HOW rich and varied are the enjoy

ments of the traveler in mountainous regions! In constant changes, he sees hill and dale, lofty forests, and gray, granite rocks-now a sweet-smiling meadow, and now a beetling, aweinspiring precipice; below him, blooming orchards and rich pastures, with peaceful cattle; above him, the silent solitude of ice-covered crags and domes. New objects incessantly strike his eye; new sensations fill him with delight. And when, at last, the prospect opens, and from the lofty height he looks down, as from a monarch's throne, upon a wide, luxuriant plain, he is pleased with the change, and interested in the monuments of human industry which suddenly greet him. But as he wanders through the plain, he is soon wearied by its endless monotony; he feels like the strong, active man, when suddenly condemned to unbroken idleness, or the soldier who must exchange the din and turmoil of war for the lonely prison. Still, the plains are not alike, all over the earth. On the vast table-land of Northern China, men are crowded upon men so thickly that laws are required to govern the simplest of daily labors, lest they interfere with each other. In the Great Sahara, the traveler sees day after day pass in unbroken silence, and blesses the first human face he meets in the oasis. The fertile plains of Lombardy are literally covered with cities and villages, whilst the equally productive llanos of South America feed millions of wild, roving horses, and vast distances separate dwelling from dwelling. Nor are the children of the steppes less different in their characteristics; for climate, and soil, and a thousand unobserved influences, change them from zone to zone. Even nations that live close to each other, are found thus to differ. The

Mongol is proud, open-hearted, and bold; careless of old usage, and brooking no control. His immediate neighbor, the Chinese, is as cowardly as he is humble; and, consequently, false and treacherous. He worships whatever is hallowed by time; void of faith, he observes the canons of his creed and the laws of his magistrates with unwearied obedience. Thus, the two nations, sprung from the same race, living in

the same zone, and mingling in daily intercourse, are found as far apart as the races of Europe and Asia. But the plains of the Mongols are high above the sea, and their soil is covered with sterile sand and with shingle, while the land of the Flowery Empire is fertile to a degree known to but few parts of the earth. It is also but little raised above the surface of the ocean.

Steppes, covered with heath, with grass, or other low plants, are found of unmeasured extent, in all parts of the world; but they are commonly looked upon as specially belonging to the temperate zone, because they are here most frequent, and much surpass the sandy barrens in the vastness of their extent. The prairies, covered with sweet, even verdure, awaken, most of all steppes, the image of the great sea, by the similar color, the waving motion of the surface, and even, now and then, by a Fata Morgana. But the impression they produce upon the mind of the traveler is far different. Even in extent, they have, thanks to their constant undulations, but little of the vast, grand character of the old "Okeanos, that holds the world, his spouse, in sweet embrace." Nor do they lead us, as the sea does, to distant lands, and enchanted isles. The few plants that surround us, without break or change, day after day, lack the animating, cheering power that dwells in water, and do not present, like the latter, the ever-changing, graceful forms of restless waves.

At first, it is true, the sight of a steppe causes surprise, by its unlimited extent of space; and when, in the northwest, we step forth from dark, dense forests, and suddenly see before us a smiling, open plain, basking in bright sunshine, and glowing and glittering with a thousand colors, the impression is both pleasing and striking. Soon, however, its unbroken uniformity wearies the wanderer; indistinct, half-unconscious longings fill his heart; the desire of more varied impressions seizes him, and his joy changes into melancholy.

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Where, on the other hand, neither tree nor grass, nor even traces of men appear, and scanty, frugal herbs alone cover the sterile soil, there the steppe becomes more and mare like the desert,

and ever sadder and more desolate, in proportion as animal life, also, is wanting. Thus each steppe has its own marked characteristics, little as they have yet been observed. What a difference, for instance, between the broad plains of Hungary and the salt table-lands of Upper Asia; the grass forests of the llanos and the carroos of Southern Africa! All have one feature in common: the expression of wide extent of being grand, almost infinite in space. But whilst the desert is full of terrors, the steppe is more cheerful; here the wanderer is at least not pursued at every step by signs and symptoms of death; he may faint from fatigue, and his mind may be wearied with painful monotony, but he still meets with rare signs of life, and does not feel, as in the Sahara, the breath of the destroyer in every current of air.

His sufferings are, therefore, of the mind, rather than of the body. The constant uniformity begins to weigh heavily upon his unoccupied thoughts, and the unusual, complete independence of external influences causes him discomfort; his loneliness becomes a burden, and his freedom loathsome. His fancy wanders far and near, to enliven his weary mind by pictures of the past, or by fictions in unknown realms, in order thus to afford, from within, the accustomed variety of ideas which the outer world no longer suggests. Thus it is that the imagination of the dweller in the steppe becomes as roving and restless, as subject to vague, indistinct longing, as his actual life; but it is not, as in the dread Sahara, filled with grim, gaunt images of all that is terrible, with tales of bitter deception, and of sudden death that lies ever in waiting. Around him nature lacks variety, as well as individuality; she presents no difficulties to overcome, as in African regions, or on the high sea, where the heart grows strong, and the knee humble before God, in unceasing struggle; she refuses him a country that belongs to his nation only, and, above all, the greatest of boons, a home of his own. Hence arises that want of powerful motives for exertion, and even amusement, which is supplied by the more varied soil of happier countries. The steppe has not, we must confess, that stimulating, developing, refining influence on the mind and the heart

which is felt in the shadow of lofty mountains, or in sight of the blue ocean. It retards the progress of races, and hence is the proper and peculiar home of nomadic tribes. There man rarely says: "It is good for us to be here; let us build tabernacles;" and he thus remains a shepherd, age after age; never passing onward to become a tiller of the soil; to form a commonwealth, with all its blessings; and to the worship of the Muses and the Graces. The children of the unbounded plains of Middle Asia, where we meet with the most perfect steppes, have, through all ages, remained wandering tribes of shepherds, while, hard by, the more favored plains of Eastern Europe have, from olden times, had settled homes, and well-secured boundaries. So powerful, indeed, is the influence of the steppe on the life of man, that even in well-cultivated Hungary, the character of the Magyars still retains some nomadic features; and in other races, as in the Arabs, the truly great and glorious epochs, and noble, enthusiastic efforts of a whole nation, have not been able to remove the sons of the steppe from their original condition.

So, too, we find that the true steppes of our continent, the pampas of South America, also have their own striking features, and their strongly marked children. Here, nature alone reigns supreme: no oasis reminds you of former dwellers on the soil; no hewn stone speaks of labor, and its blessings; no neglected fruit tree recalls the industry and the enjoyments of past generations. The changeless plain stretches far and wide to the changeless horizon; a wide, wild theatre, on which plants and animals alone lead their mysterious, unknown life. Even the most impressive sight of the pampas, surpassing, in grandeur and majesty, all other wonders of our globe, has this lonely, saddening character. It is in the lower part of the boundless plains, where the gigantic La Plata is seen to roll its vast unmeasured masses through the peaceful steppe, amidst solemn silence, and in sublime solitude. Few are the traces of life; fewer still, the rare objects that attract our attention. In hidden crevices, a cactus hides its round balls, horrid with threateuing thorns; and now and then, at vast distances, a solitary umber, the only

tree of the country, rises like a great landmark, in unspeakable loneliness and sadness. Occasionally, there appears on the vast plain, where it rests in deepest solitude, the huge skeleton of an animal, that lived at times when the Andes were still sleeping at the bottom of the great ocean, and dreamt not of ever raising their snow-covered heads to heaven. The whole expanse of the pampas is said to be one great sepulchre of these extinct gigantic bipeds; and, like ghosts of a race far older than man, they rise from their grave, to bear witness of Him who made both them and us. Of late years, huge mounds also may be seen to rise on the plain, covering the bones of whole generations, that now slumber in sublime isolation in this vast solitude. Formerly, all the Indian tribes carried their dead to the coast, and there buried them by the side of their fathers; now, they find a resting-place only in the midst of the wild, inhospitable desert! High above it, a black point is seen in the air: it is a condor, slowly tracing his wide gyrations in the blue ether; or far away, on the faint horizon, the quaint form of an ostrich passes and vanishes, like a dream of our fancy. Still, there is an indescribable charm in this very solitude; its wild, unfettered freedom gives, even the traveler from the far north, an idea of the fervor with which the Indians love it here, hoping to see still vaster pamp as in the world to come.

These immense plains, as yet but little known, stretch from the straits of Magellan to the Colorado river, covering an area four times the size of the empire of France, and extending in length to more than eight hundred miles. At the south, snow and ice cover the ground for months; at the north, palm-trees are seen to lift their graceful plumes on high, and the breezes are loaded with richest fragrance. They are, strictly speaking, plains of the temperate zone; but, in fact, they extend through all geographical and climatic zones, and exhibit the richest varieties of natural life, perhaps, known in our globe. It is here that we see the productive power of nature, and the marvelous goodness of our Lord, manifested in the most striking and majestic forms. They present to us, in their vast extent, a greater variety of surface, of climate, and of products, than the wild forests of the Amazon, or the sandy Sahara.

Far down, at the southern extremity of this continent, there opens a plain, barren in the extreme, and covered with countless pebbles of porphyry; for shingle is the characteristic feature of the Patagonian Pampas. In the south, we meet with thick layers of lava, the result of former eruptions of volcanoes in the Andes, which still rear their formidable craters in a majestic line against the horizon, and threaten, ever and anon, to speak, after a silence of ages, once more, in voices of thunder, to mankind. These parts are utterly sterile, and apparently forsaken by God and man. But, from thence, the plains begin gradually to rise, from the coast of the Atlantic toward the foot of the Andes; now gently ascending, and now mounting upwards in magnificent, gigantic terraces, one above the other, until they, at last, reach to the summits of the snow-capped mountains. Towards the northern part, the pebbles become smaller, rich tracts of land break in upon the barren shingle, and, finally, make way for luxurious pasturage, where are found large and numerous herds of Patagonian cattle. These would be fertile regions, indeed, and happy, were it not for a want of water, of which, in our more favored regions, we have no adequate conception. The quantity of rain that ordinarily falls is always small, but there are long, dreary seasons of absolute drought. That charming traveler Darwin, tells us that, from 1827 to 1830, not a drop fell, and all vegetation, even the hardy thistle, failed utterly. All brooks dried up in this great drought-as it is still called-and the whole country appeared like a huge, dusty high-road. An incredible number of birds, wild animals, cattle and horses, died from want of food and water. Deer came, fearlessly, into court-yards, to wells dug by the Spaniards; partridges could not fly, when pursued; and, of cattle, a million heads perished, alone, in the province of Buenos Ayres. Nay, the ground being so long perfectly dry, and enormous quantities being daily blown about for years, the landmarks became obliterated, and men could not tell, any longer, the limits of their estates! In summer, the heat is intense, and the soil glows, as if blighted by furnace-heat; in winter, violent winds sweep unimpeded over the plain, and, at night,

bitter frosts form ice on the surface.

Here live the Patagonians, the fabled giants of old; but much as their size has been exaggerated, it surpasses, according to the latest explorers, in height and robust strength, that of all other nations. Among two or three hundred men, Capt. Fitzroy found only half a dozen, who measured under six feet, and even the women were tall in proportion. Huge cloaks, made of skins, and hanging not ungracefully, in ample folds, from the shoulders down to the ground, still add to the gigantic, massive impression of their whole appearance. Their rough, but straight hair, is oddly gathered in nets, made of the sinews of slain animals, and yet seems in keeping with the fantastic painting in red, black, and white, that adorns their faces, marking broad bars across the brow, and large white circles around the eyes. contrasts strangely enough with the peculiar color of their skin-a hue between pure copper and old mahogany, but easily distinguished from that of all other natives of this continent.

This

Their huts resemble much the dwellings of gipsies: for posts, the stalks of gigantic thistles are rammed into the ground; other stalks of the same size and lightness are fastened on above, and the whole is covered with undressed skins, inclosing it above and on three sides, but leaving one towards the east, wide open. Within, nothing is seen but the skins on which these children of the wilderness sleep, and their weapons. Among the latter, the bolas are both the most formidable, and the most familiar to general readers. They consist of two or three round pebbles, hard clay balls or actual lead and iron, sewed up in skins and fastened to stout leather thongs of equal length, which are tied together. The Indian takes one ball in his hand, swings the other several times around his head, and then lets the whole fly at the object he wishes to seize. His intention is not, as with the lasso, to throw down his prey or his adversary, but with almost incredible skill he manages it so that one ball strikes a hard prominent part and rebounds; the other balls begin at once to swing round in all directions, and the thongs become so interlaced that every effort to unravel them and to free himself makes the poor prisoner only more and more helpless. Another powerful weapon, of like cha

racter, is a single ball fastened to a thin thong, of the length of the arm; the ball, weighing about a pound, is rapidly whirled around the head, and then, with terribly increased velocity, it strikes the enemy with a force little inferior to that of a rifle-ball; in a hand-to-hand fight, the Indian uses it as the old Swiss did their famous "Morning-star."

The food of these Indians is in keeping with their habits otherwise; they eat, generally, whatever they can reach, without regard to Savarin or Kitchener; but their main staple consists of fillies and young mares, which they stew and roast in various ways, of which even the good burghers of Copenhagen, who sell horse-flesh, regularly, in their market, are probably still unaware. Common deer and guanacos are not despised; horn-encased armadilloes and all-digesting ostriches, appear only on great occasions. Their taste, however, is strongly in favor of animal food; for, of vegetables they only know two humble roots, and, oddly enough, the epicurean's great delight, the delicate bud of the artichoke.

The Patagonians present to us, perhaps, the most striking instance of a barbarous nation combining the chase, as a national pursuit, with the raising of cattle. No tribe has, therefore, an exclusive right to any part of the immense territory; and all roam, free and unimpeded, over their vast plains. Thanks to their active life, and the good speed of their horses, they travel with amazing rapidity. Tribes that were seen in September, near the straits of Magellan, were, in February, next Imet with on the banks of the Rio Negro a distance of at least 2,200 miles! They have poor and rich men among them; the latter own forty or fifty horses, and several dozens of dogs; the former, at least one dog and a couple of horses.

But the incredible number of the latter, literally counting millions, and the profusion of food, ever ready for consumption, are naturally destructive of all industry. The people know no toil, nor its sweet fruits and rich blessings. Socialists in a novel manner, the hungry wait until their rich neighbors have finished their meal; and then, without asking leave, glide up to their stores and help themselves at discretion. Like our fellow-citizens in Utah, they love expansively, and know the great

art of enjoying, both the company of many wives, and the blessings of domestic peace. Their faith hardly deserves that name, though it is superior to that of other savages. They have good gods, and bad gods; the former live in caves beneath the ground, to which the souls of the departed return after death, to dwell in happy communion. The bad deities are worshipped only to appease their anger. The dwellers upon earth were made in the subterranean caves, and their manner of accounting for the difference between themselves and the superior Spaniard is not without originality, because almost the only instance of an humble acknowledgment of such superiority. They admit that the gods made the Patagonians, and endowed them with spears, arrows, and bolas; but then sent them up to the surface to shift for themselves. The Spaniards, on the contrary, were gifted with guns and swords in addition. In like manner they account for the fact, that they had no cattle before the arrival of these formidable strangers. Animal after animal, they say, came forth from the lower regions; the smallest and prettiest, first; the later, less diminutive and less handsome. They began to fear for their safety, and when the first horned head appeared, they were seized with fright, and rolled huge stones before the opening of the caves, so as to prevent still larger and more dreadful beasts from appearing. The Spaniards, they add, were bolder, and allowed cattle and horses to issue forth from their strange birth-place.

The peculiar climate of these plains has its influence upon vegetation, as well as upon man. Oppressively hot in summer, few winter nights pass without hoar-frost, and the transition is commonly as sudden as it is striking. Hence, a coarse, tufted, brown grass, is the almost universal vesture of a plain, as level as the sea, and without a stone, stretching far and wide between the Atlantic and the Andes. Along the coast, mighty masses of porphyry are strewn over the solitude; further inland, a few low beeches, armed with spines, break the weary monotony, and here and there shelter a sensitive cactus, whose stamens contract at the gentlest touch. Still higher up, turf-moors and bogs at times show their dismal, dark outlines on the sterile soil, or mimic the tropical forest

with their gigantic reeds and rushes. But on the plains themselves, treeless, pathless, waterless, the strangest change takes place, during the four seasons, of which we have any record. In winter, the interminable solitude is covered with the large, creeping leaves of thistles, and with clover in richest abundance. In spring, the latter disappears, leaving no trace behind it, and in less than a month, a dense, blooming forest of gigantic thistles rises to a height of ten or twelve feet. Their stems are so close to each other that the eye cannot penetrate the mass, and the plants are so thickly covered with spines, that the miniature forest becomes impenetrable. A few paths only are made, as impenetrable as the labyrinth of the ancients, and known only to robbers and cut-throats; so that Darwin was assured of his safety in traversing these strange regions in early spring by the remark: "There are no robbers yet, the thistles are not up!" Ere summer has fairly passed away, these luxuriant weeds have lost their sap, and with it their fresh, luxuriant green; the bulky heads hang heavily down; the leaves are shrunk and shriveled; the dry, dark stems rattle in the slightest breeze, like the dry bones in the valley, and the first fierce wind of autumn snaps them, and scatters them over the plain. In a few weeks, they, also, have vanished, and are seen no more; the humble clover reappears, and, master of the soil for a season, spreads, once more, the richest verdure as far as the eye can reach.

True to that beautiful sympathy, which finds even the great kingdoms of nature in sweet dependence, one on another, we find here, also, that a scanty flora supports but a scanty fauna. Most of the native animals, moreover, are cannibals, and live not on herbs, but upon each other. The tiger and the jaguar are the tyrants of these plains; and the fierce, bloodthirsty puma preys upon all, ever followed by the vulture on high, falling with lightning speed upon the remnant left by his nobler companion. Peculiar to these steppes is also the guanaco, a reddish-brown stag, with hairy ears, and soft, smooth fur, that feeds on the coarse, wiry grass of the most sterile regions. Fleet as the gazelle, and as timid and wild, they are seen in large herds chasing the clouds on the steppe, or