The Invention of Nature

The irony was that Rosa’s handsome brother, Carlos Montúfar, now became Humboldt’s companion – a pattern of friendship that repeated itself in Humboldt’s life. He never married – in fact, he once said that a married man was always ‘a lost man’ – nor did he ever seem to have had any intimate relationships with women. Instead Humboldt had regular infatuations with his male friends to whom he wrote letters in which he confessed his ‘undying’ and ‘fervent’ love. And though he lived at a time when it was not uncommon for men to declare passionate feelings in their platonic friendships, Humboldt’s declarations tended to be strong. ‘I was tied to you as by iron chains,’ he wrote to one friend, and cried for many hours when he left another.

There had been a couple of particularly intense friendships in the years before South America. Throughout his life Humboldt had such relationships in which he not only declared his love but also showed, for him, an unusual submissiveness. ‘My plans are subordinated to yours,’ he wrote to one friend, and ‘you can order me, like a child, and you will always find obedience without grumble.’ Humboldt’s relationship with Bonpland, by contrast, was very different. Bonpland was a ‘good person’, Humboldt had written to a friend on the eve of his departure from Spain, but ‘he has left me very cold for the past six months, that means, I only have a scientific relationship with him.’ Humboldt’s explicit remark that Bonpland was only a scientific colleague may have been an indication how differently he felt about other men.

Contemporaries noted Humboldt’s ‘lack of true love for women’ and a newspaper later insinuated that he might be homosexual when an article wrote of his ‘sleeping partner’. Caroline von Humboldt said that ‘nothing will ever have a great influence on Alexander that doesn’t come through men.’ Even twenty-five years after Humboldt’s death, the German poet Theodor Fontane complained that a Humboldt biography he had just read did not mention the ‘sexual irregularities’.

At twenty-two, Carlos Montúfar was ten years younger than Humboldt and, with dark curly hair and almost black eyes, carried himself tall and proud. He was to remain at Humboldt’s side for several years. Montúfar was no scientist but a quick learner, and Bonpland certainly didn’t seem to mind the new addition to their team. Others, though, viewed the friendship with some jealousy. The South American botanist and astronomer José de Caldas had met Humboldt a few months earlier on their way to Quito and had politely been rebuffed when he had asked to join the expedition. Annoyed, Caldas now wrote to Mutis in Bogotá that Montúfar had become Humboldt’s ‘Adonis’.

Humboldt never explicitly explained the nature of these male friendships but it’s likely that they remained platonic because he admitted that ‘I don’t know sensual needs.’ Instead he escaped into the wilderness or threw himself into strenuous activity. Great physical exertion cheered him up and nature, he declared, calmed the ‘wild urges of passions’. And once again, he was exhausting himself. Humboldt was climbing dozens of volcanoes – sometimes with Bonpland and Montúfar, and sometimes without – but always with José carefully carrying the precious barometer. For the next five months, Humboldt scaled every reachable volcano from their base in Quito.

One such was Pichincha, a volcano to the west of Quito, where poor José suddenly sank and almost disappeared into a snow bridge that covered a deep crevasse. Luckily he managed to pull himself (and the barometer) out. Humboldt then continued to the summit where he lay flat on a narrow rock ledge that formed a small natural balcony over the deep crater. Every two or three minutes violent tremors shook this little platform, but he remained unperturbed and crawled to the edge to peer over into Pichincha’s deep crater. Bluish flames flickered inside, and Humboldt was almost suffocated by the sulphuric vapours. ‘No imagination would be able to conjure up something as sinister, mournful, and deathly as we saw there,’ Humboldt said.

He also attempted to climb Cotopaxi, a perfectly cone-shaped volcano which, at more than 19,000 feet, is the second highest mountain in Ecuador. But snow and steep slopes prevented him from going any higher than 14,500 feet. Though he failed to reach the summit, the sight of snow-covered Cotopaxi standing alone against the azure ‘vault of Heaven’ remained one of the most majestic views he had ever seen. Cotopaxi’s shape was so perfect and its surface appeared so smooth, Humboldt wrote in his diary, that it was as if a wood turner had created it on his lathe.