272 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



at Caracas till January. Thence I shall penetrate into the 

 interior of the country, to investigate the Apure, Rio Negro, 

 and Orinoco, as far as Angostura, whence I shall return here to 

 embark for Havana.' . . . 



During the earthquake above mentioned Humboldt expe- 

 rienced for the first time those exciting sensations invariably 

 produced by this appalling natural phenomenon ; he remarks, 

 concerning it, that by habit ' man becomes as much accustomed 

 to the trembling of the ground as the sailor to the staggering 

 of a ship amid the waves.' The phenomenon witnessed by 

 Humboldt on the night of November 11 and 12 was the great 

 shower of meteors since become so noted in the annals of 

 science. 



On November 18, the travellers set sail from Cumana in a 

 coasting vessel ; they separated at New Barcelona, whence 

 Bonpland proceeded by land, for the sake of enriching his 

 botanical collections, while Humboldt remained with the ship, 

 to keep guard over the instruments, and after a voyage of four 

 days he landed, on November 21, at La Gruayra, the port of the 

 inland city of Caracas, the capital of the province and the 

 residence of the Governor General a city which has since 

 attained a melancholy notoriety from the destructive earthquake 

 by which it was overwhelmed in 1812. 



As the rainy season had commenced, the stay at Caracas was 

 prolonged for two months and a half from November 21, 1799, 

 till February 7, 1800. Humboldt's journal is full of bitter com- 

 plaints of the persistent bad weather. ' For twenty-seven nights 

 we have kept watch in hopes of being able to observe the 

 eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, but our labour has been all in 

 vain.' These watches were prosecuted even through the night 

 of January 1, spent at the foot of the Sina, 'notwithstanding 

 the prospect on the morrow of undertaking a fatiguing journey 

 on foot of nineteen hours ; ' but their self-sacrifice on this oc- 

 casion met with no better reward. This pedestrian expedition 

 was commenced on January 2. They climbed the Silla de 

 Caracas, the summit of which, rising to the height of 8,100 

 feet, had never before been ascended, and examined the structure 

 of the mountain. After passing through the fruitful valleys of 

 Aragua and Tui, rich with cocoa plantations, they visited the 



