Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/50

 HUMBOLDT touch at many islands of the South sea, New Zealand, and Madagascar, and to return by the capo of Good Hope. Humboldt received per- mission to join the expedition, and to leave it when and where he wished. After several months of suspense, the necessities of war obliged the government to postpone the under- taking. Thus disappointed in his hopes of travel, Humboldt accepted an invitation to accompany the Swedish consul Skjoldebrand, who had been appointed to carry presents to the dey of Algiers, and he intended to proceed by way of Tunis to Egypt. The delay of the Swedish frigate, and the news from Barbary that during the war between the Turks and French every person arriving from a French port was thrown into prison, thwarted this purpose. He therefore, in company with Bon- pland, resolved to spend the winter in Spain; and passing through Perpignan, Barcelona, Montserrat, and Valencia, making botanical, astronomical, and magnetic observations by the way, they reached Madrid in February, 1799. lie was received with distinguished fa- vor, and the Saxon minister at Madrid, Baron Forell, having overcome the scruples of the Spanish government and procured for him an interview with King Charles IV., all the Span- ish possessions in Europe, America, and the East Indies were opened to him, with free permission to use all instruments for astro- nomical and geodetic observations, the meas- urement of mountains, the collection of objects of natural history, and investigations of every kind that might lead to the advancement of science. Such extensive privileges had never before been granted to any traveller. He left Madrid, measuring the elevations on his way through Old Castile, Leon, and Galicia, and on June 5, 1799, embarked with Bonpland in the frigate Pizarro from Corunna. Avoid- ing the English cruisers, they reached Tene- riffe on June 19, where they tarried to ascend the peak and 'to make many observations on the natural features of the island, and arriv- ed at Cumana, in Venezuela, July 16, 1799. After exploring the Venezuelan provinces for 18 months, residing the latter part of the time at Caracas, they set out for the interior from Puerto Cabello over the grassy plains of Cala- bozo to the river Apure, a branch of the Orino- co. In Indian canoes they made their way to the most southern post of the Spaniards, Fort San Carlos, on the Rio Negro, within two de- grees of the equator. They could have ad- vanced only by taking their boats over land, and therefore returned through the Cassiquiare to the Orinoco, which they followed to Angos- tura, proceeding thence to Cumana, This journey through wild and unfrequented re- gions was the first which furnished any posi- tive knowledge of the long disputed bifurcation of the Orinoco. They sailed to Havana, but after a few months hastened to seek some southern port, hearing a false report that Bau- din, whom they had promised to join, had ap- peared on the W. coast of South America. They embarked in March, 1801, from Batabano, on the S. coast of Cuba. The season of the year forbade the execution of their plan of going to Cartagena and Panama, and they sailed for 54 days up the river Magdalena to Honda, in order to reach the high plateau of Bogota. Thence they made excursions to the most remarkable natural features of the sur- rounding country. In September, 1801, in spite of the rainy season, they began to jour- ney southward, passed Ibngua, the Cordillera de Quindiu (at an altitude of 12,000 ft., their highest encampment by night), Cartago, Po- payan, Almaguer, and the lofty plain of Los Pastos, and reached Quito, after experiencing the greatest difficulties for four months, Jan. 6, 1802. The next five months they passed in investigations of the elevated vale of Quito, and of the snow-capped volcanoes which sur- round it, ascending some of these to heights not before attained. On Chimborazo they reached (June 23, 1802) the altitude of 19,286 ft., about 3,500 ft. higher than the point reached by La Condamine on the Corazon in 1738, and they were prevented only by a deep crevasse from advancing to the summit. They were joined at Quito by a young scholar, Carlos Montufar, son of the marquis of Selvalegre, who attended them throughout their wander- ings in Peru and Mexico and back to Paris. Over the pass of the Andes in the paramo of Asuay, by Cuenca and Loja, they descended into the vale of the upper Amazon at Jaen de Bracamoras, and traversing the plateau of Ca- jamarca, by the mountain city Micuipampa (up- ward of 11,000 ft. high, near the silver mines of Chota), they reached the western declivity of the Peruvian Andes. From the summit of Guangamarca (about 9,500 ft. high) they en- joyed for the first time the long-sought view of the Pacific. They reached the coast at Tru- jillo, and travelled through the sandy deserts of Lower Peru to Lima. After one of the prin- cipal designs of their Peruvian journey, the ob- servation of the transit of Mercury over the sun, was fulfilled, they embarked from Callao in De- cember, 1802, and reached Acapulco in Mexico, March 23, 1803. They arrived in the city of Mexico in April, remained there a few months, and then visited Guanajuato and Valladolid, the province of Michoacan near the Pacific coast, and the volcano of Jorullo, which had first broken out in 1759, and returned by way of Toluca to the capital, where they remained long enough to arrange their rich collections and to reduce their various observations to order. In January, 1804, after having mea- sured the volcano of Toluca and the Cofre de Perote, they descended through the oak forests of Jalapa to Vera Cruz, where they escaped from the then prevalent yellow fever. They compared their barometric measurement of the eastern declivity of the highland of Mexico with that which they had formerly completed of the western declivity, and made a profile