176 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



the first edition of the Ansichten der Natur, and I repeat with 

 equal truth the same statement after an interval of forty-one 

 years. The travels of the brothers Robert and Richard 

 Schornburgk, so important in reference to all departments of 

 natural science and geography, have established other and 

 more interesting facts; but the problem of the situation of 

 the sources of the Orinoco has been only partially solved 

 by Sir Robert Schomburgk. M. Bonpland and myself ad- 

 vanced from the west as far as Esmeralda, or the con- 

 fluence of the Orinoco with the Guapo ; and I was enabled, 

 by the aid of well-attested information, to describe the 

 upper course of the Orinoco to above the mouth of the 

 Gehette, and to the small waterfall (Raudal) de los Gua- 

 haribos. From the east Sir Robert Schomburgk, proceed- 

 ing from the mountains of the Majonkong Indians, the 

 inhabited portion of which he estimated by the boiling point 

 of water to be 3517 feet in height, succeeded in reaching the 

 Orinoco by the Padamo River, which the Majonkongs and 

 Guinaus (Guaynas?) call Parainu.** I had placed this con- 

 fluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco in my Atlas, in 

 3° 12' N. lat., and 65° 46' W. long. . but Schomburgk found it 

 by direct observation in 2° 53' lat. and 65° 48' W. long. The 

 main object of this traveller's journey was not ' natural 

 history,' but the solution of the prize question proposed by 

 the Royal Geograjmical Society of London, in November, 

 1834, — on the connection of the coast of British Guiana with 

 the easternmost point which I had reached on the Upper Ori- 

 noco. After undergoing many sufferings, this object was tho- 

 roughly achieved. Robert Schomburgk reached Esmeralda, 

 with his instruments, on the 22nd of February, 1839. His 

 determinations of the latitude and longitude of the place 

 agreed more closely with mine than I had anticipated. Let us 

 here allow the observer to speak for himself: — " Words are in- 

 adequate to describe the feelings which overwhelmed me when 

 I sprang on shore. My object was attained; my observations, 

 begun on the coast of Guiana, were brought into connection 

 with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda, and I freelv admit 

 that at a time when my physical powers had almost entirely 

 deserted me, and when I was surrounded by dangers and dif- 

 ficulties of no ordinary kind, the recognition which I hoped 

 * Eeisen in Guiana, 1841, s. 448. 



