EARLY SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONS TO CALIFORNIA. 133 



scientific ardor. He made a journey from Acapulco to the City 

 of Mexico, accompanied the expedition from Acapulco to the 

 Philippine Islands, where he botanized extensively in the island of 

 Luzon, and eventually returned to South America. 



Here was an untouched and indescribably vast field awaiting this 

 investigator of nature, and from Cochabamba, in Peru, which he 

 eventually chose for his home, he made journeys not merely of 

 hundreds but of thousands of miles, following uncharted rivers 

 through wildernesses and traversing lofty mountain chains. 

 Here, moreover, were nations of savage or half-savage peoples, and 

 on account of his reputation for prudence and sagacity, and his 

 extensive ethnological and linguistic knowledge, he was frequently 

 sent by the King on political and judicial missions to scattered 

 villages and distant provinces and as envoy to hostile or warring 

 tribes. To the untutored people of his own vicinage he was at 

 once a protector, a physician, a seer and an expounder of the 

 Divine Word. And yet, notwithstanding manifold duties, he found 

 leisure for the study of physics, chemistry, botany, mathematics, 

 and music, and to found a botanic garden in Cochabamba. In 

 such manner Haenke gratified his love for scientific study, explora- 

 tion and discovery, and at the same time served the King of Spain ; 

 but during all these years the heart of the Bohemian naturalist and 

 voyager ached for his native land. His botanical collections, his 

 notes, his drawings were invariably accumulated with one thought — 

 the idea of return to Europe that he might possess himself once 

 more of scientific advantages in his fatherland denied him in Peru. 

 His letters to his relatives and his friends ever breathe plans for his 

 home-coming, the study of his material and the elaboration of the 

 results of his prolonged investigations in the New World, the pub- 

 lication of which he preserved for himself. All this accomplished, 

 there was the pleasing prospect of philosophic quiet in his own 

 country, surrounded by old acquaintance and familiar scenes. To 



and Frankenia grandifolia. Of exogens, either very few were collected or 

 as seems more likely, they shared the fate of certain South America handles 

 which were lost. The full title of Presl's work reads thus : Keliquiae 

 Haenkeanae sue descriptiones et icones plantarum, quas in America merid- 

 ionali et boreali, in insulus Phillipinis et Marianis coUegit Thaddeus 

 Haenke, Philosophise Doctor, Phytographus Kegis Hispanise. Pragse^ 

 1830-36. Two folio volumes. 



