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The extent of the larger savannahs is very great, some of them exceeding twenty miles, and the horses that are allowed to range in them become so shy, that their owners only can approach them, and the animals are considered safe from depredators. As we gradually emerged from the hard bosom of the mountains, we were struck with the simple beauty of this little garden of nature.
About it were green savannahs, forest reaches, the call of bird and deer, while in the distance, fronted by a stretch of columns a mile in length, the palace stood a palace so ineffably charming that on the day of reckoning may it outbalance a few of his sins. Even the cellars were frescoed. The baths were quite comfortable; you had waters salt or sulphurous at will.
Fortunately for him my men translated the order in its most literal sense; and being at the time in the middle of vast savannahs entirely destitute of trees, the execution was held over, as it was an impossibility to perform it.
They would lie loafing about the beaches and all of a sudden anger would run among them like thin fire in the savannahs, which runs up the sap wood of the pines, winding, and taking flight from the top like a bird. Then they would stab one another in their rages, or roast an Indian because he would not tell them where gold was. For they could not get it out of their heads that there was gold.
The surface of this large island is partly composed of large pasture plains, and partly of mountains, the latter of which afford some gold; and the plains, or savannahs, are stored with buffaloes, bullocks, horses, sheep, goats, and hogs. The inhabitants are Indians, who live in little towns, under the Spanish jurisdiction, and are instructed in the Romish religion by Spanish priests.
I have had similar thoughts when riding over hundreds of miles of fertile savannahs in Central America, where an everlasting summer and fertile land yield a harvest of fruits and grain all the year round where it is not even necessary "to tickle the ground with a hoe to make it laugh with a harvest."
The natives still believe that the soul of the tyrant wanders in the savannahs like a flame, which flies on the approach of men. I wish that I could recollect more of the stories narrated on that evening. We were interrupted by a rushing sound, as if some animal were breaking through the bushes. The doctor started up, exclaiming, "An anaconda! a boa!
In these savannahs, flakes of fire rising to a considerable height, are seen for hours together in the dryest places; and it is asserted, that, on examining the ground no crevice is perceptible.
In addition to a rich gold mine which he worked, at no great distance off, he was the owner of countless herds of horses, mules, and cattle, that in a half-wild state roamed over the vast savannahs and forests that constituted the twenty leagues of land belonging to the hacienda. Such a vast tract of territory belonging to one man is by no means a rare thing in northern Mexico.
In the south, the savannahs and the forests of Brazil, the pampas of the Argentine, and the interior of Patagonia, escaped the observation of the explorers, as they were destined to do for a long time yet. In Africa, the long line of coasts, which are washed by the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, had been patiently followed and observed by navigators.
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