(6) Rodentia: the cavies, guinea-pigs, and several porcupines. Rats, sandrats, chinchillas, and squirrels.

(7) Pinnipedia: seals in Patagonia.

(8) Carnivora: the jaguar, the puma, and some smaller cats; bears, rdcoons, and kinkajous.

(9) Chiroptera: numerous bats, among them the vampires. (10) Quadrumana; numerous monkeys, especially small or slender monkeys with long tails; none of the large monkeys live in America.

675. PLANTS. South America is as rich in variety and in quantity of vegetation as the tropical parts of the Old World but its plants are generally very distinct from those of the Old World. It possesses palms, bamboos, and treeferns, but many orders of Old-world plants it is without altogether; while it possesses other orders of plants of which no species is found anywhere in the Old World.

The dense tropical tree jungles, moist nearly the whole year, abounding in liaines (or gigantic creepers) prevail along the banks of the Amazon, and such swampy forests are known as Silvas. There are large plains bare of trees on the Upper Orinoco called Llanos, intensely hot. The plains temperate in climate bare of trees, but at some seasons covered densely with huge thistles, on the La Plata are called the Pampas. The upper levels of the Andes and the west side of the Andes watershed have generally a dry climate and are bare of trees.

Of indigenous useful plants South America has not produced many the chief is cacao, a bush, the berries of which are so plentiful and so nourishing a food that, it is said, land under cacao will support more souls than under any other known crop, and with far less labour. The potato was indigenous to the higher Andes. Matè, or Paraguay tea, is a favourite substitute for tea in South America. Quinine, the most celebrated remedy for tropical fevers, is supplied by several species of trees native in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Maize is also perhaps indigenous; but many of the most valued crops, as sugar-cane, coffee, cotton and wheat, have been introduced from the Old World.

676. MINERALS. The Andes are richly metalliferous for several thousand miles of their length. Peru is celebrated for its silver mines, and nearly every valuable metal has been obtained from the Andes-gold, silver, mercury, copper, tin, lead, bismuth, cobalt, antimony, arsenic. But the yield has much diminished in late years, principally because the political state of the country is such that capital will not go there. For 300 years after the discovery of America Peru (with Mexico) supplied the world with precious metals; it has been reckoned 1,000,000,000l. worth of gold and silver in all,

678. Ecuador, so named because it lies across the equator, is bounded on the West by the Pacific; on the North by Colombia; on the East by Brazil; on the South by Peru. The boundary between Ecuador and Peru is often shown to be the Amazon, but it is really not fixed.

The Territory includes a piece of the Andes chain, some sloping plains on the Upper Amazon, and a small strip of

the Atlantic sea-board. Quito, the capital, contains 76,000 inhabitants, and is on a plain 9,700 feet above the sea. The climate here is temperate; in the low-level parts of Ecuador it is of course very hot. It produces on the eastern slopes cacao of excellent quality, which is exported; in the temperate forests cinchona bark is collected for export. The State is agricultural and not mining.

The two celebrated volcanoes of Chimborazo (21,424 feet altitude), and Cotopaxi are in Ecuador, the mountain territory of which is much subject to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The town of Riobamba in 1797 was blown up as if by a mine; both the houses and the inhabitants were hurled across the river Lican.

The port of Guayaquil, on the Pacific (population 22,000), is only ninety miles from Quito, and the chief line of communication of Ecuador, but it is impassable for half the

year.

The Government of Ecuador is a Mestizo Spanish Republic; the State has enjoyed civil war nearly continuously for many years, and little is known about it.

Sect. LV. COLOMBIA.

679. Colombia, also called New Granada, is bounded by Ecuador on the South; Venezuela on the East; the Caribbean Sea on the North; the Pacific on the West; the Isthmus of Panama is a Province of Colombia.

The Andes Cordillera runs through the country from north to south in two or three ridges; between the two main ridges the river Magdalena runs north into the Caribbean Sea. The headwaters of the Orinoco rise in the eastern part of Colombia.

Much of Colombia is high land: Bogota, population 45,000, the capital, stands 8,600 feet above the sea in a temperate climate; many of the plains at middle level are "Llanos" bereft of trees. The lower levels produce excellent cacao, and the temperate forests cinchona bark, as in

Ecuador. Colombia also exports sugar, cotton, and indiarubber. Colombia contains richly gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, platina, coal, and emeralds; but little mining is carried

on.

The port is Cartagena, celebrated in history, but now decayed, and containing hardly 10,000 inhabitants. The two ports at the ends of the Isthmus Railway are also in Colombian territory, viz., Panama on the Pacific, Aspinwall on the Caribbean Sea.

Colombia is a Mestizo Spanish Republic, and has had of late years much civil war. The whole revenue of the State is not enough to pay the interest of the debt, i.e. it is completely bankrupt.

Sect. LVI. VENEZUELA.

680. Venezuela is bounded on the West by Colombia; on the South by Brazil; on the East by British Guiana; on the North by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic.

Venezuela is the basin of the Orinoco; this great river is four miles wide 250 miles above its mouth; the plains on its banks are some wooded (Silvas), others bare (Llanos), on which large herds are kept.

Venezuela is one of the best cacao-producing countries; sugar, cotton, tobacco, indigo, are also grown for export: the best populated parts of the country being mostly at low-levels. There is little mining. Earthquakes are frequent. Carraccas the capital, population 50,000, is elevated 2,800 feet above the sea. Maracaybo, population 20,000, is on the lake (or rather bay) of that name.

Venezuela is a Mestizo Spanish Republic, and has had for many years past much civil war. It is completely bankrupt, having paid no interest on its funded debt for the last twelve years, and indeed the whole revenue of the State could not pay the interest.

Sect. LVII. TRINIDAD.

681. Trinidad, commonly reckoned a West India island, is really close to South America. It is a British colony, and it is the most prosperous State in South America. The island is highly fertile, producing cacao, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton, &c. The English planters import coolies from Bengal as labourers for hire. Port-of-Spain, population 18,000, is the capital.

Sect. LVIII. BRITISH GUIANA.

682, British Guiana is bounded by Venezuela on the West; Brazil on the South; Dutch Guiana on the East; the Atlantic on the North.

The mountains in the south which separate it from Brazil are upwards of 11,000 feet high. This colony is often called Demerara, from the river of that name, at the mouth of which stands George Town, population 30,000, the capital.

The settled cultivated portion of the colony is the low land near the sea, where sugar is raised: the climate here is intensely hot and moist and the country swampy but even this coast part of British Guiana is less unhealthy than most tropical sea-coasts. The interior of the territory is imperfectly explored.

The population consists of 12,000 whites, mainly English; 15,000 coolies from Bengal, and the rest Negroes.

Sect. LIX. DUTCH GUIANA.

683. Dutch Guiana is a parallel strip of territory to British Guiana, running back like it from the sea-coast to the mountains; its circumstances of cultivation and population are also very similar. This colony is often called