 degrees south.)

These three transverse chains, or rather these three groups of

mountains stretching from west to east, within the limits of the

torrid zone, are separated by tracts entirely level, the plains of

Caracas, or of the Lower Orinoco; the plains of the Amazon and the Rio

Negro; and the plains of Buenos Ayres, or of La Plata. I use the term

plains, because the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon, far from flowing in

a valley, form but a little furrow in the midst of a vast level. The

two basins, placed at the extremities of South America, are savannahs

or steppes, pasturage without trees; the intermediate basin, which

receives the equatorial rains during the whole year, is almost

entirely one vast forest, through which no other roads are known save

the rivers. The strong vegetation which conceals the soil, renders

also the uniformity of its level less perceptible; and the plains of

Caracas and La Plata bear no other name. The three basins we have just

described are called, in the language of the colonists, the Llanos of

Varinas and of Caracas, the bosques or selvas (forests) of the Amazon,

and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The trees not only for the most part

cover the plains of the Amazon, from the Cordillera de Chiquitos, as

far as that of Parime; they also crown these two chains of mountains,

which rarely attain the height of the Pyrenees.* (* We must except the

most western part of the Cordillera of Chiquitos, between Cochabamba

and Santa Cruz de la Sierra where the summits are covered with snow;

but this colossal group almost belongs to the Andes de la Paz, of

which it forms a promontory or spur, directed toward the east.) On

this account, the vast plains of the Amazon, the Madeira, and the Rio

Negro, are not so distinctly bounded as the Llanos of Caracas, and the

Pampas of Buenos Ayres. As the region of forests comprises at once the

plains and the mountains, it extends from 18 degrees south to 7 and 8

degrees north,* (* To the west, in consequence of the Llanos of Manso,

and the Pampas de Huanacos, the forests do not extend generally beyond

the parallels of 18 or 19 degrees south latitude; but to the east, in

Brazil (in the capitanias of San Pablo and Rio Grande) as well as in

Paraguay, on the borders of the Parana, they advance as far as 25

degrees south.) and occupies an extent of near a hundred and twenty

thousand square leagues. This forest of South America, for in fact

there is only one, is six times larger than France. It is known to

Europeans only on the shores of a few rivers, by which it is

traversed; and has its openings, the extent of which is in proportion

to that of the forests. We shall soon skirt the marshy savannahs,

between the Upper Orinoco, the Conorichite, and the Cassiquiare, in

the latitude of 3 and 4 degrees. There are other openings, or as they

are called, clear savannahs,* (* Savannas limpias, that is to say,

clear of trees.) in the same parallel, between the sources of the Mao

and the Rio de Aguas Blancas, south of the Sierra de Pacaraima. These

last savannahs, which are inhabited by Caribs, and nomad Macusis, lie

near the frontiers of Dutch and French Guiana.

Having noticed the geological constitution of South America, we shall

now mark its principal features. The western coasts are bordered by an

enormous wall of mountains, rich in precious metals wherever volcanic

fire has not pierced through the eternal snow. This is the Cordillera

of the Andes. Summits of trap-porphyry rise beyond three thousand

three hundred toises, and the mean height of the chain* is one

thousand eight hundred and fifty toises. (* In New Grenada, Quito, and

Peru, according to measurements taken by Bouguer, La Condamine, and

myself.) It stretches in the direction of a meridian, and sends into

each hemisphere a lateral branch, in the latitudes of 10 degrees

north, and 16 and 18 degrees south. The first of these two branches,

that of the coast of Caracas, is of considerable length, and forms in

fact a chain. The second branch, the Cordillera of Chiquitos and of

the sources of the Guapore, is very rich in gold, and widens toward

the east, in Brazil, into vast tablelands, having a mild and temperate

climate. Between these two transverse chains, contiguous to the Andes,

an isolated group of granitic mountains is situated, from 3 to 7

degrees north latitude; which also runs parallel to the Equator, but,

not passing the meridian of 71 degrees, terminates abruptly towards

the west, and is not united to the Andes of New Grenada. These three

transverse chains have no active volcanoes; we know not whether the

most southern, like the two others, be destitute of trachytes or

trap-porphyry. None of their summits enter the limit of perpetual

snow; and the mean height of the Cordillera of La Parime, and of the

littoral chain of Caracas, does not reach six hundred toises, though

some of its summits rise fourteen hundred toises above the level of

the sea.* (* We do not reckon here, as belonging to the chain of the

coast, the Nevados and Paramos of Merida and of Truxillo, which are a

prolongation of the Andes of New Grenada.) The three transverse chains

are separated by plains entirely closed towards the west, and open

towards the east and south-east. When we reflect on their small

elevation above the surface of the ocean, we are tempted to consider

them as gulfs stretching in the direction of the current of rotation.

If, from the effect of some peculiar attraction, the waters of the

Atlantic were to rise fifty toises at the mouth of the Orinoco, and

two hundred toises at the mouth of the Amazon, the flood would

submerge more than the half of South America. The eastern declivity,

or the foot of the Andes, now six hundred leagues distant from the

coast of Brazil, would become a shore beaten by the waves. This

consideration is the result of a barometric measurement, taken in the

province of Jaen de Bracamoros, where the river Amazon issues from the

Cordilleras. I found the mean height of this immense river only one

hundred and ninety-four toises above the present level of the

Atlantic. The intermediate plains, however, covered with forests, are

still five times higher than the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and the

grass-covered Llanos of Caracas and the Meta.

Those Llanos which form the basin of the Orinoco, and which we crossed

twice in one year, in the months of March and July, communicate with

the basin of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the

Cordillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the mountains of Parime.

The opening which is left between the latter and the Andes of New

Grenada, occasions this communication. The aspect of the country here

reminds us, but on a much larger scale, of the plains of Lombardy,

which also are only fifty or sixty toises above the level of the

ocean; and are directed first from La Brenta to Turin, east and west;

and then from Turin to Coni, north and south. If we were authorized,

from other geological facts, to regard the three great plains of the

Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata as basins of

ancient lakes,* (* In Siberia, the great steppes between the Irtish

and the Obi, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes (Tchabakly,

Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolony), appear to have been, according to the

Chinese traditions, even within historical times, an inland sea.) we

should imagine we perceived in the plains of the Rio Vichada and the

Meta, a channel by which the waters of the upper lake (those of the

plains of the Amazon) forced their way towards the lower basin, (that

of the Llanos of Caracas,) separating the Cordillera of La Parime from

that of the Andes. This channel is a kind of land-strait. The ground,

which is perfectly level between the Guaviare, the Meta, and the

Apure, displays no vestige of a violent irruption of the waters; but

on the edge of the Cordillera of Parime, between the latitudes of 4

and 7 degrees, the Orinoco, flowing in a westerly direction from its

source to the mouth of the Guaviare, has forced its way through the

rocks, directing its course from south to north. All the great

cataracts, as we shall soon see, are within the latitudes just named.

When the river has reached the mouth of the Apure in that very low

ground where the slope towards the north is met by the counter-slope

towards the south-east, that is to say, by the inclination of the

plains which rise imperceptibly towards the mountains of Caracas, the

river turns anew and flows eastward. It appeared to me, that it was

proper to fix the attention of the reader on these singular inflexions

of the Orinoco because, belonging at once to two basins, its course

marks, in some sort, even on the most imperfect maps, the direction of

that part of the plains intervening between New Grenada and the

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. From the

mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of Cumana, of Barcelona, and of

Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. (* The

following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I marked

them down on the spot. The Llanos of Cumana and New Andalusia 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.) Where the steppes turn towards the south and

south-south-west, from the latitude of 8 degrees, between the

meridians of 70 and 73 degrees, we find from north to south, the

Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, Guaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.*

(* 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, Guardalito and Arauca, the

Meta, Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari,

Inirida, 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 to Putumayo, are not sufficiently known.) The plains of Varinas

contain some few monuments of the industry of a nation that has

disappeared. Between Mijagual and the Cano de la Hacha, we find some

real tumuli, called in the country the Serillos de los Indios. 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 Rio 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 it to be

seventeen thousand square leagues twenty to a degree. The part running

from north to south is almost double that which stretches from east to

west, between the Lower Orinoco and the littoral chain of Caracas. The

Pampas on the north and north-west of Buenos Ayres, between this city

and Cordova, Jujuy, and the Tucuman, are of nearly the same extent as

the Llanos; but the Pampas stretch still farther on to the length of

18 degrees southward; and the land they occupy is so vast, that they

produce palm-trees at one of their extremities, while the other,

equally low and level, is covered with eternal frost.

The Llanos of America, where they extend in the direction of a

parallel of the equator, are three-fourths narrower then the great

desert of Africa. This circumstance is very important in a region

where the winds constantly blow from east to west. The farther the

plains stretch in this direction, the more ardent is their climate.

The great ocean of sand in Africa communicates by Yemen* with Gedrosia

and Beloochistan, as far as the right bank of the Indus. (* We cannot

be surprised that the Arabic should be richer than any other language

of the East in words expressing the ideas of desert, uninhabited

plains, and plains covered with gramina. I could give a list of

thirty-five of these words, which the Arabian authors employ without

always distinguishing them by the shades of meaning which each

separate word expresses. Makadh and kaah indicate, in preference,

plains; bakaak, a table-land; kafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer,

a naked desert, covered with sand and gravel; tanufah, a steppe. Zahra

means at once a naked desert and a savannah. The word steppe, or step,

is Russian, and not Tartarian. In the Turco-Tartar dialect a heath is

called tala or tschol. The word gobi, which Europeans have corrupted

into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It is

equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, or

plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah; in Chinese, kouana.) It

is from the effect of winds that have passed over the deserts situated

to the east, that the little basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by

plains which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, is one of the

hottest regions of the globe. The unfortunate captain Tuckey relates,*

(* Expedition to explore the river Zahir, 1818.) that the centigrade

thermometer keeps there generally in the night at 34 degrees, and by

day from 40 to 44 degrees. We shall soon see that, even in the

westernmost part of the steppes of Caracas, we seldom found the

temperature of the air, in the shade, above 37 degrees.

These physical considerations on the steppes of the New World are

linked with others more interesting, inasmuch as they are connected

with the history of our species. The great sea of sand in Africa, the

deserts without water, are frequented only by caravans, that take

fifty days to traverse them.* (* This is the maximum of the time,

according to Major Rennell, Travels of Mungo Park volume 2.)

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

intercourse 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 inhabited 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 civilization 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 communicate with

each other. They would have been seen at the period of great droughts,

and even at that of inundations, fighting for the possession of

pastures; 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 with surprise in the

nations of the Mongol and Tartar race. America would then, like the

centre of Asia, have had its conquerors, who, ascending from the

plains to the tablelands of the Cordilleras, and abandoning a

wandering life, would have subdued the civilized nations of Peru and

New Grenada, overturned the throne of the Incas and of the Zaque,* and

substituted for the despotism which is the fruit of theocracy, that

despotism which arises from the patriarchal government of a pastoral

people. (* The Zaque was the secular chief of Cundinamarca. His power

was shared with the high priest (lama) of Iraca.) In the New World the

human race has not experienced these great moral and political

changes, because the steppes, though more fertile than those of Asia,

have remained without herds; because none of the animals that furnish

milk in abundance are natives of the plains of South America; and

because, in the progressive unfolding of American civilization, the

intermediate link is wanting that connects the hunting with the

agricultural nations.

We have thought proper to bring together these general notions on the

plains of the New Continent, and the contrast they exhibit to the

deserts of Africa and the fertile steppes of Asia, in order to give

some interest to the narrative of a journey across lands of so

monotonous an aspect. Having now accomplished this task, I shall trace

the route by which we proceeded from the volcanic mountains of

Parapara and the northern side of the Llanos, to the banks of the

Apure, in the province of Varinas.

After having passed two nights on horseback, and sought in vain, by

day, for some shelter from the heat of the sun beneath the tufts of

the moriche palm-trees, we arrived before night at the little Hato del

Cayman,* (* The Farm of the Alligator.) called also La Guadaloupe. It

was a solitary house in the steppes, surrounded by a few small huts,

covered with reeds and skins. The cattle, oxen, horses, and mules are

not penned, but wander freely over an extent of several square

leagues. There is nowhere any enclosure; men, naked to the waist and

armed with a lance, ride over the savannahs to inspect the animals;

bringing back those that wander too far from the pastures of the farm,

and branding all that do not already bear the mark of their

proprietor. These mulattos, who are known by the name of peones

llaneros, are partly freed-men and partly slaves. They are constantly

exposed to the burning heat of the tropical sun. Their food is meat,

dried in the air, and a little salted; and of this even their horses

sometimes partake. Being always in the saddle, they fancy they cannot

make the slightest excursion on foot. We found an old negro slave, who

managed the farm in the absence of his master. He told us of herds

composed of several thousand cows, that were grazing in the steppes;

yet we asked in vain for a bowl of milk. We were offered, in a

calabash, some yellow, muddy, and fetid water, drawn from a

neighbouring pool. The indolence of the inhabitants of the Llanos is

such that they do not dig wells, though they know that almost

everywhere, at ten feet deep, fine springs are found in a stratum of

conglomerate, or red sandstone. After suffering during one half of the

year from the effect of inundations, they quietly resign themselves,

during the other half; to the most distressing deprivation of water.

The old negro advised us to cover the cup with a linen cloth, and

drink as through a filter, that we might not be incommoded by the

smell, and might swallow less of the yellowish mud suspended in the

water. We did not then think that we should afterwards be forced,

during whole months, to have recourse to this expedient. The waters of

the Orinoco are always loaded with earthy particles; they are even

putrid, where dead bodies of alligators are found in the creeks, lying

on banks of sand, or half-buried in the mud.

No sooner were our instruments unloaded and safely placed, than our

mules were set at liberty to go, as they say here, para buscar agua,

that is, "to search for water." There are little pools round the farm,

which the animals find, guided by their instinct, by the view of some

scattered tufts of mauritia, and by the sensation of humid coolness,

caused by little currents of air amid an atmosphere which to us

appears calm and tranquil. When the pools of water are far distant,

and the people of the farm are too lazy to lead the cattle to these

natural watering-places, they confine them during five or six hours in

a very hot stable before they let them loose. Excess of thirst then

augments their sagacity, sharpening as it were their senses and their

instinct. No sooner is the stable opened, than the horses and mules,

especially the latter (for the penetration of these animals exceeds

the intelligence of the horses), rush into the savannahs. With

upraised tails and heads thrown back they run against the wind,

stopping from time to time as if exploring space; they follow less the

impressions of sight than of smell; and at length announce, by

prolonged neighings, that there is water in the direction of their

course. All these movements are executed more promptly, and with

readier success, by horses born in the Llanos, and which have long

enjoyed their liberty, than by those that come from the coast, and

descend from domestic horses. In animals, for the most part, as in

man, the quickness of the senses is diminished by long subjection, and

by the habits that arise from a fixed abode and the progress of

cultivation.

We followed our mules in search of one of those pools, whence the

muddy water had been drawn, that so ill quenched our thirst. We were

covered with dust, and tanned by the sandy wind, which burns the skin

even more than the rays of the sun. We longed impatiently to take a

bath, but we found only a great pool of feculent water, surrounded

with palm-trees. The water was turbid, though, to our great

astonishment, a little cooler than the air. Accustomed during our long

journey to bathe whenever we had an opportunity, often several times

in one day, we hastened to plunge into the pool. We had scarcely begun

to enjoy the coolness of the bath, when a noise which we heard on the

opposite bank, made us leave the water precipitately. It was an

alligator plunging into the mud.

We were only at the distance of a quarter of a league from the farm,

yet we continued walking more than an hour without reaching it. We

perceived too late that we had taken a wrong direction. Having left it

at the decline of day, before the stars were visible, we had gone

forward into the plain at hazard. We were, as usual, provided with a

compass, and it might have been easy for us to steer our course from

the position of Canopus and the Southern Cross; but unfortunately we

were uncertain whether, on leaving the farm, we had gone towards the

east or the south. We attempted to return to the spot where we had

bathed, and we again walked three quarters of an hour without finding

the pool. We sometimes thought we saw fire on the horizon; but it was

the light of the rising stars enlarged by the vapours. After having

wandered a long time in the savannah, we resolved to seat ourselves

beneath the trunk of a palm-tree, in a spot perfectly dry, surrounded

by short grass; for the fear of water-snakes is always greater than

that of jaguars among Europeans recently disembarked. We could not

flatter ourselves that our guides, of whom we knew the insuperable

indolence, would come in search of us in the savannah before they had

prepared their food and finished their repast. Whilst somewhat

perplexed by the uncertainty of our situation, we were agreeably

affected by hearing from afar the sound of a horse advancing towards

us. The rider was an Indian, armed with a lance, who had just made the

rodeo, or round, in order to collect the cattle within a determinate

space of ground. The sight of two white men, who said they had lost

their way, led him at first to suspect some trick. We found it

difficult to inspire him with confidence; he at last consented to

guide us to the farm of the Cayman, but without slackening the gentle

trot of his horse. Our guides assured us that "they had already begun

to be uneasy about us;" and, to justify this inquietude, they gave a

long enumeration of persons who, having lost themselves in the Llanos,

had been found nearly exhausted. It may be supposed that the danger is

imminent only to those who lose themselves far from any habitation, or

who, having been stripped by robbers, as has happened of late years,

have been fastened by the body and hands to the trunk of a palm-tree.