Account of Travels between the Tropics. 36 7 



Orenoko, as far as towards its mouths at St. Thomas de la 

 Nueva Guyana or Angostura, passing a second time the 

 cataracts, to the south of which the two historiographers of 

 these countries, father Gumilla and CauHn, never penetrated. 



In the course of this long and painful navigation, the 

 want of food and shelter; the nocturnal rains; living in 

 the woods ; the masquitoes, and a multitude of other sting- 

 ing and venomous insects ; the impossibility of cooling 

 themselves by the bath, on account of the ferocity of the 

 crocodile and of the small carib fish ; together with the 

 miasmata of a hot and damp climate, exposed our travellers 

 to continual suffering. They returned from the Orenoko to 

 Barcelona and Cumana by the plains of Cari and the mis- 

 sions of the Carib Indians, a very extraordinary race of 

 men, and, next to the Patagonians, the tallest and most 

 robust perhaps in the world. 



After a stay of some months on the coast, they proceeded 

 to the Havannah by the south of St. Domingo and Jamaica. 

 This navigation, performed when the season was far ad- 

 vanced, was both long and dangerous, the vessel having 

 been in great danger of being lost on the bank of Vibora, 

 the position of which M. Humboldt determined by the 

 timekeeper. He staid in the island of Cuba three months, 

 during which time he employed himself on the longitude 

 of the Havannah, and the construction of a new kind of 

 stove in the sugar-houses, which was speedily and gene- 

 rally adopted. When on the point of setting out for La 

 Vera Cruz, intending to proceed by the wav of Mexico 

 and Aeapulco to the Philippines, and thence, if possible, 

 by Bonihav, Bussorah, and Aleppo, to Constantinople, 

 false intelligence respecting the voyage of captain Baudin 

 alarmed him, and induced him to alter his plan. The 

 American papers announced that this navigator would set 

 out from France for Buenos- Ayrcs, and that after doubling 

 Cape Horn he would proceed along the coasts of Chili and 

 Peru. 



M. Humboldt, at the time of his departure from Paris 

 in 1798, had promised to the Museum and to captain Bau- 

 din, that in whatever part of the world he might be, he 

 would endeavour to join the French cxjicdition as Sf)on as 

 he should hear of its having been set on foot. He flattered 

 himself that his researches and those of Bonpland would be 

 more u&eful to the progress of the sciences if they vuiited 

 their labours to those of the men of science who were to 

 accompany captain Baudin. These considerations induced 

 M. Humboldt to send liis manuscripts of the years 1799 

 Z 3 and 



