Account of Travels letween the Tropics. 57 



Pacific Ocean to Acapulco, the western port of the kine- 

 dom of New Spain, celebrated by the beautv of its bason, 

 ^l■hich appears to have been cut out in the granite rocks by 

 the violence of earthquakes ; celebrated also" by the wretch- 

 edness of its inhabitants, who see there millions of piastres 

 embarked for the Philippines and China; and unfortunately 

 celebrated by a climate as scorching as mortal. 



M. Humboldt intended at first to stay only a few months 

 in Mexico, and to hasten his return to Europe ; his travels 

 had already been too long ; the instruments, and particularly 

 the tmie-keepers, began to be gradually deranged 5 and all 

 the eflTorts he had made to get new ones had proved fruit- 

 less. Besides, the progress of the sciences in Europe is 

 so rapid, that in travels of more than four years a traveller 

 may see certain phasnomena under points of view which are 

 no longer interesting when his labours are presented to the 

 public. 



M. Humboldt flattered himself with the hope of bein<r 

 ju England in the months of August or September 1S03* 

 but the attraction of a country so beautiful and so variegated 

 &s the kingdom of New Spain, the great hospitality of its 

 inhabitants, and the dread of the yeilow fever at Vera Cruz, 

 which cuts off almost all those 'who between the months 

 of June and October come down from the mountains, in- 

 duced him to defer his departure till the middle of winter. 

 After having occupied his attention with plants, the state 

 of the air, the hourly variations of the barometer, the phje- 

 nomena of the magnet, and in particular the longitude of 

 Acapulco, a port in which two able astronomers, Messrs. 

 Espmosa and Galcano, had before made ob:5ervations, our 

 travellers set out for Mexico. They ascended gradually Jrom 

 the scorching valleys of Mescala and Papagavo, where the 

 thermometer in the shade stood at 32° of Rcauiliur, and 

 where they passed the river on the fruit of the crescenlia 

 pmmitu, bound together bv ropes of acave, to the hich 

 plateaux of Chilpantzingo, tehuilotepec and 1 asco. ^ 



At these heights of six or seven hundred toises above the 

 level of the sea, in consequence of the mildness and cool- 

 ness of the climate, the oak, cypress, fir, and fern, begin 

 to be seen, together with the kinds of grain cultivated°in 

 Europe. 



Having spent some time in the mines of Tasco, the oldest 

 and formerly the richest in the kingdom, and having studied 

 the nature of those silvery veins which pass from^'the hard 

 calcareous rock to micaceous schist and inclose fhliaceous 

 gypsum, they asceadjid, by Cucrnaraca and the cold regions 



of 



