274 



VEGETATION OF TURBACO. 



CHAP.XX 



Etrect 



uu combus- 



lioa. 



15ot.inic.ll 

 coileetioii. 



Ijfe at 

 Tuibdco. 



lleassnt 

 recoUtttiow: 



Ireparatioj 

 for turtlicr 

 libour. 



or seven feet, and the dark-coloured clay or mud was 

 exceedingly soft. An ignited l)ody was immediately 

 extinguished on heing immersed in the gas collected 

 from the hubhles, which was found to be pure azote. 



The stay which our travellers made at Turbaco was 

 uncommonly agreeable, and added greatly to their col- 

 lection of plants. " Eve n now," says Humboldt, writing 

 in 1881, " after so long a lapse of time, and after returning 

 from the banks of the Obi and the confines of Chinese 

 Zungaria, these bamboo-thickets, that wild luxuriance 

 of vegetation, those orchidea? covering the old trunks of 

 the ocotea and Indian fig, that majestic view of the 

 snowy mountains, that light mist filling the bottom of 

 the valleys at sunrise, those tufts of gigantic trees rising 

 like verdant islets from a sea of vapours, incessantly 

 present themselves to my imagination. At Turbaco wo 

 lived a simple and laborious life. We were young ; 

 possessed a similarity of taste and disposition ; looked 

 forward to the future with hope ; were on the eve of a 

 journey which was to lead us to the highest summits of 

 the Andes, and bring us to volcanoes in action in a 

 country continually agitated by earthquakes ; and we 

 felt ourselves more happy than at any other period of 

 our distant expedition. The j'cars which have since 

 passed, not all exempt from griefs and pains, have added 

 to the charn^s cf these impressions ; and I love to think 

 that, in the midit of his exile in the southern hemisphere, 

 in the solitudes of Paraguay, my unfortunate friend, M. 

 iJonpland, sometimes remembers witli delight our bo- 

 tanical excursions at Turbaco, the little spring of Tore- 

 cillu, the first sight of a gus-tavia in flower, or of the 

 cavaniJlcsia loaded with fruits having membranous and 

 transparent edges." 



M. BonpL'jic "s health having suffered severely during 

 the navigation of the Orinoco and Casiquiare, they re- 

 solved to jjrovide themselves with all the convenier.ces 

 necessary to secure their comfort during the ascent of 

 the Rio Magdalena. They were accompanied on this 

 voyage by an old French physician 51. de Rieux, ard 



