Much stress has been laid upon the possible economic value of the _llanos_ by some writers, whilst others regard these possibilities as exaggerated.[8] Their area is calculated at 100,000 square miles. They are neither prairies nor desert. During a large part of the year they are subject to heavy rainfall and become swamped, followed by a drought so intense that the streams dry up and the parched grass affords no pasture for stock. There is a total lack of roads, and the rivers are unbridged, and the region is far from the ocean. The trade wind blows fiercely across them. The view over these vast plains as the traveller's eyes suddenly rest upon them as he descends the Andes is very striking, and has been described by various observers, among them Humboldt. In the wet season, when the river overflows, the cattle are driven back to higher ground. When the waters retire alligators and water snakes bury themselves in the mud to pass the dry season. In this connexion stories are told of travellers and others who, having camped for the night in some hut or chosen spot, are suddenly awakened by the upheaval of the ground beneath them and the emergence of some dreadful monster therefrom. A certain traveller's experience in the night was that of being awakened by the barking of his dogs, the noise of which had roused a huge alligator, which heaved up the floor of the hut, attacked the dogs and then made off.[9] As for the old type _llanero_, half Spanish, half Indian, the wild, brave, restless, devil-may-care cowboy, a Cossack of the Colombian Steppes and a boastful Tartarin full of poetic fire rolled into one, is rapidly disappearing. Vanished is the poetry and romance of his life, if it ever really existed outside of his remarkable _cantos_, wherein heroic exploits as soldier, as hunter and as gallant lover are recounted with a superb hyperbole. He seems to have tamed down completely, in spite of the solitary, open-air life, and in spite of the continuance of a certain element of danger, battling with the elements. Encounters with jaguars, reptiles, savage Indians are, however, the rarest of episodes in the life of even the most daring and exposed _llanero_.[10] A "picturesque" character of original _llanero_ stamp was the notorious President Castro of Venezuela, who defied the whole world at one time, and almost succeeded in bringing about a conflict between England and the United States over the Guiana-Venezuela boundary. The wild tribes of Venezuela, and part of British Guiana, are typified in those inhabiting the delta of the Orinoco. They have preserved their racial character in marked degree here, and have been regarded as an offshoot of the Caribs.