28 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



the narrative of the bold expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa. 

 The reedy shores of the Caspian Sea, as I viewed them from 

 the delta formed by the mouths of the Volga, are certainly not 

 picturesque ; yet the first sight of this vast inland sea of Asia 

 yielded me great delight from the fact that in my youthful days 

 I had drawn its outline in a map. The tastes first awakened 

 by the impressions of childhood, and moulded by the circum- 

 stances of after life, often become, when imbued with the deep 

 earnestness of later years, the incentive to scientific labour or 

 to undertakings of vast import.' 



And in a passage in fi Cosmos ' l he remarks : c The pleasure 

 I derived as a child from the contemplation of the form of 

 continents and seas as delineated in maps, the yearning to 

 behold those southern constellations which never appear above 

 our horizon, the representations of palms and cedars of Lebanon 

 occurring in the illustrations of a pictorial Bible, may all have 

 contributed to excite within me the desire to travel in foreign 

 lands. Were I to ask myself, while reviewing such early remi- 

 niscences, what first awoke in me the insatiable longing to view 

 the glories of a tropical region, I should reply : The perusal 

 of George Forster's vivid descriptions of the islands in the 

 Pacific ; the sight of some paintings by Hodge, in the house 

 of Warren Hastings in London, representing scenes on the 

 Granges ; and the admiring wonder excited by the contempla- 

 tion of a gigantic dragon-tree in an old tower of the Botanic 

 Garden at Berlin.' 



Some influence may also be due to the fact that the youthful 

 years of Alexander von Humboldt were passed during a time 

 of general excitement for geographical discovery, when the 

 passion for exploration had taken possession of the leading 

 nations of Europe, causing them to emulate each other in 

 acquiring a knowledge of distant lands and seas. 



Even the disasters that befel the unfortunate enterprises of 

 La Perouse and D'Entrecasteau, of Bligh and Malaspina, were 

 powerless to damp the extraordinary zeal for travel and dis- 

 covery which had been excited by Byron, Wallis, Carteret, 

 Bougainville, and Cook. Owing to the persevering energy of 



1 ' Kosmos/ vol. ii. p. 5. 



