APPENDIX. 409 



further distance of three German miles, he drew up as we reached 

 a slight elevation, and turning round to me exclaimed, while point- 

 ing with his dusky hand in a southerly direction, the first words 

 he had uttered during a ride of six German miles : * That's where 

 Don Amado lives ! ' 



In front of a green orchard I noticed two grey cottages, standing 

 at right angles the one to the other, which appeared all the more 

 dirty and wretched the nearer I approached them. 



Could it be that in these huts, these miserable sheds, in the midst of 

 this dreary wilderness of Pampas, Bonpland had for so many years 

 led the life of a cynical patriarch ? I could learn nothing concern- 

 ing the Madame Bonpland to whom Humboldt sent a message of 

 greeting in 1818. In Uruguayana I was told that many years ago 

 the foreign philosopher had united himself to a native woman, one 

 of the class called 'China,' by whom he had several children ; 

 wearied probably of the old man, and the solitude in which he lived, 

 she, however, decamped one fine morning, leaving her children 

 behind her at Santa- Anna. 



I dismounted amid the violent barking of four great dogs, and upon 

 loudly clapping my hands there came forward a pleasing-looking 

 young girl, whose countenance gave evidence of mixture of race, 

 and who, with some show of timidity, asked me in Spanish what 

 I wanted. I gave her a letter to Bonpland, which she carried into 

 one of the buildings that was meant to pass for a house, but returned 

 shortly to conduct me into the other hut, which served as drawing- 

 room and strangers' apartment. 1 Aboard supported upon a couple 

 of casks, a bench, two chairs, and two empty bedsteads, constituted 

 the whole of the furniture of this long shed, which being without 

 windows, was very imperfectly lighted by the open door, and by 

 sundry rents in the walls. At the further end lay cow-hides, some 

 worn-out saddle-harness, a heap of onions, and a number of other 

 objects, the form of which I was not able to distinguish in the 

 gloom. The girl, who was a strange mixture of French levity and 

 native simplicity, told me that for some months past Don Amado 

 had been exceedingly ill and weak, but that he managed to get out 

 a little every day, and would come and speak with me. 



I had not waited long when the eccentric old man, whose very 

 existence we had begun to doubt, appeared before me. His eighty- 

 five years had not impaired the erectness of his form, but his genial 

 blue eyes beamed from a countenance deeply furrowed, and his voice 



1 A view of the farther side of Bonpland's dwelling, taken from a sketch 1 

 made upon the spot, appears on the title-page of the first volume of my ' Heise 

 durch Siid-Brasilien ' (Leipzig, 1859). 



YOL. I. E E 



