ASCENT OF THE RIO MAGDALENA. 279 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Brief Account of the Journey from Carthagena to Quito 

 and Mexico, 



Ascent of the Rio Magdalena— Santa Fe de Bogota— Cataract of Tequen- 

 dama — Natural Bridges of Icononzo— Passage of Quindiu— Cargueros 

 — Popayan— Quito— Cotopaxi and Chtmborazo— Route from Quito to 

 Lima — Guayaquil — Mexico— Guanaxuato— Volcano of Jorullo — Pyra- 

 mid of Cholula. 



It has been already stated that Humboldt, pre- 

 viously to leaving Paris, had promised Baudin, that 

 should his projected expedition to the southern hemi- 

 sphere ever take place, he would endeavour to join it ; 

 and also that information received by him at Cuba 

 had induced him to relinquish plans subsequently 

 formed, and re-embark for the continent of South 

 America, with the view of proceeding to Guayaquil 

 or Lima, where he expected to meet the navigators. 

 Accordingly he went to Carthagena, where he learned 

 that the season was too far advanced for sailing from 

 Panama to Guayaquil. Giving up, therefore, his 

 intention of crossing the isthmus of Panama, he 

 passed some days in the forests of Turbaco, and 

 afterward made preparations for ascending the Rio 

 Magdalena. 



This river, from its sources near the equator, flows 

 almost directly north. "Nature," says a traveller 

 who sailed up it in 1823, " seems to have designedly 

 dug the bed of the Magdalena in the midst of the 

 cordilleras of Colombia, to form a canal of commu- 

 nication between the mountains and the sea ; yet it 

 would have made nothing but an unnavigable tor- 

 rent, had not its course been stopped in many parts 

 by masses of rock disposed in such a manner as to 



