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Updated: June 15, 2025
I had some difficulty to save my journal, and in an instant we saw our books, papers, and dried plants, all afloat. M. Bonpland was lying asleep in the middle of the canoe. Awakened by the entrance of the water and the cries of the Indians, he understood the danger of our situation, whilst he maintained that coolness which he always displayed in the most difficult circumstances.
Without a sight of the sun and the stars this object would be frustrated, and we should have exposed ourselves in vain to long and painful privations. Our fellow travellers would have returned by the shortest way, that of the Pimichin and the small rivers; but M. Bonpland preferred, like me, persisting in the plan of the voyage, which we had traced for ourselves in passing the Great Cataracts.
Late one evening I received a visit from Madame Bonpland, the talented wife of the distinguished French naturalist. This lady who had singular opportunities for becoming acquainted with state secrets came expressly to inform me that my house was at that moment surrounded by a guard of soldiers!
M. Bonpland and I foresaw from these infallible signs, that we should soon be covered by a thick fog; and lest our guides should take advantage of this circumstance and leave us, we obliged those who carried the most necessary instruments to precede us. We continued climbing the slopes which lead towards the ravine of Chacaito.
Soon after, Bonpland settled near the town of Corrientes, where, safe from further persecution, he once more entered upon agricultural pursuits. And there, in the companionship of a South American lady his wife with a family of happy children, he ended a life that had lasted for fourscore years, innocent and unblemished, is it had been useful, heroic, and glorious.
And as if not to be outdone, although he did not then know what Humboldt had said of him, Jefferson declared that Alexander von Humboldt was the greatest man he ever saw. Most of the vast number of rare specimens and natural-history curiosities gathered by Humboldt and Bonpland were placed on a homeward-bound ship that sailed from South America.
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.
From half after two in the morning, the most extraordinary luminous meteors were seen in the direction of the east. M. Bonpland, who had risen to enjoy the freshness of the air, perceived them first. Thousands of bolides and falling stars succeeded each other during the space of four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south.
Our stay at Carichana was very useful in recruiting our strength after our fatigues. M. Bonpland bore with him the germs of a cruel malady; he needed repose; but as the delta of the tributary streams included between the Horeda and Paruasi is covered with a rich vegetation, he made long herbalizations, and was wet through several times in a day.
I did not hear of this mode of treatment in the Spanish colonies which I visited; and I can assert that, after having made experiments during four hours successively with gymnoti, M. Bonpland and myself felt, till the next day, a debility in the muscles, a pain in the joints, and a general uneasiness, the effect of a strong irritation of the nervous system.
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