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BARON HUMBOLDT.

THE following abstract of the
American Travels of the celebrated
baron Humboldt and his companion
Bonpland, has been drawn up from
notes which the former has kindly
furnished, and will supersede the
many very incorrect accounts hither-
to published relative to this interest-
ing object.

—

Baron Humboldt, having travelled
from the year 1790, as a naturalist,
through Germany, Poland, France,
Switzerland, and through parts of
England, Italy, Hungary, and Spain,
came to Paris in 1798, when he
received an invitation, from the di-
rectors of the national museum, to
accompany captain Baudin in his
voyage round the world. Citizen
Alexander Aime Gourjon Bonpland,
a native of Rochelle, and brought
up in the Paris museum, was also
to have accompanied them; when
on the point of departing, the whole
plan was suspended until a more
favourable opportunity, owing to the
re-commencement of the war with
Austria, and to the consequent want
of funds.

Mr. Humboldt, who, from 1792,
had conceived the plan of travelling
through India at his own expence,
with a view of adding to the know-
ledge of the sciences connected with
natural history, then resolved to
follow the learned men, who had
gone on the expedition to Egypt.....
His plan was to go to Algiers in the
Swedish frigate which carried the
consul Skoldebrandt, to follow the
caravan which goes from Algiers to
Mecca, going through Egypt to
Arabia, and thence by the Persian
gulph to the English East-India es-
tablishments. The war which unex-
pectedly broke out in October, 1798,
between France and the Barbary
powers, and the troubles in the East,
prevented Mr. Humboldt from em-

barking at Marseilles, where he had
been fruitlessly two months waiting
to proceed. Impatient at this delay,
and continuing firm in his determi-
nation to go to Egypt, he went to
Spain, hoping to pass more readily
under the Spanish flag from Cartha-
gena to Algiers and Tunis. He took
with him the large collection of phi-
lisophical, chemical, and astronomi-
cal instruments, which he had pur-
chased in England and France.

From a happy concurrence of
circumstances, he obtained, in Fe-
bruary, 1789, from the court of Ma-
drid, a permission to visit the Spanish
colonies of the two Americas, a per-
mission which was granted with a
liberality and frankness, which was
honourable to the government and
to a philosophic age. After a resi-
dence of some months at the Spanish
court, during which time the king
showed a strong personal interest in
the plan, Mr. Humboldt, in June,
1799, left Europe, accompanied by
Mr. Bonpland, who, to a profound
knowledge in botany and zoology,
added an indefatigable zeal. It is
with this friend that Mr. Humboldt
has accomplished, at his own ex-
pence, his travels in the two hemis-
pheres, by land and sea, probably
the most extensive which any indi-
vidual has ever undertaken.

These two travellers left Corun-
na in the Spanish ship Pizarro, for
the Canary islands, where they as-
cended to the crater of the Peak of
Teyde, and made experiments on
the analysis of the air. In July they
arrived at the port of Camana, in
South America. In 1799, 1800, they
visited the coast of Paria, the mis-
sions of the Chaymas Indians, the
province of New Andalusia (a coun-
try which had been rent by the most
dreadful earthquakes, the hottest,
and yet the most healthy, in the
world) of New Barcelona, of Vene-


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zuela, and of Spanish Guayana.....In
January, 1800, they left Caraccas to
visit the beautiful vallies of Aragua,
where the great lake of Valencia
recals to the mind the views of the
lake of Geneva, embellished by the
majesty of the vegetation of the
tropics. From Porto Cabello they
crossed, to the south, the immense
plains of Caloboza, of Apure, and of
the Oronoco, also los Llanos, a de-
sert similar to those of Africa,
where in the shade (by the rever-
beration of heat) the thermometer
of Reaumur rose to 35 and 37 (111
to 115 F.) degrees. The level of the
country for 2000 square leagues
does not differ 5 inches. The sand
every where represents the horizon
of the sea, without vegetation; and
its dry bosom hides the crocodiles,
and the torpid boa (a species of
serpent). The travelling here, as
in all Spanish America, except Mex-
ico, is performed on horseback.....
They passed whole days without
seeing a palm-tree or the vestige of
a human dwelling. At St. Fernando
de Apure, in the provinces of Vari-
nas, Messrs. Humboldt and Bon-
pland began that fatiguing naviga-
tion of nearly 1000 marine leagues,
executed in canoes, making a chart
of the country by the assistance of
chronometers, the satellites of Jupi-
ter, and the lunar distances. They
descended the river Apure, which
empties itself into the Oronoco, in
7 degrees of latitude. They ascend-
ed the last river (passing the cele-
brated cataracts of Mapure and A-
tures) to the mouth of the Guaviare.
From thence they ascended the
small rivers of Tabapa, Juamini,and
Tenie. From the mission of Sarita
they crossed by land to the sources
of the famous Rio Negro, which Con-
damine saw, where it joins the Ama-
zon, and which he calls a sea of
fresh water. About 30 Indians car-
ried the canoes through woods of
Mami Lecythis and Laurus Cina-
momoides to the cano (or creek) of
Pemichin. It was by this small
stream that the travellers entered
the Rio Negro, or Black River,
which they descended to St. Carlos,

which has been erroneously suppos-
ed to be placed under the equator,
or just at the frontiers of Great Pa-
ra, in the government of Bresil. A
canal from Tenie to Pemichin, which
from the level nature of the ground
is very practicable, would present a
fine internal communication between
the Para and the province of Car-
racas, a communication infinitely
shorter than that of Cassiquiare.....
From the fortress of St. Carlos on
the Rio Negro, Mr. H. went north
up that river and the Cassiquiare to
the Oronoco, and on this river to
the volcano Daida or the mission of
the Esmeralda, near the sources of
the Oronoco: the Indians Guaicas
(a race of men almost pigmies, very
white and very warlike) render
fruitless any attempts to reach the
sources themselves.

From the Esmeralda Messrs. H.
& B. went down the Oronoco, when
the waters rose, towards its mouths
at St. Thomas de la Guayana, or the
Angostura. It was during this long
navigation that they were in a con-
tinued state of suffering, from want
of nourishment, and shelter from the
night rains, from living in the woods,
from the mosquetoes, and an infinite
variety of stinging insects, and from
the impossibility of bathing, owing
to the fierceness of the crocodile
and the little carib fish, and finally
the miasmata of a burning climate.
They returned to Cumana by the
plains of Cari and the mission of the
Carib Indians, a race of men very
different from any other, and pro-
bably, after the Patagonians, the
tallest and most robust in the world.

After remaining some months at
New Barcelona and Cumana, the
travellers arrived at the Havanna,
after a tedious and dangerous navi-
gation, the vessel being in the night
on the point of striking upon the
Vibora rocks. Mr. H. remained three
months in the island of Cuba, where
he occupied himself in ascertaining
the longitude of the Havanna, and in
constructing stoves on the sugar
plantations, which have since been
pretty generally adopted. They were
on the point of setting off for Vera


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Cruz, meaning, by the way of
Mexico and Acapulco, to go to the
Philipine Islands, and from thence,
if it was possible, by Bombay and
Aleppo, to Constantinople, when
some false reports relative to Bau-
din's voyage alarmed them, and
made them change their plan. The
gazettes held out the idea that this
navigator would proceed from
France to Buenos Ayres, and from
thence, by Cape Horn, for Chili and
the coast of Peru. Mr. Humboldt
had promised to Mr. Baudin and to
the Museum of Paris, that where-
ever he might be, he would endea-
vour to join the expedition, as soon
as he should know of its having been
commenced. He flattered himself
that his researches, and those of his
friend Bonpland, might be more
useful to science, if united to the la-
bours of the learned men who would
accompany captain Baudin.

These considerations induced Mr.
Humboldt to send his manuscripts,
from 1799 and 1800, direct to Europe,
and to freight a small schooner at
Batabano, intending to go to Car-
thagena, and from thence, as quick-
ly as possible, by the Isthmus of Pa-
nama, to the South Sea. He hoped
to find captain Baudin at Guayaquil,
or at Lima, and with him to visit
New Holland, and the islands of the
Pacific Ocean, equally interesting
in a moral point of view, as by the
luxuriance of their vegetation.

It appeared imprudent to expose
the manuscripts and collections al-
ready made to the risks of this pro-
posed navigation. These manu-
scripts, of the fate of which Mr. H.
remained ignorant during three
years, and until his arrival in Phi-
ladelphia, arrived safe, but one third
part of the collection was lost by
shipwreck. Fortunately (except the
insects of the Oronoco and of the
Rio Negro) they were only dupli-
cates; but unhappily friar John
Gonzales, monk of the order of St.
Francis, the friend to whom they
were entrusted, perished with them.
He was a young man full of ardour,
who had penetrated into this un-

known world of Spanish Guayana
further than any other European.

Mr. Humboldt left Batabano in
March, 1801, and passed to the
south of the island of Cuba, on
which he determined many geo-
graphical positions. The passage
was rendered very long by calms,
and the currents carried the little
schooner too much to the west, to
the mouths of the Attracto. The
vessel put into the river Sinu,
where no botanist had ever before
visited, and they had a very difficult
passage up to Carthagena. The
season being too far advanced for
the South Sea navigation, the pro-
ject of crossing the isthmus was
abandoned; and animated by the
desire of being acquainted with the
celebrated Mutis, and admiring his
immensely rich collections of objects
of natural history, Mr. H. determin-
ed to pass some weeks in the woods
of Turbaco, and to ascend (which
took forty days) the beautiful river
of Madalaine, of the course of which
he sketched a chart.

From Honda, our travellers as-
cended through forests of oaks, of
melastomo, and of cinchona (the
tree which affords the Peruvian
bark), to St. Fe de Bogota, capital
of the kingdom of New Grenada,
situated in a fine plain, elevated
1360 toises (of six French feet) above
the level of the sea. The superb
collections of Mutis, the majestic
cataract of the Tequendama (falls
of 98 toises height) the mines of
Mariquita, St. Ana, and of Tipaqui-
ra, the natural bridge of Scononza
(three stones thrown together in the
manner of an arch, by an earth-
quake), these curious objects stop-
ped the progress of Messrs. Hum-
boldt and Bonpland until the month
of September, 1801.

At this time, notwithstanding the
rainy season had commenced, they
undertook the journey to Quito, and
passed the Andes of Quindiu, which
are snowy mountains covered with
wax palm-trees (palmiers a cire),
with passe flores (passion flower) of
the growth of trees, storax, and


―324―

bambusa (bamboo). They were,
during 13 days, obliged to pass on
foot through places dreadfully swam-
py, and without any traces of popu-
lation.

From the village of Carthago, in
the valley of Cauca, they followed
the course of the choco, the country
of Palatina, which was there found
in round pieces of basalte and green
rock (grein stein of Werner), and
fossil wood. They pass by Buga to
Popayan, a bishop's see, and situated
near the volcanoes of Sotara and
Purace, a most picturesque situa-
tion, and enjoying the most delicious
climate in the world, the thermo-
meter of Reamur keeping constantly
at 16 to 18 (68 to 72 Fahr.) They
ascended to the crater of the volca-
no of Purace, whose mouth, in the
middle of snow, throws out vapours
of sulphureous hydrogene, with con-
tinued and frightful rumbling.

From Papayan they passed by the
dangerous defiles of Almager, avoid-
ing the infected and contagious val-
ley of Patia, to Posto, and from this
town, even now situated at the foot
of a burning volcano, by Tuqueras
and the province of Pastos, a flat
portion of country, fertile in Euro-
pean grain, but elevated more than
1500 to 1600 toises above the towns
of Ibarra and Quito.

They arrived, in January, 1802, at
this beautiful capital, celebrated by
the labours of the illustrious Conda-
mine, of Bouger, Godin, Dr. George
Juan, and Ulloa, and still more cele-
brated by the great amiability of its
inhabitants, and their happy turn
for the arts.

They remained nearly a year in
in the kingdom of Quito: the height
of its snow-capped mountains, its
terrible earthquakes (that of Febru-
ary 7, 1797, swallowed up 42,000
inhabitants, in a few seconds), its
fertility, and the manners of its in-
habitants, combined to render it the
most interesting spot in the universe.
After three vain attempts, they
twice succeeded in ascending to the
crater of the volcano of Pichincha,
taking with them electrometers, ba-
rometers, and hygrometers. Con-

damine could only stop here a few
minutes, and that without instru-
ments. In his time, this immense
crater was cold and filled with snow.
Our travellers found it inflamed;
distressing information for the town
of Quito, which is distant from it
only 5000 to 6000 toises.

They made separate visits to the
snowy and porphyritic mountains of
Antisana, Cotopaxi, Tungarague,
and Chimborazo, the last the high-
est point of our globe. They studied
the geological part of the Cordillera
of the Andes, on which subject no-
thing has been published in Europe,
mineralogy (if the expression may
be used) having been created, as it
were, since the time of Condamine.
The geodesical measurements prov-
ed that some mountains, particularly
the volcano of Tungarague, has con-
siderably lowered since 1750, which
result agrees with the observations
made to them by the inhabitants.

During the whole of this part of
the journey, they were accompanied
by Mr. Charles Montutar, son of
the marquis of Selva-alegre, of Qui-
to, a person zealous for the progress
of science, and who is, at his own
expence, rebuilding the pyramids of
Saraqui, the extremity of the cele-
brated bases of the triangles of the
Spanish and French academicians.
This interesting young man having
followed Mr. Humboldt in the re-
mainder of his journey through Peru
and the kingdom of New Spain, is
on his passage with him to Eu-
rope.

Circumstances were so favourable
to the efforts of the three travellers,
that at Antisana they were ascended 2200
French feet, and at Chimborazo, on
June 22, 1802, nearly 3200 feet high-
er than Condamine was able to carry
his instruments. They ascended to
3036 toises elevation above the level
of the sea, the blood starting from
their eyes, lips, and gums. An
opening, of 80 toises deep, and very
wide, prevented them from reach-
ing the top, from which they were
only distant 134 toises.

It was at Quito that Mr. Hum-
boldt received a letter from the Na-


―325―

tional Institute of France, informing
him, that captain Baudin had pro-
ceeded by the Cape of Good Hope,
and that there was no longer any
hope of joining him.

After having examined the coun-
try overturned by the earthquake
of Riobamba, in 1797, they passed
by the Andes of Assuay to Cuenza.
The desire of comparing the barks
(cinchona) discovered by Mr. Mutis,
at Santa Fe de Bagota, and with
those of Popayan, and the cuspa and
cuspare of New Andalusia, and of
the river Caroni (named falsely
Cortex Augustura), with the cin-
chona (barks) of Loxa and Peru,
they preferred deviating from the
beaten track from Cuenza to Lima;
but they passed with immense diffi-
culties in the carriage of their in-
struments and collections,by the fo-
rest (paramo) of Saragura to Loxa,
and from thence to the province of
Saen de Bracamoros. They had to
cross thirty-five times, in two days,
the river Guancabamba, so danger-
ous for its sudden freshes. They saw
the ruins of the superb Ynga road,
comparable to the finest roads in
France, and which went upon the
ridge of the Andes from Cusco to
the Assuay, accommodated with
fountains and taverns.

They descended the river Cha-
maya, which led them into that of
the Amazones, and they navigated
this last river down to the cataracts
of Tomeperda, one of the most fer-
tile, but one of the hottest, climates
of the habitable globe. From the
Amazone river they returned to the
south-east by the Cordilleras of the
Andes to Montar, where they found
they had passed the magnetic equa-
tor, the inclination being 0, although
at seven degrees of south latitude.
They visited the mines of Hualgua-
yoc, where native silver is found at
the height of 2000 toises. Some of
the veins of these mines contain pe-
trified shells, and which, with those
of Pasco and Huantajayo, are actu-
ally the richest of Peru. From
Caxamarca they descended to Trux-
illo, in the neighbourhood of which


are found the ruins of the immense
Peruvian city, Mansiche.

It was on this western descent of
the Andes that the three voyagers,
for the first time, had the pleasure
of seeing the Pacific Ocean. They
followed its barren sides, formerly
watered by the canals of the Yngas
at Santa, Guerma, and Lima. They
remained some months in this inte-
resting capital of Peru, of which the
inhabitants are distinguished by the
vivacity of their genius, and the li-
berality of their ideas.

Mr. Humboldt had the good for-
tune to observe the end of the pas-
sage of Mercury over the sun's disk,
in the port of Callao. He was as-
stonished to find, at such a distance
from Europe, the most recent pro-
ductions in chemistry, mathematics,
and medicine; and he found great
activity of mind in the inhabitants,
who, in a climate where it never
either rains or thunders, have been
falsely accused of indolence.

From Lima our travellers passed
by sea to Guayaquil, situated on the
brink of a river, where the growth
of the palm tree is beautiful beyond
description. They every moment
heard the rumbling of the volcano
of Cotopaxi, which made an alarm-
ing explosion on the 6th January,
1803. They immediately set off to
visit it a second time, when the un-
expected intelligence of the speedy
departure of the frigate Atalanta
determined them to return, after
being seven days exposed to the
dreadful attacks of the mosquitoes
of Babaoya and Ujibar.

They had a fortunate passage, by
the Pacific Ocean, to Acapulco, the
western port of the kingdom of New
Spain, famous for the beauty of its
harbour, which appears to have
been formed by earthquakes, for
the misery of its inhabitants, and for
its climate, which is equally hot and
unhealthy.

Mr. Humboldt had originally the
intention to remain only a few
months in Mexico, and to hasten his
return to Europe; his voyage had
already been too much protracted,


―326―

his instruments, particularly the
chronometers, began to be out of
order, and every effort that he made
to have new ones sent to him proved
to no avail; add to this considera-
tion, that the progress of science is
so rapid in Europe, that, in a jour-
ney that lasts four or five years,
great risk is run of contemplating
the different phenomena under as-
pects, which are no longer interest-
ing at the moment of publishing the
result of your labours. Mr. Hum-
boldt hoped to be in France in Au-
gust or September, 1808, but the at-
tractions of a country, so beautiful
and so varied, as is that of the king-
dom of New Spain, the great hospi-
tality of its inhabitants, and the fear
of the yellow fever, so fatal, from
June to November, for those who
come from the mountainous parts of
the country, led him to stay a year
in this kingdom.

Our travellers ascended from A-
capulco to Tasco, celebrated for its
mines, as interesting as they are
ancient. They rise, by small de-
grees, from the ardent valley of
Mescala and Papagayo, where the
thermometer of Reaumur stands, in
the shade, constantly from 28 to 31
(95 to 101 Fah.), in a region 6 or
700 toises above the level of the
sea, where you find the oaks, the
pines, and the fougere (fern) as
large as trees, and where the Euro-
pean grains are cultivated. They
passed by Tasco, by Cuerna Vacca,
to the capital of Mexico. This city,
of 150,000 inhabitants, is placed up-
on the ancient site of Texochtitlan,
between the lakes of Tezcuco and
Xochimilco, lakes which have les-
sened somewhat since the Spaniards
have opened the canal of Hacheu-
toca, in sight of two snow-topped
mountains, of which one, Hopocate-
pec, is even now an active volcano
surrounded by a great number of
walks, shaded with trees, and by
Indian villages.

This capital of Mexico, situated
1160 toises above the sea, in a mild
and temperate climate, may doubt-
less be compared to some of the fin-

est towns in Europe. Great scien-
tific establishments, such the Aca-
demy of Painting, Sculpture, and
Engraving, the College of Mines,
(owing to the liberality of the Com-
pany of Miners of Mexico), and
the Botanic Garden, are institutions
which do honour to the govern-
ment which has created them.

After remaining some months in
the valley of Mexico, and after fix-
ing the longitute of the capital,
which had been laid down with an
error of nearly two degrees, our
travellers visited the mines of Moran
and Real del Monte, and the Cerro
of Oyamel, where the ancient Mexi-
cans had the manufactory of knives
made of the obsidian stone. They
soon after passed by Queretaro and
Salamanca to Guanaxoato, a town
of fifty thousand inhabitants, and
celebrated for its mines, more rich
than those of Potosi have ever been.
The mine of the count of Valenci-
ana, which is 1840 French feet per-
pendicular depth, is the deepest and
richest mine of the universe. This
mine alone gives to its proprietor
nearly six hundred thousand dol-
lars annual and constant profit.

From Guanaxoato they returned
by the valley of St. Jago to Vallado-
lid, in the ancient kingdom of Mi-
chuacan, one of the most fertile and
charming provinces of the kingdom.
They descended from Pascuaro to-
wards the coast of the Pacific Ocean
to the plains of Serullo, where, in
1759, in one night, a volcano arose
from the level, surrounded by two
thousand small mouths, from whence
smoke still continues to issue. They
arrived almost to the bottom of the
crater of the great volcano of Serul-
lo, of which they analized the air,
and found it strongly impregnated
with carbonic acid. They returned
to Mexico by the valley of Teluca,
and visited the volcano, to the high-
est point of which they ascended,
14,400 French feet above the level
of the sea.

In the months of January and
February, 1804, they pursued their
researches on the eastern descent


―327―

of the Cordilleras, they measured
the mountains Merados, de la Pue-
bla, Popocatyce, Izazihuatli, the
great peak of Orizaba, and the Cof-
re de Perote; upon the top of this
last Mr. Humboldt observed the
meridian height of the sun. In fine,
after some residence at Xalappa,
they embarked at Vera Cruz, for
the Havannah. They resumed the
collections they had left there in
1801, and by the way of Philadel-
phia, embarked for France, in July,

1804, after six years of absence and
labours. A collection of 6000 differ-
ent species of plants (of which a
great part are new) and numerous
mineralogical, astronomical, che-
mical, and moral observations, have
been the result of this expedition.
Mr. Humboldt gives the highest
praises to the liberal protection
granted to his researches by the
Spanish government.

Baron Humboldt was born in Prus-
sia, on the 14th of September, 1769.