HUMBOLBT. 



821 



published in Berlin, 1796, in two volumes. But in 

 1795, he voluntarily gave up this office, from a desire 

 to travel, and went with the baron Hafter to Italy, 

 and, in the autumn of the same year, travelled 

 through a part of Switzerland, with his friend Freies- 

 leben. In 1797, he went, in company with his 

 brother, Charles William, a Prussian minister of 

 state, and a gentleman named Fischer, to Paris, 

 where he became acquainted with Aime Boupland, 

 a pupil of the medical school and botanic garden in 

 Paris. 



Humboldt, who ever since 1792, had cherished 

 the design of travelling within the tropics at his own 

 expense, went to Madrid, with a considerable collec- 

 tion of instruments, where the court, in March, 1799, 

 granted him permission to travel through the Spanish 

 colonies in America. He immediately sent for his 

 friend Bonpland, and sailed with him from Corunna. 

 Their plan was to travel for the space of five years, 

 and was laid out on a larger scale than any journey 

 before undertaken by private individuals. They 

 landed at TeneriHe, where they ascended to the 

 crater of Pico, in order to analyze the atmospheric 

 air, and to make geological observations upon the 

 basalt and porphyry-slate of Africa. In July, they 

 arrived at Cumana in South America. In 1799 and 

 1800, they visited the coasts of Paria, the Indian 

 missions, and the province of New Andalusia ; and 

 likewise travelled through New Barcelona, Vene- 

 zuela, and Spanish Guiana. After they had ascer- 

 tained the longitude of Cumana, Caracas, and other 

 places, by the observation of Jupiter's satellites, 

 and botanized on the summits of Ceripa and Silla de 

 Avila, they went, in February, 1800, from Caracas 

 to the charming valleys of Aragua, where the eye is 

 delighted with the splendour of tropical vegetation, 

 along the great lake of Valencia. From Porto Ca- 

 bello, they travelled into the interior as far as to the 

 equator; afterwards wandered through the exten- 

 sive plains of Calabozo, Apura, and the Llanos, 

 where the thermometer of Reaumur stood in the 

 shade at 33 37 (106 115 of Fahrenheit), and 

 the hot surface of the earth showed, for more than 

 42,000 square miles, but, a very slight difference of 

 level. They also observed, upon the sand in this 

 quarter, the phenomena of refraction and singular 

 elevations. At, San Fernando of Apura, they com- 

 menced a voyage of more than five hundred leagues 

 in canoes, and surveyed the country with the assist- 

 ance of chronometers, of Jupiter's satellites, and the 

 moon's amplitude. They descended the Rio Apura, 

 which empties into the Orinoco in the 7th degree of 

 N. latitude, ascended the latter to the mouth of the 

 Rio Guaviare, and passed the celebrated waterfalls 

 of Atures and Maipure, where the cave of Atarnipo 

 encloses the mummies of a nation which was de- 

 stroyed in a war with the Caribs and Maravites. 

 From the mouth of the Rio Guaviare, they ascended 

 the streams of Atahapo, Tuamini, and Temi. From 

 the mission of Javita, they proceeded by land to the 

 sources of the Guginia (Rio Negro). The In- 

 dians carried their canoes through the thick forests 

 of hevea, lecythis and laurus cinnamomoides, to the 

 Cano Pimichin, by which they arrived at the Rio 

 Negro, which they descended to the fort of San 

 Carlos and the boundaries of Grand Para, the princi- 

 pal captaincy of Brazil. In order to determine the 

 branch of the Orinoco, called Cassiquiare, which 

 unites that river with the Amazon, Humboldt and 

 Bonpland went from the Spanish fort of San Carlos, 

 through the Black river and the Cassiquiare again 

 to the Orinoco, and along this river to the mission 

 of Esmeraldo, near the volcano of Duida, or to the 

 source of the stream. But the Guairas Indians a 

 white and almost dwarfish race, but very warlike, 



and the copper-coloured Guajaribes a ferocious race 

 of cannibals, who inhabit the country to the west- 

 ward, made it impossible for them to reach the 

 sources of the Orinoco. From Esmeraldo they tra- 

 velled 345 French miles (about 966 English), the 

 whole length of the Orinoco, to its mouth at St 

 Thomas or Angostura in New Guiana. The travel- 

 lers passed the waterfalls for the second time, to the 

 southerly side of which neither Peter Gumilla nor 

 Caulin had ever advanced. 



After severe hardships, they returned upon the 

 Orinoco to Barcelona and Cumana, through the 

 missions of the Caribbean Indians, a gigantic race. 

 They now tarried some months upon the coasts, and 

 thence proceeded to Cuba, stopping for some time 

 in the southern parts of St Domingo and Jamaica. 

 Here they employed themselves three months, partly 

 in determining the longitude of Havana, and partly 

 in building a new furnace for boiling sugar. From 

 hence they intended to go to Vera Cruz, from that 

 place, through Mexico and Acapulco, to the Philip- 

 pine islands, and from thence, if possible, through 

 Bombay, Bassora, and Aleppo, to Constantinople ; 

 but false reports in regard to Baudin's journey 

 induced them to alter their plan. The American 

 newspapers represented, that this French navigator 

 would go first from France to Buenos Ayres, after- 

 wards sail round cape Horn, and theiice proceed to 

 the coasts of Chile and Peru. 



Humboldt had, at his departure from Paris in 

 1798, promised the museum, as well as captain 

 Baudin, that, tf the French expedition should take 

 effect during the course of his journey, he would 

 unite himself thereto. Conformably to this promise, 

 he sent his manuscripts, and the collections which 

 he had made in 1799 and 1800, immediately to Eu- 

 rope, where they arrived safe, with the exception of 

 a third part of the collections, which suffered ship- 

 wreck. He then hired a vessel in the liarbour of 

 Betabam to go to Carthagena, and from thence he 

 intended going across the isthmus of Panama to the 

 Southern ocean. In March, 1801, he left Betabam, 

 sailed along the southern part of the island of Cuba, 

 and took astronomical observations of different points 

 in the group of islands called the Jardin del Rey, 

 together with the landing places in the harbour of 

 Trinidad. He remained a short time at Rio Sinn, 

 where no botanist had ever before collected speci- 

 mens. Humboldt afterwards observed the eclipse of 

 the moon which took place March 25, 1801. As 

 the season of the year did not permit them to sail 

 from Panama to Guayaquil, they alandoned the 

 plan of passing over the isthmus. The wisli to find 

 the celebrated mutisia, induced the travellers to 

 spend some weeks in the forests of Turbaco, which 

 were adorned with the most splendid flowers. They 

 then descended the river Magdalena, of which Hum- 

 boldt sketched a chart, while Bonpland spent his 

 time in studying the productions of the vegetable 

 kingdom, such as heliconia, psychotria, melastoma, 

 myrodia, and dyehotria emetica. From Honda, where 

 they landed, they travelled by difficult paths, through 

 forests of oak and woods of melastoma and cinchona, 

 to Santa Fe-de-Bogota, the capital of New Grenada. 

 The splendid collections of Mutis, the waterfall of 

 Tequendama, the mining works of Mariquita, Santa 

 Anna, and De Zipagnira, the natural bridge of Ico- 

 nonzo two rocks separated from each other by an 

 earthquake, and supporting another trembling in the 

 air, all these curious and remarkable objects occu- 

 pied the attention of the travellers till September, 

 1801. Notwithstanding the unfavourable rainy sea- 

 son, they travelled to Quito, then descended to the 

 valley of the river Magdalena, crossed the Andes at 

 Quindiu where the snow-capped summits of Toliiui 



