176 AN AOEEEABLE 8UEPBISE. 



when I solicited the Directory to hasten the departure of 

 Captain Baudin. On leaving Spain, I had promised to 

 rejoin the expedition wherever I could reach it. M. Bon- 

 pland and 1 resolved instantly to divide our herbals into 

 three portions, to avoid exposing to the risks of a long 

 voyage the objects we had obtained with so much difficult} 

 on the banks of t^e Orinoco, the Atabapo, and the JRio 

 Negro. We sent one collection by way of England to 

 Germany, another by way of Cadiz to France, and a third 

 remained at the Havannah. We had reason to congratulate 

 ourselves 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 I at first intended to send with the col- 

 lection to Cadiz, were not intrusted to our much esteemed 

 friend and fellow traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, of the 

 order of the Observance of St. Francis, who had followed 

 us to the Havannah with the view of returning to -Spain. 

 He left the island of Cuba soon after us, but the vessel in 

 which he sailed foundered on the coast of Africa, and the 

 cargo and crew were all lost. By this event we lost some of 

 the duplicates of our herbals, and what was more important, 

 all the insects which M. Bonpland had with great difficulty 

 collected during our voyage to the Orinoco and the Bio 

 Negro. By a singular fatality, we remained two years in 

 the Spanish colonies without receiving a single letter from 

 Europe; and those which arrived in the three following 

 years made no mention of what we had transmitted. The 

 reader may imagine my uneasiness for the fate of a journal 

 which contained astronomical observations, and barometrical 

 measurements, of which I had not made any copy. After 

 having visited New Grenada, Peru, and Mexico, and just 

 when I was preparing to leave the New Continent, I hap- 

 pened, at a public library of Philadelphia, to cast my eyes 

 on a scientific publication, in which I found these words: 

 " Arrival of M. de Humboldt's manuscripts at his brother'* 

 house in Paris, by way of Spain!" I could scarcely suppress 

 an exclamation of joy. 

 . While M. Bonpland laboured day and night to divide am 



