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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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.
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