THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
THE tropical regions, more than any other part of the world, are suggestive of magnificence-of luxuriant vegetation and diversified animal life; yet they embrace but a small portion comparatively of the land of the globe. While the greater part of the North Temperate Zone is occupied by land, the floods of ocean roll over much the larger portion of the equatorial regions; for both torrid America and Africa appear as mere islands in a vast expanse of sea. This superabundance of water is one of the great provisions which Nature has made for mitigating the heat of the vertical sun. To this cause the Tropics are indebted for those copious rains and periodic winds and constant ocean currents, which endow them with such an amazing variety of climate. The Indian Archipelago, the Peninsula of Malacca, the Antilles, and Central America, are all undoubtedly indebted to the waters which bathe theircoasts for a more temperate climate than they would have had if they had been grouped together in one vast continent.
Another cause of the varieties of tropical climate is to be found in varied elevation of surface. Thus the high situation of many tropical lands moderates the effects of equatorial heat, and endows them with a climate similar to that of the temperate, or even of the cold regions of the globe. The Andes and the Himalaya, the most stupendous mountain- chains of the world, raise their snow-clad summits either within the tropics or immediately beyond their verge, and must be considered as ordained by Providence to counteract the effects of the vertical sunbeams over a vast extent of land. In Western Tropical America, in Asia, and in Africa, there areimmense countries rising like terraces thousands of feet above the level of the ocean, and reminding the European traveller of his distant northern home by their productions and their cool temperature. Thus, by means of a few simple physical and geological causes acting and re?cting upon each other on a magnificent scale, Nature has bestowed a wonderful variety of climate upon the tropical regions, producing a no less wonderful diversity of plants and of animals.
Embracing the broad base of South America, the tropical regions bring before us the wide-spreading llanos of Venezue"la and New Grana"da; the majestic Andes, rising through every zone of vegetation to an Arctic region of perpetual snow; and the high table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, where the llama, the alpaca, and the vicuna have their home. The frosts of winter and an eternal spring are nowhere found in closer proximity than in the Peruvian highlands: for deep valleys cleave the windy Puna , as these lofty table-lands are called; and when the traveller, benumbed by the cold blasts of the mountain-plains, descends into the sheltered gorges, he almost suddenly finds himself transported from a northern climate to a terrestrial paradise.
Situated at a height where the enervating power of the tropical sun is not felt, and where at the same time the air is not too rarefied, these pleasant mountain vales, protected by their rocky walls against the gusts of the puna, enjoy all the advantages of a genial sky. Here the astonished European sees himself surrounded by the rich corn-fields, the green lucern-①meadows,and the well-known fruit trees of his distant home;so that he might almost fancy that some friendly enchanter had transported him to his native country, but for the cactuses② and the agaves③ on the mountain-slopes by day, and the constellations of another hemisphere in the heavens by night.
There are regions in this remarkable country where the traveller may leave the snow-roofed puna hut in the morning,and before sunset pluck pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated margin of the primeval forest; where in the morning the stunted grasses and arid lichens of the naked plain remind him of the Arctic regions, and where he may repose at night under the fronds of gigantic palms.
Descending to the Pacific sea-bord, we come upon the desolate Peruvian sand-coast, where the eye seldom sees anything but fine drift-sand and sterile heaps of stone; and where for miles and miles the traveller meets no traces of vegetation, nor finds one drop of water. But when we pass to④the other side of the Andes, how marvellous the contrast! Onthe one side, an arid, waterless, treeless waste; on the other, the luxuriant valley of the Amazon, the giant of rivers, which has made a broad course for itself through vast savannas and stupendous forests!
The Amazon has its cradle high up among the peaks of the Andes, where the condor, the vulture of America, builds its nest. So vast is the basin of that great river, that all Western Europe could be placed in it without touching its boundaries! It is entirely situated in the Tropics, on both sides of the Equator, and receives over its whole extent the most abundant rains.
The swelling of the river, after the rainy season,is giganticas itself. In some parts the water rises above forty feet; and travellers have even seen trees whose trunks bore marks of the previous inundation fifty feet above the height of the stream during the dry season. Then for miles and miles the swelling giant inundates his low banks, and, majestic at all times, becomes terrible in his grandeur when rolling his angry torrents through the wilderness. The largest forest- trees tremble under the pressure of the waters. Huge trunks, uprooted and carried away by the stream, bear witness to its power. Fishes and alligators now swim where a short while ago the jaguar lay in wait for its prey; and only a few birds,perching on the highest tree-tops, remain to witness the tumult which disturbs the silence of the woods.
