17G 
AN AdliHEAHLE BUUPEISlt. 
rhen I solicited tlie Directory to hasten the departure ot 
Captain Baudin. On leaving Spain, I had promised to 
rejoin tlie expedition wlierever I could reach it. M Bon- 
pland and I resolved instantly to divide our herbais into 
three portions, to avoid exposing to the risks of a long 
voyage the objects we had obtained with so much difficulty 
on the bimks of the Orinoco, the Atabapo, and the Bia 
Aegro. We sent one collection by way of Emdand to 
Germany, another by way of Cadiz to Prince, and a third 
remained at the Havaiinah. We had reason to congratidate 
ourselves on this foresight : each collection contained nearly 
the same species, and no precautions were neglected to havd 
the cases, if taken by English or French vessels, remitted to 
hir Joseph Banks, or to the professoi-s of natural history at 
the Museum at Paris. It happened fortunately that ‘the 
manuscripts winch 1 at first intended to send with the coi- 
lection to Cadiz, were not intrusted to our much esteemed 
friend and fd ow traveller. Fray Juan Gonzales, of the 
order ot the Obseiwanco of St. Francis, who liad followed 
IV" iVin tl'O view of returning to Spain. 
He left the island of Cuba soon after us, but the vessel in 
V hich he sailed toundered on the coast of Africa and the 
cargo and crew were all lost. By this event we lost some of 
the duplicates of our liei’bals, and what was more important, 
all the insects winch JM. Bonpland had with great difficulty 
collected during our voyage to the Orinoco and the Eio 
.Negro. By a singular fatality, we remained two years in 
tlie bpanish colonies -without receiving a single letter from 
Europe; and those which arrived in the three following 
years made no mention of what we liad transmitted The 
reader may magine my uneasiness for the fate of a iourual 
^^mch contamea astronomical observations, and baroiiietrical 
measurements, of which I had not made any copy. After 
having visited Hew Grenada, Peru, and .Mexico and just 
when I was preparing to leave the Hew Continent, I hap- 
pened, at a public library of Philadelphia, to cast my eyes 
on a .scientific publication in which I found these Lvds: 
Arrnal of M. de Humboldt’s manuscripts at his brother’s 
house in Pans, by way of Spain !” I could scarcely suppress 
an exclamation of joy. 
While M. Bouplaild laboured day and night to divide and 
