The Invention of Nature

With the European nations still at war, sea voyages remained perilous and Humboldt feared that his valuable specimens might be captured by one of the many enemy vessels. To spread the risk, Bonpland suggested splitting the collection. One large delivery was dispatched to France, and another to Germany via England with instructions that if seized by the enemy it was to be forwarded on to Joseph Banks in London. Since his return from Cook’s Endeavour voyage, thirty years previously, Banks had set up such a wide-ranging and global plant-collecting network that sea captains from all nations knew his name. Banks had also always tried to help French scientists by providing them with passports, despite the Napoleonic Wars, in the belief that the international community of scientists transcended war and national interests. ‘The science of two Nations may be at Peace,’ he said, ‘while their Politics are at war.’ Humboldt’s specimens would be safe with Banks.¹

Humboldt dispatched letters home, assuring his friends and family that he was happy and healthier than ever before. He described their adventures in detail, from the dangers of jaguars and snakes to the glorious tropical landscapes and strange blossoms. Humboldt was unable to resist ending a letter to the wife of one of his closest friends with: ‘and you, dearest, how is your monotonous life?’

Once the letters were posted and the collections dispatched, Humboldt and Bonpland sailed in mid-March 1801 from Cuba to Cartagena on the northern coast of New Granada² (now Colombia). They arrived two weeks later, on 30 March. Once again, though, Humboldt added a detour – not only would he try to reach Lima by the end of December to meet Baudin’s expedition, but he would do so overland rather than by taking the easier sea route. On the way, Humboldt and Bonpland would cross, climb and investigate the Andes – the chain of mountains that runs from north to south in several spines along the length of South America, some 4,500 miles from Venezuela and Colombia in the north all the way down to Tierra del Fuego. It was the longest mountain range in the world and Humboldt wanted to climb Chimborazo, a beautiful snow-capped volcano south of Quito, in today’s Ecuador. At almost 21,000 feet, Chimborazo was believed to be the highest mountain in the world.

This journey of around 2,500 miles from Cartagena to Lima would take the men through some of the harshest landscapes imaginable, pushing them to their physical limits. The lure was that they would travel through regions where no scientist had ever been before. ‘When one is young and active’, Humboldt said, it was easy not to think too much about the uncertainties and perils involved. If they wanted to meet Baudin in Lima, they had less than nine months. First they would travel from Cartagena along the Río Magdalena towards Bogotá – today’s capital of Colombia – from where they would march through the Andes to Quito and then further south all the way to Lima. But ‘all difficulties,’ Humboldt told himself, ‘could be conquered with energy.’

On their way south, Humboldt also wanted to meet the celebrated Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, who lived in Bogotá. The sixty-nine-year-old Mutis had arrived from Spain four decades earlier and had led many expeditions through the region. No other botanist knew so much about South American flora, and in Bogotá Humboldt hoped to compare his collections with those that Mutis had accumulated during his long career. Though he had heard that Mutis could be difficult and guarded, Humboldt hoped to win him over. ‘Mutis, so close!’ he thought when they arrived in Cartagena from where he sent the botanist ‘a very artificial letter’ laced with praise and flattery. The only reason why he wasn’t sailing to Lima from Cartagena, Humboldt now wrote to Mutis, but had chosen the far more arduous route across the Andes was to meet him in Bogotá on the way.

On 6 April, they left Cartagena to reach the Río Magdalena some sixty miles to the east. They walked through dense forests lit by fireflies – their ‘signposts’ in the dark, as Humboldt said – and spent a few miserable nights sleeping on their coats on the hard ground. Two weeks later they pushed their canoe into the Río Magdalena, travelling south towards Bogotá. For almost two months they paddled upstream against a strong current and along thick forests that ribboned the river. It was the rainy season, and once again they encountered crocodiles, mosquitoes and unbearable humidity. On 15 June they arrived in Honda, a small river port of about 4,000 people, less than 100 miles north-west of Bogotá. They now had to ascend from the river valley along rugged steep paths to a plateau that was almost 9,000 feet high and on which Bogotá was situated. Bonpland was struggling with the thin air – feeling nauseous and feverish. It made for exhausting travelling but their arrival in Bogotá on 8 July 1801 was triumphal.