l^ 



EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



scattered, and to set sail for South. America. 

 He touclied at Teneriffe, and ascended the 

 celebrated peak. Hereby be established the 

 Plutonian theory of the earth's formation in 

 contradistinction to the Neptunian. 



AMEEICA AT LAST. 



An epidemic, which broke out on board 

 the " Pizarro," forced the captain to land his 

 passengers at Cumana, on the north-east coast 

 of Venezuela, and here aU Humboldt's long- 

 ings and aspirations were satisfied. He em- 

 ployed eighteen months in collecting speci- 

 mens and exploring the country, and in a 

 frail canoe ran up the Orinoco, penetrated 

 to its source, and found its junction with the 

 Hio Negro and the Amazon. Here his soul 

 drank in that which he had so long longed 

 for, and his eyes were feasted on immea- 

 surable space. Here, says he, " you find a 

 plain, bare indeed of any tree, but covered 

 with rare herbs. Not a hill, not a rock, rises 

 like an islet in this boundless space, this sea 

 of Jand. Only some fragments of vast heaps 

 of alluvial soil surge up, thinly scattered in a 

 space of two hundred square leagues, and 

 appear slightly higher than the surrounding 

 plain. * * * In the midst of this grand 

 and wild Nature a diverse and savage people 

 live, separated each from each by a strange 

 diversity of tongue. Some, like the Ottomacs 

 and the Taurodos, are wanderers, living on 

 grubs, ants, gums, and earth; others are 

 more cultivated, and possess intelligence and 

 gentle manners. The vast space between the 

 Cassiquaire and the Atababo is peopled not 

 by men, but by tapirs and apes formed into 

 societies. Figures and characters cut upon 

 the rocks testify that formerly civilization had 

 advanced here. Intheinterior of the steppes, 

 the tiger and the crocodile make war upon 

 the horse and the bull ; upon its woody boun- 

 daries man perpetually seeks to slay man; 

 some, aliens of Nature, drink the blood of 

 their enemies; others, apparently without 



arms, are yet prepared for murder, and slay 

 with the poisoned nail of their thumb ; the 

 weakest tribes, creeping along the sandy 

 shore, eiface with their hands the traces of 

 their timid footsteps. Thus, in the most ab- 

 ject barbarism, as in the deceptive glitter of 

 refined civilization, man ever creates for him- 

 self a life of misery. The traveller who over- 

 runs all space, no less than the historian who 

 interrogates all ages, has ever before him the 

 sad and changeless picture of human discord." 



Sad, indeed, is the reflection; sad, but 

 true. It is for the good, the tender, the 

 truly brave, and the kind, to knit up this 

 ravelled garment of life. Well might Hum- 

 boldt, observing the littleness and vileness of 

 man, turn again to the continent — to that vast 

 expanse, "wherein you grow almost accus- 

 tomed to regard men as something imimpor- 

 tant in the order of Nature." But Humboldt 

 loved man equally with Nature, and for him 

 treasured up knowledge, no less than for 

 himself. Geology, ethnography, and geogra- 

 phy were the especial objects of his many 

 travels ; to these were also added natural 

 history. After returning to Cumana with 

 his friend Bonpland, and their admirable 

 collection, they again set out and reached 

 Quito in January, 1802. Five months were 

 devoted to Quito, and to the exploration of 

 its mountain valleys and the chain of snow- 

 capped mountains which surround it. He 

 ascended, on the 23rd of June, 1802, Chim- 

 borazo, the summit of which is 21,420 feet 

 above the sea.* 



In his " Cosmos," Humboldt has beauti- 

 fully described the glorious sensation of 

 looking out from the high mountain over the 

 plains beneath him, and then told us that, to 

 his latest day, the impressions he then had 



* There is a school rhyme about this : — 

 " Chimborazo vras formerly thought to be 

 The highest mountain which ever man did see," 

 We need scarcely remind our readers that the Eastern 

 Hemisphere boasts the highest mountain, the Everest, 

 a peak of the Himalayas. 



