Contests With Jaguars
Nature, ever provident, has scattered with a bounteous hand her gifts in the country of the Orinoco, where the jaguar especially abounds. The savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite blocks lie here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums, heliconias, llianas. The shelves of primitive rocks, scarcely elevated above the plain, are partially covered with lichens and mosses, together with succulent plants and tufts of evergreen shrubs with shining leaves. The horizon is bounded with mountains overgrown with forests of laurels, among which clusters of palms rise to the height of more than a hundred feet, their slender stems supporting tufts of feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees.

When these columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air, produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs of the mountains.