QUITO. 317 



extent, have never before been explored by men of science. We 

 have been made to feel that man ought not to count upon any- 

 thing but that which he can procure by his own energy. . . . 



4 1 spent a very pleasant time at Quito. The president of the 

 audience, Baron de Corondeles, loaded us with kindness : indeed, 

 for the last three years, I have never had cause on any occasion 

 to complain of the agents of the Spanish Grovernment ; they 

 have uniformly treated me with a deference and delicacy of 

 attention which calls for my perpetual gratitude. How times 

 have changed ! ' 



It is scarcely necessary to mention that eagerly as Humboldt 

 was devoted to the study of volcanoes, he was hardly less inte- 

 rested in work of other kinds, and an important part of his 

 labours included the determination of the latitude and longi- 

 tude of places. The letters of recommendation with which he 

 was furnished by the Court and Grovernment of Spain, supported 

 as they were by his energy in the pursuit of his scientific 

 undertakings, and by the kindness and amiability he displayed 

 in social life, gained for him at Lima, as in other places, the 

 friendship of the most distinguished men of the locality, many 

 of whom felt incited to share with him the fatigues of his 

 mountain ascents. 1 Among these friends, none evinced so 

 marked an attachment to Humboldt as Carlos Montufar, a 

 younger son of the Marques de Selvalegre, an estimable youth, 

 who accompanied him to Europe, and on his return met with 

 the melancholy fate of being shot by order of General Morillo, 

 during the insurrectionary war. 



The following particulars of Humboldt are related by the 

 well-known traveller, Professor Moritz Wagner, in his treatise 

 ' On some Hypsometric Labours among the Andes of Ecuador.' 2 



'Of those who were personally acquainted with Alexander 

 von Humboldt during his residence at Quito, there survived, in 

 1859, only two very old ladies, members of the wealthy and 



1 'Of the Europeans who accompanied me on my second ascent of the 

 Pichincha, Don Pedro Urquinaona, Don Vincente Aguirre, and the Marques 

 de Maenza, then a mere youth, the latter was still alive in 1853, residing 

 in Europe as a grandee of the highest rank, with the hereditary title of 

 Count of Punonrostro.' Humboldt, Kleiners Schriften, vol. i. p. 55. 



2 l Zeitschrift fur allgemeine Erdkunde ' (Berlin, 1864), new series, vol. 

 xvi. p. 235. 



