MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES. 333 



8 1 have only given it up temporarily, for I have many pro- 

 jects in view with regard to the East Indies, but I am anxious 

 first to publish the results of this expedition. I hope to be 

 with you early next year ; the reduction of our observations 

 will occupy us for two or three years at least. In speaking 

 only of two or three years, pray do not laugh at my inconstancy, 

 this maladie centrifuge of which Madame .... used to ac- 

 cuse me and my brother. It is a duty incumbent upon every- 

 one to seek that position in life in which he thinks he can be 

 of most service to his generation, and I believe that to fulfil 

 my destiny, I ought to perish at the edge of a crater, or be 

 engulphed by the treacherous deep. This at least is my present 

 opinion, after experiencing hardships and privations of all 

 kinds for five years ; but I can easily believe that with advan- 

 cing age, and the renewed enjoyments of European life, I may 

 yet live to change my views. Nemo adeo ferus est., ut non 

 mitescere possit? 



In Mexico, as well as at Lima, we are indebted to a lady for a 

 sketch of Humboldt as he appeared in social life amid the 

 highest circles in the capital. 



Madame Calderon de la Barca, wife of the Spanish ambas- 

 sador at Mexico, in her journal for the years 1839 and 1840, 

 mentions among her acquaintance a lady formerly well known 

 and greatly esteemed in Mexico, under the name of ' the fair 

 Rodriguez,' who had been regarded by Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt as the handsomest woman he had met with during his 

 travels. In conversation with this lady Madame de la Barca 

 gathered the following particulars, which she thus narrates : 



' We talked of Humboldt, and while speaking of herself 

 quite as an indifferent person, she recounted to me the details 

 of his first introduction to her and of his admiration of her 

 beauty : she was very young at the time, though married, and 

 the mother of two children, and happened to be in the room, 

 seated at the window, sewing, when the baron paid a visit to 

 her mother. Her presence was unobserved until, on his ex- 

 pressing a wish while conversing eagerly on cochineal to visit a 

 certain plantation, she remarked from her place at the window : 

 " Oh ! we can easily drive Herr von Humboldt there," when 

 he looked up and stood transfixed before her, exclaiming at 



