UP THE RIO MAGDALENA. 215 



Havanna. They bad reason to congratulate themselves 

 on this foresight : each collection contained nearly the 

 same species, and no precautions were neglected to have 

 the cases, if taken by English or French vessels, remitted 

 to Sir Joseph Banks, or to the professors of natural history 

 at the Museum at Paris. It happened fortunately that 

 the manuscripts which Humboldt at first intended to send 

 with the collection to Cadiz, were not intrusted to Fray 

 Juan Gonzales, who had followed them to Havanna with 

 the view of returning to Spain. He left the island of 

 Cuba soon after the travellers, but the vessel in which he 

 sailed foundered on the coast of Africa, and the cargo and 

 crew were all lost. By this event the travellers lost 

 some of the duplicates of their herbals, and what was 

 more important, all the insects which Bonpland had with 

 great difficulty collected during their voyage to the OH 

 noco and the Rio Negro. 



Their collections shipped, the travellers ascended the 

 Rio Magdalena, Bonpland, as was his wont, exploring the 

 botanical treasures of the shore, and Humboldt making a 

 chart of the river district. The sky was cloudy, but the 

 nights were tropically fine. Their old torments, the 

 mosquitos followed them. By and by they passed the 

 little city of Monpex, with its white houses and its red 

 roofs. They saw the inhabitants chatting before the 

 doors of their dwellings (it was evening at the time,) and 

 promenading the darkening streets. In addition to the 

 plague of mosquitos, which kept them most of the day 

 in their hammocks, the inhabitants of Monpex were 

 horribly disfigured with goitres. Their city was sur- 

 rounded with swamps, and was liable to inundations. 

 Sometimes they were obliged to desert their houses, and 



