y covered with sand, incapable of cultivation,
or scattered over with masses of granite. In summer, these plains are
quite destitute of water, and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of
buffaloes and wild horses. Some hordes of Indians are also found
there, but in no great numbers. Major Long was told that in travelling
northwards from the River Platte you find the same desert lying
constantly on the left; but he was unable to ascertain the truth of this
report. However worthy of confidence may be the narrative of Major Long,
it must be remembered that he only passed through the country of which
he speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he had traced
out for his journey.

[Footnote a: The 20th degree of longitude, according to the meridian of
Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th degree on the meridian of
Greenwich.]

Appendix B

South America, in the region between the tropics, produces an incredible
profusion of climbing plants, of which the flora of the Antilles alone
presents us with forty different species. Among the most graceful of
these shrubs is the passion-flower, which, according to Descourtiz,
grows with such luxuriance in the Antilles, as to climb trees by means
of the tendrils with which it is provided, and form moving bowers of
rich and elegant festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, and
fragrant with perfume. The Mimosa scandens (Acacia a grandes gousses) is
a creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from tree to tree,
and sometimes covers more than half a league.

Appendix C

The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from the Pole
to Cape Horn, are said to be all formed upon the same model, and subject
to the same grammatical rules; whence it may fairly be concluded that
all the Indian nations sprang from the same stock. Each tribe of
the American continent speaks a different dialect; but the number of
languages, properly so called, is very small, a fact which tends to
prove that the nations of the New World had not a very remote origin.
Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree of regularity,
from which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not
undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated voluntarily or
by constraint, with foreign nations. For it is generally the union of
several languages into one which produces grammatical irregularities. It
is not long since the American languages,