A glance showed the truth of Dr.Krueger's words:-- 'It is impossible to describe the feelings of the botanist when arriving at a field like this, so much unlike anything he has seen before.

Here are full-blowing large Orchids, with red, white, and yellow flowers; and among the grasses, smaller ones of great variety, and as great scientific interest--Melastomaceous plants of various genera; Utricularias, Droseras, rare and various grasses, and Cyperoids of small sizes and fine kinds, with a species of Cassytha; in the water, Ceratophyllum (the well-known hornwort of the English ponds) and bog-mosses.

Such a variety of forms and colours is nowhere else to be met with in the island.' Of the Orchids, we only found one in flower; and of the rest, of course, we had time only to gather a very few of the more remarkable, among which was that lovely cousin of the Clerodendrons, the crimson Amasonia, which ought to be in all hothouses.

The low bushes, I found, were that curious tree the Chaparro, {259a} but not the Chaparro {259b} so often mentioned by Humboldt as abounding on the Llanos.

This Chaparro is remarkable, first, for the queer little Natural Order to which it belongs; secondly, for its tanning properties; thirdly, for the very nasty smell of its flowers; fourthly, for the roughness of its leaves, which make one's flesh creep, and are used, I believe, for polishing steel; and lastly, for its wide geographical range, from Isla de Pinos, near Cuba--where Columbus, to his surprise, saw true pines growing in the Tropics-- all over the Llanos, and down to Brazil; an ancient, ugly, sturdy form of vegetation, able to get a scanty living out of the poorest soils, and consequently triumphant, as yet, in the battle of life.
The soil of the Savanna was a poor sandy clay, treacherous, and often impassable for horses, being half dried above and wet beneath.