298 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



ing the whole time amid forest scenery, through districts with 

 scarcely an inhabitant. For a distance of forty leagues there is 

 neither a house nor any other human habitation. I need not 

 again allude to the mosquitoes, the dangers of the cataracts, or 

 the thunder-storms, which were almost incessant, and set the 

 heavens nightly on a blaze. Of all this I have given a circum- 

 stantial account in a number of other letters. Thus we sailed 

 as far as Honda, situated in 5 North latitude. I have made 

 a chart of the river in four sheets, a copy of which is re- 

 tained by the viceroy; I have also taken a series of baro- 

 metric levels between Cartagena and Santa Fe, and have tested 

 the condition of the atmosphere in several localities with my 

 eudiometer, which is still in excellent order indeed, I am for- 

 tunately able to say that none of my valuable instruments have 

 received any injury. The Magdalena route was also that taken 

 by Bouguer on his return to France, only he followed the river 

 in its downward course, and was unprovided with instruments. 



' From Honda I visited the mines of Mariquita and Santa 

 Anna, where the unfortunate D'Elhuyar met with his death. 

 The cinnamon-plant cultivated here is a species similar to that 

 grown at Ceylon, specimens of which I had already met with 

 on the Gruaviare and Orinoco. The well-known almond tree 

 (Caryocus amygdaliferus) is also found here, and whole forests 

 of the cinchona, as well as the otoba, which is a true myristica 

 (nutmeg), to the cultivation of which the attention of Govern- 

 ment is now being directed. M. Desieux, a Frenchman, who 

 has been appointed overseer to these plantations, with a salary 

 of 2,000 piastres (500 gold Fredericks of our money), was 

 one of our travelling companions up the Magdalena. 



* Santa Fe de Bogota is situated 8,990 feet above the level of 

 Honda. The road is indescribably bad ; in some places it con- 

 sists only of narrow steps cut between walls of rock, and being 

 only from 18 to 20 inches wide, scarcely admits the passage of 

 a mule. 1 On emerging from this mountain pass (la boca del 



1 Up to 1816 the road was scarcely more than a watercourse, a cleft in 

 the rock, in many parts of which two mules could not pass, and yet this was 

 one of the roads leading to the capital of a country containing a population 

 of from 28,000 to 30,000 inhabitants. When the Spanish Government 

 regained for a time possession of New Granada, the prisoners taken from the 



