The real grandeur, however, of an immense river like this is
derived from reflecting how important a means of communication and
commerce it forms between one nation and another; to what a
distance it travels, and from how vast a territory it drains the
great body of fresh water which flows past your feet.
For many leagues north and south of San Nicolas and Rozario, the
country is really level. Scarcely anything which travellers have
written about its extreme flatness can be considered as
exaggeration. Yet I could never find a spot where, by slowly
turning round, objects were not seen at greater distances in some
directions than in others; and this manifestly proves inequality in
the plain. At sea, a person's eye being six feet above the surface
of the water, his horizon is two miles and four-fifths distant. In
like manner, the more level the plain, the more nearly does the
horizon approach within these narrow limits; and this, in my
opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur which one would have
imagined that a vast level plain would have possessed.
(PLATE 31. TOXODON PLATENSIS. (FOUND AT SALADILLO.))
OCTOBER 1, 1833.
We started by moonlight and arrived at the Rio Tercero by sunrise.
Pages:
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271