695 



the country by the Capuchin missionaries. The 

 intensity of the fever augmented, but it left me 

 on the following day. Mr. Bonpland remained 

 in a very alarming state, which during several 

 weeks gave us the most serious inquietude 

 Fortunately he preserved sufficient strength o^ 

 mind, to prescribe for himself; and preferred 

 gentler remedies, better adapted to his constitu- 

 tion than the extract of the bark of Carony. The 

 fever was continual ; and, as almost always hap- 

 pens within the tropics, a complication of dysen- 

 tery aggravated the symptoms. In the course of 

 this painful disease Mr. Bonpland displayed that 

 courage and mildness of character, which never 

 forsook him in the most trying situations. I 

 was agitated by sad presages. The botanist 

 Loefling, a pupil of Linneus, had died not far 

 from Angostura, near the banks of the Carony, 

 a victim of his zeal for the progress of natural 

 history. We had not yet passed a year in the 

 torrid zone ; and my memory, too faithful, 

 reminded me of every thing I had read in Europe 

 on the dangers of the air that is breathed in the 

 forests. Instead of going up the Oroonoko, 

 we might have sojourned some months in the 

 temperate and salubrious climate of the Sierra 

 Nevada de Merida. It was I who had chosen 

 the path of the rivers ; and the danger of rny 

 fellow-traveller presented itself to my mind as 

 the fatal consequence of this imprudent choice. 



