The stranger who descends upon the vast savanna from the
mountains that line and defend the coast is impressed with the momentary
belief, when his eye for the first time sweeps over the level immensity,
that he is again approaching the sea. From the hilly country through
which he has toiled, he beholds at his feet a limitless and dusky plain,
smooth as an ocean in repose, but undulating, like it, in gigantic
sweeps and curves. The Llanos that he sees spread out before him thus
are one huge and exuberant pasture. Like the Pampas of Buenos Ayres,
they are the support of myriads of roaming cattle; but, unlike them,
they are intersected by numerous rivers, and suffer rather from excess
than from lack of moisture. The Orinoco sweeps, in turbid magnificence,
from west to east, traversing their entire breadth; and its countless
tributaries seam in every direction the immense plain thus divided, and
frequently by their unmanageable floods turn it for thousands of miles
into a lake.
The dwellers in this region have a character no less distinctive than
that of the Plains themselves. At long intervals, sometimes scores of
miles apart, their habitations are established; but their home is the
saddle. Innumerable herds of cattle and of horses turn to account the
pasturage of the rich savanna; and the true Llanero exists only as
guardian or proprietor of these savage hosts. He is as much at home in
this trackless expanse of rank vegetation as the mariner navigating
a familiar sea.
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