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.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 147 of 777
Words from 40013 to 40276 of 211397