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Western World Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North & South America, a non-fiction book by William H. G. Kingston |
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Part 3 - Chapter 2. A General View Of South America |
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_ PART THREE CHAPTER TWO. A GENERAL VIEW OF SOUTH AMERICA
In the southern part of the continent are the treeless plains of the Pampas, extending from about 20 degrees south latitude for a distance of fully two thousand miles into Patagonia, and averaging in width five hundred miles. Stretching, as do these plains, across a large portion of the South Temperate Zone, they present great varieties of climate. The northern portion is watered by the River La Plata and its tributaries. To the south of Buenos Ayres the rivers are fewer and of less extent. The north-western Pampas consist of slightly undulating and dry plains, though interspersed with vast tracts on which lofty thistles rear their heads--useful, however, as fuel to the inhabitants. Further on, to the west, is a wide-extending pastoral district; and yet beyond, reaching to the foot of the Cordilleras, the soil is well-suited for agriculture. The pastoral region is almost a dead level, with large shallow salt-lakes,--one of them measuring fifty miles in length by twenty in width. Scarcely a tree is to be found throughout this region, and but few permanent water-courses. To the north extends a salt desert for upwards of one hundred miles, with a width of two hundred miles. It is crossed by the River Salado, which, rising in the Cordilleras, falls into the Plata, to the south of which rises a number of step-like terraces, sterile during the heats of summer, but covered with verdure after the rains of spring. Huge boulders, brown grass growing in tufts, and low spine-covered bushes, diversify the surface. In this inhospitable region transitions from heat to cold are very great. Now the traveller is panting under the intense heat of the sun's rays; and anon an icy blast rushes across the plain, compelling him to draw close around his body his thick poncho, for protection against its chilling influences. Further to the south are found large swamps and lagoons, one of them having an area of one thousand square miles, its surface covered with aquatic plants. In the rainy season, the rivers, overflowing their banks, inundate the plains--leaving behind, however, a thick deposit of fertilising soil, from which, as elsewhere, rich crops are capable of being produced. Further on, to the south, the Pampas, over which the yet savage and untamed Patagonians roam, and hunt the huanacu and ostrich, is generally higher and drier. The South American continent, it will thus be seen, consists of several distinctly different descriptions of country:--the long line of the Cordilleras, with their snow-capped peaks and their lofty punas or high table-lands, and the narrow strip of arid soil at their western base; the three separate mountain-systems of Venezuela, Guiana, and the Brazils; the mighty forests bordering the great rivers and their tributaries, to which must be added the wooded heights of the inter-tropical regions, where tall trees, including several palms, flourish at an elevation of many thousand feet above the level of the ocean; and lastly, the wide-extending regions of the Llanos and the Pampas. These, as might be supposed, present great varieties of animal life--though scarcely so great as might have been expected, when it is remembered that they extend from 10 degrees north to 50 degrees south latitude. Several species indeed are found far to the north of the equator, and also near the southern end of the continent. But to give an idea of these different regions, they must be described in detail. _ |