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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The Distances Were Known, But
We Were Deceived With Respect To The Time It Would Take To Traverse
Them On Mules' Backs.
We did not imagine that it would require more
than eighteen months to go from Carthagena to Lima.
Notwithstanding
this delay, or rather owing to the slowness with which we passed
through Cundinamarca, the provinces of Popayan and Quito, I did not
regret having sacrificed the passage of the isthmus to the route of
Bogota, for every step of the journey was full of interest both
geographically and botanically. This change of direction gave me
occasion to trace the map of the Rio Magdalena, to determine
astronomically the position of eighty points situated in the inland
country between Carthagena, Popayan, and the upper course of the river
Amazon and Lima, to discover the error in the longitude of Quito, to
collect several thousand new plants, and to observe on a vast scale
the relations between the rocks of syenitic porphyry and trachyte with
the fire of volcanoes.
The result of those labours of which it is not for me to appreciate
the importance have long since been published. My map of the Rio
Magdalena, multiplied by the copies of the year 1802 in America and
Spain, and comprehending the country between Almaguer and Santa Marta,
from 1 degree 54 minutes to 11 degrees 15 minutes latitude, appeared
in 1816. Till that period no traveller had undertaken to describe New
Grenada; and the public, except in Spain, knew the navigation of the
Magdalena only by some lines traced by Bouguer.
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