Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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.
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