TRAVELS OF HUMBOLDT.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT was born at Berlin, in 1769. He was educated at Göttingen and Frankfort on the Oder, and studied mineralogy at a celebrated school at Freiberg. He seems to have had a great desire for learning, and his favourite studies were chemistry and animal electricity. His fortune enabled him to learn by travelling as well as by reading. He visited England and Holland, Italy and Switzerland; and in 1797 went from Vienna with his brother William von Humboldt, a learned and clever man, to Paris, where he became acquainted with Aimé Bonpland, a young botanist of note, with whom, on the 6th of June, 1799, after many delays and disappointments, he sailed from Corunna (a port in the north of Spain), with permission to travel through the Spanish colonies in America. At Teneriffe, one of the Canary Isles, they went up the celebrated peak of Teyde. The mountain which forms the island may be divided into five zones or belts. In the first, or zone of vines, they found many plants that grow in the hottest countries, such as the date-tree, the plantain, the sugar-cane, the Indian fig, and the clove-tree, mixed with the fruit-trees of Europe. The cultivation of the bread-fruit-tree of Otaheite, the cinnamon-tree of the

Moluccas, the coffee-tree of Arabia, and the cocoa-tree of America, has been successfully tried here. This zone reaches to the height of 1500 feet above the sea. The second zone, which may be called that of the laurels, is covered with oaks, chestnuts, and a great number of beautiful evergreens. The third zone, which begins at 5500 feet above the sea, is covered by a forest of pines; and the fourth and fifth with Alpine broom, &c. After these zones the barren part of the peak begins, and extends to an immense height. The Piton, or sugar-loaf at the top, is a small cone covered with volcanic ashes and fragments of pumice-stone, so steep that it would be impossible to reach the top but for the remains of an old current of lava, by grasping which the traveller is able to climb up to the top of the Piton. Mr. Humboldt and his friend were surprised to find scarcely room enough to seat themselves comfortably upon it; but the beautiful view, which met their eyes, repaid them for the fatigue of mounting, and the cold wind, which they felt severely. They reached the bottom of the crater in safety. Though it has been quiet for perhaps thousands of years, hot vapours come from the holes in its sides, which raised the thermometer to 160 degrees.

In July, Mr. Humboldt and Mr. Bonpland reached the port of Cumana in South America, and stayed there some time collecting plants, and examining the traces of the great earthquake in December 1797. The greatest pleasure known at Cumana is that of bathing, or rather sitting, in the stream Manzanares, which flows through the town. On a fine moonlight night chairs are placed in the water;

and the men and women, lightly dressed, pass some hours in the river smoking cigars and talking. They have no fear of being attacked by crocodiles; but are sometimes frightened by dolphins, which come up the river in the night, and spout water upon them.

The travellers next visited the valley of Caripe, and the celebrated Cueva, or cavern of the Guacharo. This cavern, which the natives call "a mine of fat," is in a rock covered with gigantic trees and creeping plants; it is 80 feet broad and 72 feet high, and was measured by Humboldt to the distance of 1460 feet, and he was told that its length was above 2500 feet. A river springs from it. The guacharo is about the size of an English fowl, of a dark bluish grey, and its habits are like those both of the goat-sucker and the Alpine crow; it feeds upon grain, and gets its food at night. Mr. Humboldt says that it is impossible to describe the horrible noise made by thousands of these birds in the dark part of the cavern, and whose shrill cries are echoed through the rocks. Once a year, near midsummer, the Indians go to the cavern with poles, and destroy the greater part of the nests. Several thousands of the birds are killed; and the young birds which fall to the ground are opened on the spot, and the fat (of which there is a layer forming a kind of cushion between the legs of the bird) is taken out and melted by the Indians in pots of clay, in the huts of palm-leaves which they build during their "oil-harvest," close to the cavern. This fat is called the butter or oil of the guacharo; it is half liquid, clear, without smell, and so pure that it may be kept good for a year.

On the 4th of November, the travellers felt a smart

shock from an earthquake, on the coast of Cumana. On the 21st they arrived at Caraccas, where they were surprised to see, in the port of La Guayra (three leagues distant from Caraccas), the mulattoes and negroes, employed in lading ships, wade up to their middles through the water without fear of the sharks, of which there were a great number in the harbour. The sharks, which were so dangerous at the island opposite to the coast of Caraccas, seemed harmless at La Guayra and Santa Martha; and the natives, by way of explanation, declared that the Bishop had given his blessing to the sharks in these ports. Humboldt went up the double-peaked mountain called the Silla, or Saddle of Caraccas, which, although so near to the town, had never been climbed by any of the inhabitants. From Caraccas he returned to Cumana, through the mountains of Los Teques, and along the banks of the beautiful Lake of Valencia, remarkable for the gradual lessening of its waters, attributed by Humboldt to the destruction of wood in the neighbouring valleys, which made the climate more dry. In passing a second time through the valleys of Aragua, the travellers stopped at the farm of Barbula, to examine into the truth of the accounts which they had heard of the palo de vacca, or cowtree. They found these accounts correct, and that it is a fine tree, somewhat like the broad-leaved star-apple, and yields an abundance of glutinous sweet-smelling milk, when holes are bored in its trunk. This milk flows most freely at sunrise; and the blacks and natives may then be seen hastening from all quarters, with large bowls, to receive it.

Mr. Humboldt and his friend now descended to the

great steppes, llanos, or desert, which separates the chain of mountains running along the coast from the valley of the Oroonoko, and which seems to touch the sky, and looks like an ocean covered with sea-weeds. In the space of twenty leagues square the ground is often not a foot higher than the rest, in any one part; but sometimes banks of stones may be seen four or five feet high, and covering three or four leagues. The earth wherever barren is at 120o, and not a breath of air to be felt, although clouds of dust often arise. These plains seem to have become more dry and barren since the discovery of America, owing to the frequent setting on fire of the savannah, in order to improve the pasturage for cattle.

At Calabozo, Mr. Humboldt tried to get a specimen of the great gymnotus, or electrical eel, which is found in great abundance in the rivers which flow into the Oroonoko; and in order to procure some, the Indians proposed to "fish with horses." This is performed by driving wild horses or mules into a stagnant pool; the noise caused by their hoofs brings the fish from the mud to the surface of the water, and the Indians surround the pool, and by their wild cries and long reeds prevent the horses from leaving it. The eels defend themselves by discharging their electric batteries, which stun the horses, and cause them to sink under the water, where they are generally drowned, being kept down by the struggles of the other horses and eels. When the gymnoti have expended their electric force, they are easily taken by means of small harpoons fastened to long cords, by which, when quite dry, the fish can be lifted into the air without giving any shock. Some of those