And now, also, the animal life of the savanna awakens to the full enjoyment of existence. The horse and the ox rejoice in the grasses, under whose covert the jaguar⑨ frequently lurks to pounce upon them with his fatal spring. On the border of the swamps, the moist clay, slowly heaving, bursts asunder, and from the tomb in which he lay embedded rises a gigantic water-snake or huge crocodile.
The new-formed pools and lakes swarm with life, anda host of water-fowl,-i"bises, cranes, flami?"goes,-make their appearance to regale on the abundant banquet. A new creation of insects and other unbidden guests now seek the wretched hovels of the Indians. Worms and vermin of all names and forms emerge from the inundated plain; for the tropical rains have gradually converted the savanna, which erewhile exhibited a waste as dreary as that of the Sahara, into a boundless lake.
- HARTWIG AND SCHOMBURGK
NOTES
① Llanos, extensive open plains.
② Calcined, converted into powder by heat, or made so as easily to be crumbled.
③ Siberia, the Russian territory extending across the north of Asia.
④ Savonna, a wide meadow, covered with long grass.
⑤ Melon-cactus, a plant of the cactus family, which are all natives of America, with fruit theshape of a melon. The fruit of another kind of cactus is called the prickly pear, or Indian fig.
⑥ Alligator, a ferocious and powerful reptile, resembling very closely the crocodile of the Nile. Its ordinary length is from fifteen to eighteen feet; but it is sometimes much longer. Its numerous teeth are very sharp, and it has a most formidable tail.
⑦ Water-boa, a species of snake which has the power of living in water.
⑧ The rainy season.-In tropical countries, there is a dry season, during which there is no rain, followed by a rainy season, during which rain falls every day. At and near the equator, there are two rainy seasons and two dry ones in the year; at the tropics, only one. The reason of this is, that the rain depends upon the sun, which crosses the equator twice a year, and each of the tropics only once. This deion of the return of the rainy season in South America should be compared with that of the advent of the south-west monsoon in Ceylon.
⑨ Jaguar, the American tiger or panther, an extremely fierce and destructive beast of prey.
QUESTIONS
