OFFICIAL EMPLOYMENT. 147 



Padua and the plains of Lombardy to Vicenza, Verona, Parma, 

 and Milan, so as to reach Switzerland on September 1, and join 

 his friend Freiesleben on the 20th of that month at the Hotel 

 Krone, at Schaifhausen. 



From Schaffhausen, whence Herr von Haften, on the expira- 

 tion of his leave of absence, returned to Bayreuth, Humboldt 

 continued his journey, in company with Freiesleben, through 

 the Jura and the Alps of Savoy and Switzerland ; in the course 

 of their travels, which lasted from September 20 to the begin- 

 ning of November, they visited De Luc, Pictet, Saussure, and 

 other notable men of science, and the intercourse thus com- 

 menced proved a source of mutual gratification and benefit. 



'Throughout all these journeys,' relates Freiesleben, 1 c he 

 was chiefly occupied in observing the connection between the 

 flora and the stratification of the mountains. At the same 

 time no other subject having any reference to the physical 

 constitution of the earth, the atmosphere, or any point of 

 natural history, was allowed to escape his attention. And 

 when I remember that within the short space of seven or eight 

 weeks we visited, chiefly on foot, the mountains surround- 

 ing Schaffhausen, Zurich, and Bern, descending as far as the 

 Valley of Chamouni, passing afterwards from Altdorf over the 

 St. Grothard to Airolo, I am inclined to congratulate myself 

 even now on the good use we made of our time an art in 

 which Humboldt is certainly a master. His zeal for science 

 and his unexampled industry have led him from boyhood to 

 employ every moment in some useful or instructive occupation. 

 Even his night's repose was never allowed to extend over more 

 than a limited number of hours.' 



On the homeward journey, Humboldt visited Rastatt, where 

 the Congress, which was exciting universal attention, was then 

 sitting, his motive being not so much to see the diplomatists as 

 to meet with Faujas, the French mineralogist. c Certainly,' 

 narrates Herr von Lang, the satirical diplomatist of that assem- 

 bly by which the world was to be reorganised, 'certainly Hum- 

 boldt was never so panic-stricken by any storm at sea as was 

 Count Groerz, the Prussian Plenipotentiary at the Peace Con- 



1 From an earlier life of Alexander yon Humboldt in ' Zeitgenossen/ 

 3rd Ser. vol. i. p. 71 (Leipzig, 1828). 



L 2 



