attain to it. The true natural philosopher, who may hope to forge a new link in the wondrous chain of physical truth, must be a hard

working, zealous, cool-headed man; a man who can forego sleep for many nights, and live on scanty food for many days; who can endure

the heat of the midday sun, and the damp unhealthiness of the night dew-whose one absorbing interest is in the science he has taken in hand to elucidate, and who, offering everything he has, is content to grope his way slowly and unweariedly from truth to truth. And such a man was Humboldt.

The determined hostility of the Indian tribes, especially of the warlike Guaicas and the cannibal Guajaribes, prevented Humboldt and Bonpland from tracing the Orinoko completely to its source, and compelled them to turn their boat's head down the river. It was well remarked by our great taveller that the ferocity and cruelty of barbarous nations is often in inverse proportion to their numbers. Thus the thinly-scattered triles who traverse the immense wilds bordering on the great rivers are animated by a malignant enmity towards each other which appears unaccountable, when we take into consideration how ample is the teritory over which they can roam at will. Parties of savages slink to and fro among the vast solitudes, more suspicious and fierce than the beasts of prey with which they share the shelter of the woods. Whatever ingenuity they possess is devoted to the task of destroying their fellow-men. Some of them extract from the fangs of serpents a poison wherewith they anoint the points of the arrows which they shoot at their foes from behind trees; others smear the wourali or snake poison upon their thumbnail, and thus inflict deadly wounds. Many tribes, when they traverse the wilderness, take care to walk in each other's footsteps as they hasten onward in single line, and the last man of the party carefully effaces the footprints, lest a hostile tribe should become aware of their proximity and pursue them to the death. The strange habit of earth-eating is prevalent among some of these tribes; the Otomacs, who dwelt on the banks of the Orinoko, were accustomed to devour lumps of an unctuous yellow clay. They kneaded this strange comestible into balls of from four to six inches in diameter, which they baked before a slow fire to harden the outer surface. Humboldt found great pyramidal piles of these earth-balls stored up in the Otomac huts, as a provision for the rainy season, during which time carth constitutes the chief food of this extraordinary people. The clay of which these balls are made is selected with some care; it is found on the banks of the Orinoko and the Meta, and is of a yellowish-grey colour, and almost tasteless. It is not entirely from necessity that the Otomacs adopt this strange diet. Although in the rainy season scarcity of provision compels them to have recourse to their piles of clay dump

lings, yet in the dry season, when they can procure fish in plenty, they are accustomed to devour an earth-ball or two as a second course, or, as Humboldt expresses it, "as a bonne-bouche after their regular meals." The languages of these tribes are very various. Their continual distrust of each other, resulting in a state of chronic strife, has kept them entirely apart and isolated; and wherever there is a want of intercourse between nations, diversity of tongues and dialects must prevail. Thus, in the wast regions of the Orinoko and the Cassiquiari, there are almost as many languages as tribes.

Thus the first part of Humboldt's travels had been devoted to the exploration of the great river system of Western South America, and science had been enriched with a host of new and interesting facts. The second part of our traveller's investigations was to comprise a journey through the mountain chains or Cordilleras of the mighty Andes, and to produce results of equal scientific value and importance.

L and Journey across the Cordilleras-Disappointment of Humboldt-Volcanic Agency-Singular Method of Travelling-The Great Volcanic Peaks of the Andes-Their Height, &c.-Public Works of the Old Peruvians-Roads and Palaces-Conquest of Peru, &c.

A

FTER a stay of some months in several of the West India islands, Humboldt and Bonpland proceeded to Cartagena, whence they designed to make their way overland to Santa Fé de Bogota, the capital of New Granada, and from thence across the Cordilleras to Quito in Peru. The French scientific expedition, under Captain Baudin, which had been several times "advertised to sail," was now again reported to have actually set out, and to be proceeding to Peru. Humboldt had promised Baudin that he would join him, and accordingly set out for the Peruvian coast, and it was not until some time afterwards that our friends were finally undeceived by the intelligence that the long-projected expedition was to circumnavigate the globe from west to east, and they determined to make their plans in future entirely independent of Baudin and his instructions.

The cheerfulness with which the great traveller was accustomed to bear disappointment, and his happy faculty of extracting the "soul of goodness in things evil," are exemplified in the way in which he notices

the arrival of this intelligence, and its effect upon his plans. "American papers circulated in the Antilles," he says, "announced that the two French corvettes, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste, were to sail round Cape Horn and to touch at Callao de Lima. This information, which I received when in the Havannah, after having completed my Orinoko journey, caused me to relinquish my original plan of proceeding through Mexico to the Philippines. I lost no time in engaging a ship to convey me from Cuba to Cartagena de Indias. But Captain Baudin's expedition took quite a different course from that which had been expected and announced. Instead of proceeding by way of Cape Horn, as had been intended at the time when it was agreed that Bonpland and I should join it, the expedition sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. One of the objects of my visit to Peru and of my last journey across the chain of the Andes was thus thwarted; but I had the singular good fortune, at a very unfavourable season of the year, in the misty regions of Lower Peru, to enjoy a clear bright day. In Callao I observed the passage of Mercury over the sun's disc, an observation of sound importance in aiding the accurate determination of the longitude of Lima, and of the south-western part of the new continent. Thus, amidst the serious troubles and disappointments of life, there may be found a grain of consolation."

On their way from Cartagena to Santa Fé de Bogota, the travellers visited the remarkable volcanitos, or little volcanoes, of Turbaco. The natives of Peru and the adjacent countries divide volcanoes into two classes—“ de aqua” and “da fuego,” or fire and water volcanoes, and those at Turbaco are of the latter kind. They consisted of about eighteen or twenty mounds about five-and-twenty feet in height, and when in eruption discharged great quantities of air with a hollow rumbling sound. The tradition among the Indians regarding them told that they had originally been fiery volcanoes; but, on being sprinkled with holy water by some personage of great sanctity, they immediately lost their dangerous tendencies; the subterranean fire within them was extinguished, and in future eruptions they discharged only harmless gases and water.

With the visit to these volcanitos began a long and elaborate series of observations on the nature and characteristics of volcanic action in the vast volcanic hearth that extends along the western seaboard of South America. Singularly patient and persevering as an investigator of Nature's wonders, ever anxious to fortify every