JOURNEY TO QUITO. 297 



CHAPTER V. 

 JOURNEY TO QUITO. 



Change of Koute Up the Rio Magdalena to Honda Santa F6 de Bogota 

 and its Environs Ibague The Pass of Quindiu Caucathale and 

 Popayan The Paramos of Pasto Arrival at Quito. 



HUMBOLDT had originally intended sailing from the Rio Zenu 

 to Porto Bello, thence up the Rio Chagre to Panama, in order 

 that he might investigate the geological conformation of the 

 isthmus, and await at Panama an opportunity of embarking 

 for Guayaquil and Quito. At a favourable season of the year, 

 this route is incomparably shorter than the journey from Carta- 

 gena to Quito by way of Santa Fe de Bogota, Popayan, and 

 Pasto, which necessitates the tedious sail up the Magdalena. At 

 Cartagena, however, he learnt that the trade winds of the Pacific 

 were over for the season, and that consequently the voyage 

 from Panama to Guayaquil might occupy from two to three 

 months : this decided him to choose the inland route up the 

 Magdalena. He was further influenced toward this decision by 

 his great desire to cross the chain of the Andes, as well as by 

 his wish to visit in Santa P"e de Bogota the noted botanist Don 

 Jose Celestino Mutis, with whose collection of plants he was 

 anxious to compare his own. He therefore sent his heaviest 

 instruments, with the books and collections he could best spare, 

 by sea to Quito, and after a stay of three weeks at Carta- 

 gena, he left Turbaco on the night of April 19, 1801, and, 

 joining the Magdalena at Barancas Nuevas, embarked with 

 Bonpland on April 21. 



6 Owing to the force of the swollen stream,' he writes to his 

 brother from Contreras, near Ibague, September 21, 1801, 'we 

 were fifty-five days in making our way up the Magdalena, pass- 



