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.

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