180 EETUEN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PAKIS 
His fii'st meeting with the famous Humboldt is thus 
described : 
On putting up here I sent in my card with Mr. Brown's 
books to Baron Humboldt ; he was not at home, but 
sent his flunkey (Scotice Footman) to my bedroom at 
8 o'clock yesterday morning to say his master wished to 
see me at 9. Ten minutes after his Lord had grown 
impatient and sent to say he was all ready, so I went in 
and saw to my horror a ^punchy little German, instead of a 
Humboldt. There was no mistaking his head, however, which 
is exceedingly like all the portraits, though now powdered 
with white. I expected to see a fine fellow 6 feet without 
his boots, who would make as few steps to get up Chimborazo 
as thoughts to solve a problem. I cannot now at all fancy 
his trotting along the Cordillera as I once supposed he 
would have stalked. However, he received me most kindly 
and made a great many enquiries about all at Kew and in 
England, particularly about Mr. Brown and my father. 
In a letter of the same date to his sister Maria he draws 
a keenly etched picture of several distinguished botanists then 
in Paris, a companion picture to his careful comparison of 
the Jardin des Plantes, the libraries, collections, and glass 
houses with the establishment at Kew. 
I have seen a great many men here, but they are so 
swallowed up, in general, with self-conceit that the only 
way to make oneself agreeable is to hold your own tongue 
and allow them to rattle away ; each begins by telling you 
literally of the magnitude of their works, whilst of those 
of their neighbours they seem to know very little indeed. 
To this there are exceptions, of course. There are truly 
a large concourse of Botanists here, but they do not appear 
to me such sterling men as we have by any means. There 
are six Botanists at the Jardin des Plantes, three heads 
and three subs of the heads. Only one loves Botany for 
its own sake, who is M. Mirbel,^ who was out when I 
1 Charles Francois Brisseau de Mirbel (1776-1854), artist and botanist, 
deserted science for ten years in favour of civil administration, but returned 
in 1 827 to a professorship at the Paris Museum of Natural History. He was 
one of the pioneers in microscopic anatomy and vegetable physiology. Of the 
friends Sir William had made among the French botanists when he visited Paris 
in 1814, Mirbel and Bory were the only survivors. 
