The project of foreign travel was long delayed by sickness, war, and various disappointments. But, in life, obstacles are the common lot of mortals, and he alone is wise who breasts them cheerfully, patiently, and persistently. Humboldt said, "It is impossible not to feel the severity of this disappointment; but it is the part of a man to work, and not to yield to unavailing regrets."
"Hard! well, and what of that?
Didst fancy life one summer holiday,
With lessons none to learn, and naught but play?
Go, get thee to thy task. Conquer or die!
It must be learned. Learn it then, patiently."
At last, in 1799, when Humboldt was thirty, the long contemplated journey to South America was about to be realized. He had already published some astronomical treatises on the determination of latitudes, trigonometrical measures of the Alpine ranges, etc.; had given lectures in Paris, before the National Institute, on the nature of nitrous gas, and the possibility of a more exact analysis of the atmosphere; and had spent some time in Spain, with the well known botanist Bonpland, in collecting plants, and making observations in connection with meteorology, geology, and magnetism. While at Madrid, through Herr von Forell, a distinguished patron of science, Humboldt was received at court and obtained permission of the king to visit the Spanish colonies in America.
At his own expense, the best scientific instruments were procured, and June 5, 1799, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he and Bonpland, with their crew and a few others, sailed away, in the corvette Pizarro, for a five years' journey. He sent tender farewell messages back to "his family," as he called William's children, and then stifled any feelings of loneliness or homesickness which he had in his heart, by his favorite motto, "Man must ever strive after all that is good and great."
June 20, they were at the foot of the Peak of Teneriffe. He wrote to his brother: "I am quite in a state of ecstasy at finding myself at length on African soil, surrounded by cocoa-nut palms and bananas.... I returned last night from an excursion up the peak. What an amazing scene! What a gratification! We descended some way into the crater, perhaps farther than any previous scientific traveller.... What a remarkable spectacle was presented to us at this height of eleven thousand five hundred feet.... At two in the morning we were already on our way towards the last cone. The heavens were bright with stars, and the moon shone with a gentle radiance; but this calm was soon to be disturbed. The storm raged violently round the summit; we were obliged to cling fast to the edge of the crater. The wind rushed through the rifts with a noise like thunder, while a veil of cloud separated us from the world below."
After a voyage of nineteen days, the ship entered the harbor of Cumana, on the north coast of South America. Here they enjoyed the new and strange scenes; the houses built of satin-wood; the copper-colored Indians outside the town, living in bamboo huts, covered with the leaves of the cocoa-nut palm; these great trees from fifty to sixty feet high, with large red bunches of flowers. "Even the crabs," said Humboldt, "are sky-blue and gold!"
By November they had dried more than sixteen hundred plants, and described about six hundred new varieties. He had taken observations of the solar eclipse of October 28, and so severely burnt his face that he was obliged to remain in bed for two days.
Going to Caracas, they spent two months and a half climbing mountains, visiting hot springs, and forming an intimate acquaintance with tigers, crocodiles, monkeys, and boa constrictors. Here they discovered the singular cow-tree, with dry and tough leaves, but which gives out a sweet nourishing milk when an incision is made in its stem. "At sunrise this vegetable spring is the richest: then the negroes and the natives come from all sides, provided with large vessels to collect the milk, which turns yellow and thickens on the surface."
In February, 1800, the travellers traced the water system of the Orinoco, often in the midst of danger. Once, in a severe storm, their boat was two-thirds full of water. "Our position," says Humboldt, "was truly appalling; the shore was distant from us more than a mile, where a number of crocodiles could be discerned lying half out of the water. Even if we had gained the shore against the fury of the waves and the voracity of the crocodiles, we should infallibly have either perished from hunger or been torn in pieces by the tigers, for the woods upon these shores are so dense and so intertwined with lianas as to be absolutely impenetrable. The strongest man, axe in hand, could hardly make his way in twenty days for the distance of a league. The river too is so little frequented that even an Indian canoe scarcely passes oftener than once in two months. At this most momentous and perilous crisis a gust of wind filled the sails of our little vessel and effected in a marvellous manner our deliverance."
To his botanist friend, Willdenow, he writes:—"During four months of this journey we passed the night in forests, surrounded by crocodiles, boa constrictors, and tigers, which are here bold enough to attack a canoe, while for food we had nothing better than rice, ants, bananas, and occasionally the flesh of monkeys, with only the waters of the Orinoco wherewith to quench our thirst. Thus have we with difficulty toiled, our hands and faces swollen with mosquito bites, from Mondvaca to the volcano of Duida, from the limits of Quito to the frontier of Surinam—through tracts of country extending over twenty thousand square miles, in which no Indian is to be met with, and where the traveller encounters only apes or serpents.