2 



the seas be interrupted by lengthened hostilities, 

 passports are mutually granted by the belliger- 

 ent powers, and partial enmities disappear be- 

 fore the advancement of general knowledge, 

 which is the general cause of all nations. Far 

 different is the situation of a private individual, 

 who undertakes a journey at his own expense 

 into the interior of a continent, over which Eu- 

 rope has extended it's system of colonization. 

 The traveller in vain meditates the plan, which 

 he judges the most convenient either for the ob- 

 ject of his investigations, or the political state of 

 the country he intends to examine ; he collects in 

 vain all his resources, which in distant regions 

 may secure him for a long time an independant 

 existence ; his designs are often thwarted by un- 

 foreseen obstacles at the moment that he thinks 

 of putting them into execution. Few individuals 

 have had greater difficulties to struggle with than 

 myself, before my departure for Spanish Ameri- 

 ca; I should spare the recital, and begin this 

 narrative by the expedition to the summit of the 

 Peak of TenerifFe, had not the failure of my first 

 projects had a decided influence on the direction 

 I have given my travels since my return from the 

 Orinoco. I shall, however, pass rapidly over those 

 events which have no interest for science, but 

 which I wish to present in their true light. The 

 curiosity of the public being oftener fixed on the 

 persons of travellers than on their works, what 



