Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In Consequence Of This
Engagement, I Changed The Plan Of My Journey, On Reading In The
American Papers, In 1801, That The French Expedition Had Sailed
From Havre, To Circumnavigate The Globe From East To West.
I hired
a small vessel from Batabano, in the island of Cuba, to Portobello,
and thence crossed the isthmus to the coast of the Pacific; this
mistake of a journalist led M. Bonpland and myself to travel eight
hundred leagues through a country we had no intention to visit.
It
was only at Quito, that a letter from M. Delambre, perpetual
secretary of the first class of the Institute, informed us, that
captain Baudin went by the Cape of Good Hope, without touching on
the eastern or western coasts of America.
We spent two days at Corunna, after our instruments were embarked.
A thick fog, which covered the horizon, at length indicated the
change of weather we so anxiously desired. On the 4th of June, in
the evening, the wind turned to north-east, a point which, on the
coast of Galicia, is considered very constant during the summer.
The Pizarro prepared to sail on the 5th, though we had intelligence
that only a few hours previously an English squadron had been seen
from the watch-tower of Sisarga, appearing to stand towards the
mouth of the Tagus. Those who saw our ship weigh anchor asserted
that we should be captured in three days, and that, forced to
follow the fate of the vessel, we should be carried to Lisbon.
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