Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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After Having Visited New Grenada, Peru And
Mexico, And Just When I Was Preparing To Leave The New Continent, I
Happened, At A Public Library Of Philadelphia, To Cast My Eyes On A
Scientific Publication, In Which I Found These Words:
"Arrival of M.
de Humboldt's manuscripts at his brother's house in Paris, by way of
Spain!" I could scarcely suppress an exclamation of joy.
While M. Bonpland laboured day and night to divide and put our
collections in order, a thousand obstacles arose to impede our
departure. There was no vessel in the port of the Havannah that would
convey us to Porto Bello or Carthagena. The persons I consulted seemed
to take pleasure in exaggerating the difficulties of the passage of
the isthmus, and the dangerous voyage from Panama to Guyaquil, and
from Guyaquil to Lima and Valparaiso. Not being able to find a passage
in any neutral vessel, I freighted a Catalonian sloop, lying at
Batabano, which was to be at my disposal to take me either to Porto
Bello or Carthagena, according as the gales of Saint Martha might
permit.* (* The gales of Saint Martha blow with great violence at that
season below latitude 12 degrees.) The prosperous state of commerce at
the Havannah and the multiplied connections of that city with the
ports of the Pacific would facilitate for me the means of procuring
funds for several years. General Don Gonzalo O'Farrill resided at that
time in my native country as minister of the court of Spain.
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