PAMPAS

The name given to one of the great systems of South American plains, which can scarcely, with propriety,becalled deserts, inasmuch as they are covered with luxuriant herbage, and inhabited by vast herds of wild cattle and droves of horses. The region of the Pampas forms the basins of the Paraguay and La Plata, and includes the vast plains of Buenos Ayres, extending from the foot of the eastern ridge of the Andes to the "sea-like Plata," and stretching southward into the deserts of Patagonia. (TrailPs Physical Geography.) [s. 895]