382 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



i 



With these exceptions, Humboldt, often as he was compelled 

 to witness occurrences distressing to his feelings of humanity, 

 never allowed himself while in Eussia to interfere in any way 

 with the affairs of Government or the arrangements of social 

 life, carefully avoiding even an expression of opinion upon such 

 subjects. In his 'Essai politique sur 1'Isle de Cuba,' he expresses 

 himself as follows : 'It is the duty of a traveller who has 

 been called to witness scenes involving the suffering and 

 degradation of human nature, to convey the complaints of the 

 unfortunate victims to those who have it in their power to 

 relieve their distress ; ' and in the preface to the same work he 

 remarks : 'To this portion of my book, namely, the improve- 

 ment of the condition of the slave, I attach much higher 

 importance than to the arduous labours of determining by 

 astronomical observation the latitude and longitude of places, 

 of registering the variations in the force of the magnetic cur- 

 rent, or of collecting statistical information.' Yet Humboldt 

 was compelled to write in a very different strain to the Eussian 

 Minister, in a letter he addressed to him from lekaterinbourg, 

 dated July, 5 (17), 1829 i 1 'It will be taken as a matter of 

 course that we (Humboldt and Eose) confine ourselves to the 

 investigation of inanimate nature, and avoid everything con- 

 nected with Government or the condition of the lower classes 

 of the people : statements made by foreigners unacquainted with 

 the language are usually regarded as incorrect, and when refer- 

 ring to subjects so complicated as the relationship between the 

 rights that have been acquired by the higher orders of society 

 and the duties incumbent upon them towards the lower classes, 

 such statements irritate without producing any beneficial re- 

 sult.' 



This quotation may suffice to show that the position he occu- 

 pied while travelling in Eussia differed very materially from the 

 relationship in which he stood to the Spanish Government 

 while travelling in America. In this change of circumstances 

 lay, no doubt, the reason why Humboldt, in the midst of so 

 much honour and public recognition, and with all the conveni- 

 ences accompanying an imperial commission to travel, would 



1 < Im Ural und Altai/ pp. 74, 79. 



