A LETTER FROM HUMBOLDT ON THE DEATH OF BONPLAND.

The Berlin correspondent of the Boston Journal sends the following letter of Alexander von Humboldt, on the recent death of Bonpland, his junior by about four years.

Humboldt hoped he might not survive the warmest friend of his early years; but it seems to be the destiny of this venerable man to follow all his friends to the grave, and to remain himself the sole representative of the times of his youth.

HUMBOLDTS LETTER.

Conscious of the deep sympathy of numerous friends in the sorrow occasioned by the widespread report of the death of my dear, noble friend, and fellow traveller, Bonpland, I consider it my duty to give at least a brief notice of this event, for the particulars of which I am indebted to the kind services of Dr. Lallemant, author of an important paper on the diseases of Europeans in the tropics.

This talented gentleman, after leaving the Austrian Royal expedition in the frigate Novara, in February of this year, for the purpose of doing a kindness to myself, made the journey from Rio Janeiro to Rio Grande, and thence, by way of Porto Allegro. through the former Jesuit Mission, to San Borgia, under the erroneous impression that Bonpland, who had gone there in 1831, was still resident at that place.

I have received two letters from Dr. Lallemant—one dated at San Borgia on the 10th of April, the other written from the village of Umguaiana, after he had visited Bonpland at Santa Ana.

An extended abstract of these letters having been sent to the editor of the widely read and interesting botanical journal, the Bonplandia, in Hanover, the following briefer extracts may here suffice:

“In San Borgia,” writes Dr. Lallemant, “I lived with an intimate friend of Bonpland, the Vicar Gray, with whom I visited the garden of the botanist, so long cultivated with care, but now lying waste and desolate.

It was near the close of the year 1857 that the Vicar last received letters from Bonpland; since when, intelligence had come of his severe illness.

Letters of inquiry still remained unanswered, and, notwithstanding the short distance between the places, the people of San Borgia were uncertain whether I should find your fellow-travellers yet in the land of the living.

“In 1853, Bonpland had left San Borgia, and taken up his residence upon his larger plantation of Santa Ana, where he had long occupied himself in the cultivation of orange trees.

The residence of the aged scholar in the Estancia of Santa Ana consists of two large buildings, mere clay walls, bound together by bamboo sticks and a few beams, and thatched with straw.

These buildings have doors, but no windows, the light being admitted through the chinks between the bamboo sticks.

Despite the deep furrows which an eventful life had engraven in the beloved countenance, his eye had not grown dim, nor lost any of its fullthoughted vivacity.

But lively conversation, though started by himself, appeared to weary him much, and he suffered severely from a chronic affection of the bladder.

The privations he had so strangely imposed upon himself are by no means in consequence of poverty, or of any necessity for abstinence, but of long custom, great self-control, and characteristic individuality.

“The Government of Corrientes has presented to him an estate valued at 10,000 Spanish piastres, and he enjoys a French pension of 3,000 francs a year.

He has never made the practice of medicine a source of pecuniary profit to himself.

Though universally revered, he loves the solitude, and especially avoids all persons who might offer him assistance or advice.

His scientific ardor has not yet abated, and his collections and manuscripts are deposited in Corrientes, where he has founded a national museum.

“On the following morning I found him visibly worse, and sinking away.

The night had been a painful one.

I pressed him to tell me whether I might not, in some way, be of service to him.

But I fared no better than his other friends—he would accept of no assistance.

How gladly would I have persuaded him to return once more to civilized society! But I, too, felt with him that his time was past. He belongs to the first half of the nineteenth century, not to the second.

I think that your friend himself was moved when I took his wasted hands in mine with the pressure of farewell.

For three months now his attendants have remarked his failing strength, and perhaps the old man had the same foreboding as myself at parting, that I might be the last ambassador of European lineage who should penetrate the depths of the wilderness, to offer him regard, love and thanks, in the name of that science which owes so much to his labors.

I mounted my horse and rode northward through the evergreen plains.

No path showed my way, no guide disturbed me; I was alone with my sorrowful thoughts over the departed Bonpland.

“Yet how cheerful the last letter I received from Bonpland, bearing date the 7th of June, 1857!

‘I myself,’ he writes, ‘shall bring all my collections and manuscripts to Paris, and deposit them in the Museum.

My journey to France will be exceedingly short.

I shall return to my Santa Ana, where I lead a quiet and happy life.

Here shall I die, and my sepulchre and my grave shall be underneath the shadow of the many trees I have planted.

Oh, how happy were I, my dear Humboldt, could we meet once more, and recall our common experiences!

On the 28th of August next, I shall be eighty-four years old, and am yet four years younger than you.

A man lately died in this vicinity who had attained the age of one hundred and seven.

What a prospect for two travellers who have already stepped beyond the eightieth year!’”

The cheering, almost life desiring tone of this letter, contrasts strangely with the melancholy representations of Dr. Lallemant.

According to Herr v. Tschudi the report was credited in Montevideo on the 29th of May, that Bonpland had died at Borgia, the date of his death uncertain.

Yet Dr. Lallemant had spoken with him on the 18th of April, in Santa Ana, and on May 10 the report of his death was discredited at Porto Allegro.

Thus there yet remains ground for hope that the younger is not to be first called away.

Such remoteness often stretches uncertainty to a painful duration; such the solicitude felt for Edward Vogel in Central Africa, and for Adolphus Schlagintwait in Central Asia—the sorrowfully missed!

Alexander V. Humboldt.

Berlin, July 12, 1858.