72 Humboldt's Letters. 



and the style of Christopher Columbus, vol. iii. p. 232. 

 This dream, p. 316, was the object of a lecture at 

 Chateaubriand's and Madame Recamier's, and had a 

 good effect, as the utterance of sentiment always will 

 have, on the barren fields of minute erudition. I hope 

 to offer you shortly the five volumes that have already 

 been printed. The negligence of the publisher prevents 

 my doing so now. 



A. HT. 



On the 9th of June, 1839, Varnhagen writes in his 

 diary : " Humboldt agrees with me in the assertion 

 made by me at different times, that too much cannot 

 be inferred from the silence of the historians. He 

 refers to three highly important and undeniable facts, 

 which are not mentioned by those whose first duty it 

 should have been to record them. In the archives of 

 Barcelona, no vestige of the triumphal entry held there 

 by Columbus; in Marco Polo, no mention of the 

 Chinese wall ; in the archives of Portugal, nothing of 

 the travels of Amerigo Vespucci, in the service of that 

 crown." (History of the Geography of the New Con- 

 tinent, part iv., p. 160, sgr.) 



