178 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 



Humboldt received the news that the youthful 

 friend and companion of his American travels, 

 Aime Bonpland, had finished his noble career 

 on May 4th, in that year, at the age of eighty- 

 five, at St. Anne. We are already acquainted 

 with a part of the history of this celebrated 

 botanist, his confinement by the Dictator of 

 Paraguay, and his liberation and return to 

 Buenos Ayres. Bonpland manifested in his 

 energy and intellectual capacities, a striking re- 

 semblance to Humboldt ; for he not only made 

 very minute and extensive investigations in his 

 adopted country, but undertook in his advanced 

 age (in 1856) a journey to Patagonia. Persons 

 who met this distinguished man about ten years 

 ago, at Porto Alegro, spoke with enthusiasm 

 concerning the amiable character, the youthful 

 energy, and the intellectual activity of the aged 

 philosopher. And, be it said to the honour of 

 the New World, that they knew how to appre- 

 ciate his scientific importance ; and it is a 

 cheering proof of the progressive development 

 of the Spanish territories of America, and, in 

 general, of the advancement of the population 

 of Central and South America, that Bonpland, 

 the founder of a transatlantic botany, received 

 the general homage of these peoples ; that the 

 public press, especially of La Plata and Brazil, 



