APPENDIX. 407 



tion. The pension of 3,000 francs accorded to M. Bonpland was 

 given in consideration of the herbarium, collected daring my 

 journey, which I presented to the Jardin des Plantes. I relin- 

 quished the possession of it in order that I might be useful to my 

 friend. I am now without a single botanical specimen, or even 

 the smallest memento of Chimborazo ! The pension, therefore, 

 is one of a very peculiar character. The treasures which I have 

 surrendered still exist, and imprisonment alone has interrupted the 

 regularity of the payments. Such are the considerations which I 

 have imagined to myself must constitute my rights, yet I urge them 

 only to plead a favour. I venture to think that the Chambers 

 should the Government stand in need of such a sanction would not 

 oppose such an act of munificence in favour of a Frenchman whose 

 misfortunes have attained a world- wide celebrity. Pray excuse the 

 length of this letter, which is, I fear, but indifferently expressed. 

 You will not, I am sure, condemn the motives which have inspired 

 it.' . . . In a postscript, Humboldt expresses his regret that 

 Bonpland' s collections had not yet arrived. 



Visit to Santa-Anna. 



For many long years Bonpland had resided at Uruguay, until 

 there remained scarcely anyone in Europe who remembered the 

 eccentric man of science. But the remembrance of him recurred 

 very forcibly to my mind when, in the spring of 1858, I arrived at 

 Bio Pardo, and thence proceeded on horseback to fche German 

 colony of Santa-Cruz. On April 8 I reached Santa-Borja, where 

 Bonpland had resided for thirteen years, before proceeding farther 

 up the country in 1853. During his residence there he had enjoyed 

 friendly intercourse with the Governor and inhabitants of the 

 opposite Province of Corrientes, the President of which was at that 

 time Dr. Pujol, an able and intelligent man, and had been the means 

 of instituting a National Museum. As an expression of the thanks 

 of the community, he was presented with a larger tract of land on 

 the right bank of the Uruguay, a few miles south of the spot where 

 the town of Restauracion, in the province of Corrientes, faces 

 Uruguayana, a new and rising town in the empire of Brazil, although 

 severely injured during the invasion of the Dictator Lopez the 

 son. Upon this plot of pasture land he had erected his rancho or 

 cottage, and laid out his new and last Sanssouci, to which he gave 

 the name of Santa- Anna. From this residence he kept up a constant 

 communication with Santa-Borja. In the year 1857 he ascended 

 the river Paraguay, in the French war steamer ' Bison,' to Assun- 

 cion, the capital of Paraguay, in order that he might revisit the 

 country where for nine years he had endurad the * hospitality ' of 



