xlvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



nions in Mexico and South America, which now presented itself 

 to their minds as the most suitable means of satisfying their ardent 

 desire for scientific travel and research, and on which they embarked 

 at Corunna in May 1799. It is needless to follow the steps of the 

 distinguished travellers through this celebrated journey, the im- 

 mense results of which have been made known in a multitude of 

 splendid publications, forming the most elaborate and magnificent 

 series that have ever arisen out of a single undertaking. It may 

 be sufficient to say that the botanical collections alone, with which 

 Bonpland chiefly concerned himself, amounted to upwards of 

 6000 species, and were published partly in the " Plantes Equinoc- 

 tiales," 2 vols. foL, Paris, 1808-9 ; in the " Monographia Melasto- 

 macearum," 2 vols, folio, 1806-23 ; and, with the cooperation of 

 Kunth, in the " Nova G-enera et Species Plantarum Americas 

 ^quinoctialis," 7 vols, folio, Paris 1815-25 ; in a " Synopsis " of 

 the same work in 4 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1822-25 ; in the " Mimeses 

 et autres Plantes Legumineuses," fol. Paris, 1819-24; and in the 

 " Distribution Methodique des Grraminees," 2 vols. fol. Paris, 1835. 

 The travellers arrived at Bordeaux on their return to Europe in 

 August 1804, having been absent rather more than five years ; and 

 for the next twelve years Bonpland resided in or near Paris, busied 

 in the arrangement of the collections, and in superintending the 

 various publications connected with them. Soon after his arrival 

 in Prance he was appointed to the charge of the Botanic Garden 

 maintained by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, and published 

 in connection with it a splendid work, entitled " Description des 

 Plantes rares cultivees a Navarre et a Malmaison," fol. Paris, 

 1813-17. On the fall of the Emperor Napoleon, however, his 

 passion for foreign travel appears to have revived ; and in 1818 he 

 again quitted Europe, with the title of Professor of Natural History 

 at Buenos Ayres. Here he did not long continue in a state of 

 repose, but commenced in 1820 a new journey into the interior, 

 with a visit to a colony of Indians which he had founded at 

 Santa Anna on the banks of the River Paraguay, for the purpose of 

 cultivating the Yerva de Paraguay, or Paraguay Tea, regarded 

 throughout South America almost in the light of one of the neces- 

 saries of life. At this place he was seized and made prisoner by 

 the orders of Dr. Francia, who had founded in Paraguay a singular 

 dictatorship on the ruins of the Jesuit power in that province, and 

 who totally destroyed the plantations made by Bonpland, with the 

 view of securing to himself the monopoly of the cultivation to 

 which they were devoted. By his orders Bonpland was carried to 



