4 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xin. 



" Hotel des Neuchatelois," on the glacier of the Aar. 

 Unsuccessful as a painter, notwithstanding the good 

 teaching and advice of the two great Neuchatel artists, 

 - the brothers, Leopold and Aurel Robert, Burk- 

 hardt, who was not an exact draughtsman, being skil- 

 ful only in colouring the drawings after they had been 

 made by others, led at Neuchatel a precarious and un- 

 settled life, and was unable to make both ends meet. 

 Disappointed in his endeavour to become an artist of 

 repute, Burkhardt enlisted in a sort of half-military, half- 

 colonial organization, created by the Belgian government 

 as a means of establishing a colony in the district of St. 

 Thomas, in Guatemala. When on the point of sailing, 

 the Belgian government received a very strong protest 

 from the president of the republic of Guatemala, against 

 the sending of any military organization ; which he de- 

 clared would not be accepted under any pretext. This 

 put an end to the scheme, and left Belgium much em- 

 barrassed by the crowd of adventurers who had gathered; 

 and in order to dispose of them in the best manner possi- 

 ble, they were ordered to embark on a ship at Antwerp, 

 with sealed orders, to be opened by the captain of the 

 ship and the head of the expedition, when at a distance 

 of several hundred miles from the Belgian port. The 

 sealed orders directed the vessel to go to New York, 

 and there to disembark the colonists, who were to be 

 marched off to the .Belgian consulate, and receive two 

 months' pay, after which they were to be disbanded, and 

 to go and do what they pleased. 



Thus Burkhardt found himself in the streets of New 

 York, ignorant of English, with only a small sum of 



