380

A PRISONER AT SANTA MARIA.

of December, 1821) he was sent in chains to the neigh bouring village of Santa Maria. Francia refused to see him; he was not imprisoned, but a watch was kept upon him, and he was forbidden to return to Assumption. He was allowed to practise as a physician, so he whiled away the months and years of his captivity, in making medicines, distilling and composing liquors, and in going about to minister to the sick and afflicted. He wore only the coarsest garments, and went barefooted.

It was a long time before intelligence of this outrage reached Europe, but it did at last, while Humboldt was residing in Paris, and he left no means untried to secure the release of his friend and fellow-traveller. He interested the French Government in his behalf, and Chateaubriand, who was then Minister of the Affairs of Strangers, demanded his freedom from the tyrannical Francia. It was not granted. The Emperor of Brazil made the same demand with the like success. At last, however, after a captivity of nearly eight years, Bonpland was set at liberty. What influence was powerful enough to compel Francia to this tardy act of justice is not known, but it is said to have been that of Bolivar. If so, he probably owed his freedom to Humboldt. We know that Humboldt was at this time in correspondence with Bolivar, in reference to the internal improvement of his country, and we cannot doubt that he urged the cause of his friend with him, as he had previously done with the French and Brazilian Governments. It was Humboldt, we believe, who restored Bonpland to liberty.

Ostensibly set free on the 12th of May, 1829, he took the road to the Missions, but when he arrived at Itapua there was no order there for his release. He remained at

EHRENBERG AND ROSE.

381

Itapua some months before the capricious Dictator could make up his mind to let him go. On the 6th of December, 1830, the creatures of Francia again beset him, and demanded of him, for the fourth time, the motives of his former association with the Indians. They insisted upon knowing whether he was a spy of the French or Argentine Governments. Finally on the 2nd of February, 1831, they told him that he was free to cross the Parana, and that the Supreme, (not his Maker, but one of his Maker's worst specimens of humanity, Francia), allowed him to go where he would. He hurried towards Brazil, and fixed his residence on the frontier near the little city of San-Borja. There, in a modest cottage, surrounded by a large garden of orange trees, he passed the remainder of his life, practising medicine, botanizing, and writing to Humboldt and the savans of Europe. He died last year over eighty years old.

When Humboldt accepted the offer of the Russian Government, to explore the mountains of the Ural, he selected two companions for the journey,-Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose. Both these naturalists were young men, one being thirty years old, and the other thirty-three, which was about the age of Bonpland and Humboldt when they started on their great transatlantic journey twenty-nine years before. Rose, who had studied chemistry and mineralogy, was conservator of the collection of minerals in the University of Berlin; and Ehrenberg, whose specialité was the microscope, had travelled with Hemperich through. Egypt, Abyssinia, and a great part of Arabia, and had brought back from those countries a magnificent collection of plants and animals, many of which were till

382

FRAU CAROLINE DYING.

then unknown in Europe. The narrative of his travels, which lasted from 1820 to 1825, was published while the preparations for the Asiatic journey were in progress, and was edited by Humboldt. Besides editing, or helping to edit, this work, and attending to the measurements of temperature, which the king, at his suggestion, had caused to be made in all the Prussian mines, the neverresting traveller was occupied and troubled with the afflictions of his brother. William was indeed afflicted, for Frau Caroline, who had been in ill health for years, was slowly dying. At the close of Alexander's lectures he had taken her to Paris and London, in the hope that a journey thither, and the use of the bath of Gastein, at which they were to stop on their return, would benefit her; but it was not to be. They returned to Tegel in the middle of September, and she was worse than ever. She failed rapidly, and towards the end of November was in constant expectation of death. November, December passed, and she still lived. All over the land the Christmas holidays were celebrated. The candles were lighted on the Christmas tree, the presents were plucked from the branches, and rich and poor, young and old rejoiced in the birth of the blessed Christ-Child. But at Tegel all was sad. No Christmas tree, no gifts, no happy hearts. All was stillness and gloom,-the hush of the sick chamber, the shadow of the coming doom. The New Year came, and went, and Frau Caroline still lived. Alexander visited her on a Lord's day in January. "She was dying," he wrote to a friend; "opened her eyes and said to her husband, 'Another human being is ended!' She expected her death, but in vain; she lived again and took an interest in what was

ANOTHER GRAVE AT TEGEL.

383

going on around her. She prayed much." So wrote Alexander on the 22nd of January, 1829. He was still preparing for his journey: Frau Caroline was prepared for hers. It was a short one.

"One step to the white death-bed,

And one to the bier;

And one to the charnel,

And one-oh where?

The dark arrow fled

Into the noon!"

She departed on the 26th of March.

There was

another grave at Tegel.

CHAPTER II.

CENTRAL ASIA.

ON the 12th of April, 1829, Humboldt, Rose, and Ehrenberg departed from Berlin for St. Petersburg. They had arranged the different branches of science to which each was to devote himself. Ehrenberg was to attend to the botany and zoology of the countries through which they should pass, Rose was to analyse the minerals, and keep the travelling diary, while Humboldt undertook the magnetic observations, the results of geographical astronomy, and the geology and natural history generally. To show the respect in which he held him, before he started, the King of Prussia appointed Humboldt an acting privy councillor. It was the rank of a minister, and his title thenceforth was Excellency—“ His Excellency the Baron Von Humboldt."

On their way from Berlin to St. Petersburg, the travellers passed through Königsberg and Dorpat, Esthonia and Livonia. As the sea shore in the neighbourhood of Königsberg abounded with amber, it was almost a forbidden ground to the inhabitants. It was farmed out at a high rate, and carefully guarded, so that the fishermen could only put to sea at certain prescribed points of the coast. The coast between Dantzic and Memel was let