262 DEPARTURE FROM HAVANA. 



Mexico in order to proceed to the Philippine Islands. 

 It had been announced that two French vessels, the 

 Geographe and the Naturaliste, had sailed for Cape 

 Horn, and that they were to go along the coast of 

 Chili and Peru, and from thence to New-Holland. 

 Humboldt had promised to join them wherever he 

 could reach tlie ships, and M. Bonpland resolved to 

 divide their plants into three portions, one of which 

 was sent to Germany by way of England, another 

 to France by Cadiz, and the third left in Cuba. 

 Their friend Fray Juan Gonzales, an estimable 

 young man, who had followed them to the Havana 

 on his way to Spain, carried part of their collections 

 with him, including the insects found on the Orinoco 

 and Rio Negro ; but the vessel in which he em- 

 barked foundered in a storm on the coast of Africa. 

 General Don Gonzalo O'Farrill being then in Prussia 

 as minister of the Spanish court, Humboldt was en- 

 abled, through the agency of Don Ygnacio, the 

 general's brother, to procure a supply of money ; 

 and having made all the necessary preparations for 

 the new enterprise, freighted a Catalonian sloop for 

 Porto Bello, or Carthagena, according as the wea- 

 ther should permit. 



On the 6th of March the travellers, finding that 

 the vessel was ready to receive them, set out for 

 Batabano, where they arrived on the 8th. This is 

 a poor village, surrounded by marshes, covered with 

 rushes and plants of the Iris family, among which 

 appear here and there a few stunted palms. The 

 marshes are infested by two species of crocodile, 

 one of which has an elongated snout, and is very 

 ferocious. The back is dark-green, the belly white, 

 and the flanks are covered with yellow spots. 



On the 9th March our travellers again set sail in a 

 small sloop, and proceeded through the Gulf of Ba- 

 tabano, which is bounded by a low and swampy 

 coast. Humboldt employed himself in examining 

 the influence which the bottom of the sea produces 



