£ 
humbolbx’s early travels. 
L\. the narrow circle of sedentary life appears insipid. Tlio 
taste lor herborisation, the study of geology, rapid ex- 
cursions to Holland, England, and France, with the cele- 
brated hi r. Georgo Forster, who had the happiness to aceom- 
]>any captain Cook in his second expedition round the globe, 
contributed to give a determined direction to the plan of 
travels which I had formed at eighteen years of age. No 
longer deluded by the agitation of a wandering life, 1 was 
anxious to contemplate nature in all her variety of wild and 
stupendous scenery ; and the hope of collecting some facts 
useful to the advancement of science, incessantly impelled 
my wishes towards the luxuriant regions of the torrid zone 
As personal circumstances then prevented mo from executing 
the projects by which I was so powerfully influenced, I had 
leisure to prepare myself during six years for the observa- 
tions I proposed to make on the JN T ew Continent, as well as 
to visit different parts of Europe, and to explore the lofty 
chain of the Alps, the structure of which 1 might after- 
wards compare with that of the Andes of Quito and of 
Peru. 
} ^ traversed a part of Italy in 1795, hut had not been 
able to visit the volcanic regions of Naples and Sicily ; and 1 
regretted leaving Europe without having seen Vesuvius. 
Stromboh, and Etna. 1 felt, that in order to form a proper 
judgment of many geological phenomena, especially of the 
nature of the rocks ol trap-formation, it was necessary to 
examine the phenomena presented by burning volcanoes t 
determined therefore to return to Italy in the month of 
■November,. 1797. I made a long stay at Vienna, where the 
hue collections of exotic plants, and the friendship of Messrs 
de Jaequin, and Joseph van der Schott, were highly useful 
to my preparatory studies. 1 travelled with M. Leopold 
\on Buell, through several cantons of Salzburg and Stiria 
countries alike interesting to the landscape-pant er and the 
geologist ; but just when 1 was about to cross the Tyrolese 
Alps, the war then raging in Italy obliged me to abandon 
the project ot going to INaples. 
A short time before, a gentleman passionately fond of the 
hue arts, ana who had visited the coasts of Greece and 
ilijiia to inspect their monuments, made me a proposal to 
accompany him in an expedition to Upper Egypt. This 
