288 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



himself to men and manners, speaks very good Spanish, and 

 is very courageous and intrepid in a word, he is admirably 

 fitted for a scientific explorer. He has without assistance under- 

 taken the arrangement of the plants, which, including dupli- 

 cates, amount to above 1 2,000 specimens ; but the descriptions 

 are joint productions, in which I have taken an equal part. 

 We have often each given a description of the same plant, in 

 order to arrive at a more trustworthy result. . . . 



' And you, my dear friend, how is your busy life passing 

 amidst the peaceful happiness of domestic ties ? How fortunate 

 for you that you have not seen the impenetrable forests of the 

 Bio Negro, nor the glories of these tropical palms ! life in a 

 pine wood would seem intolerable to you ever after. What a 

 spectacle is presented by the various orders of palms as they 

 rear their heads among the impenetrable forests of the Rio 

 Negro ! It is certainly only in the country of Guiana in the 

 tropical regions of South America that the world may truly 

 be called green. . . . 



'When I look back to the time when I brought you 

 'Hordeum murinum, that you might determine the species 

 for me, when I remember that the study of botany inspired 

 me with a keener desire to visit the tropics than was ever 

 excited by my travels with Forster, when in imagination I 

 contrast the Rehberge and the Panke with the cataracts of 

 Atures and my house of China (Cinchona alba) in which I 

 lived for so long it all seems like a dream. How many diffi- 

 culties have been overcome ! First disappointed in accom- 

 plishing a voyage round the world with Baudin ; then almost 

 on the point of visiting Egypt and Algiers ; at length in South 

 America ! and again indulging the hope of joining Baudin and 

 Michaux in the Pacific Ocean. How wonderful sometimes is 

 the concatenation of events ! I have now the prospect, after 

 visiting Mexico and California, of proceeding to Acapulco, 

 there to fall in with Captain Baudin and complete with him 

 my journey round the world. 



6 Sometimes, when I give my imagination the reins, and 

 allow myself to fancy that all these wanderings have been 

 brought to a safe and happy termination, and that I am 

 once more at your side, in the old familiar room at the corner 



