The celebrity which Baron Humboldt enjoys, and which he has earned by a life of laborious investigation and perilous enterprise, renders his name familiar to every person whose attention has been drawn to political statistics or natural philosophy. In the estimation of the learned no author of the present day occupies a higher place among those who have enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge. To every one accordingly whose aim is the general cultivation of the mental faculties, his works are recommended by the splendid pictures of scenery which they contain, the diversified information which they afford respecting objects of universal interest, and the graceful attractions with which he has succeeded in investing the majesty of science.

These considerations have induced the Publishers to offer a condensed account of his Travels and Researches, such as, without excluding subjects even of laboured investigation, might yet chiefly embrace those which are best suited to the purposes of the general reader. The public taste has of late years gradually inclined towards objects of useful knowledge,—works of imagination have in a great measure given place to those occupied with descriptions of nature, physical or moral,—and the phenomena of the material world now afford entertainment to many who in former times would have sought for it at a different source.

Santa Cruz, the Anaja of the Guanches, which is a neat town with a population of 8000 persons, may be considered as a great caravansera situated on the road to America and India, and has consequently been often described. The recommendations of the court of Madrid procured for our travellers the most satisfactory reception in the Canaries. The captain-general gave permission to examine the island, and Colonel Armiaga, who commanded a regiment of infantry, extended his hospitality to them, and showed the most polite attention. In his garden they admired the banana, the papaw, and other plants cultivated in the open air, which they had before seen only in hothouses.

In the evening they made a botanical excursion towards the fort of Passo Alto, along the basaltic rocks which close the promontory of Naga, but had little success, as the drought and dust had in a manner destroyed the vegetation. The Cacalia kleinia, Euphorbia canariensis, and other succulent plants, which derive their nourishment more from the air than from the soil, reminded them by their aspect that the Canaries belong to Africa, and even to the most arid part of that continent.

The captain of the Pizarro having apprized them that, on account of the blockade by the English, they ought not to reckon upon a longer stay than four or five days, they hastened to set out for the port of Orotava, where they might find guides for the ascent of the Peak; and on the 20th, before sunrise, they were on the way to Villa de la Laguna, which is 2238 feet higher than the port of Santa Cruz.

Arriving at the hospital of the Arragonese Capuchins, which was backed by an enormous wall of rocks of resplendent whiteness, covered with a luxuriant vegetation, our travellers were hospitably received by the monks. The superior was absent; but having heard of their intention to visit the place, he had provided for them whatever could serve to render their abode agreeable. The inner court, surrounded by a portico, they found highly convenient for setting up their instruments and making observations. In the convent they found a numerous society, consisting of old and infirm missionaries, who sought for health in the salubrious air of the mountains of Caripe, and younger ones newly arrived from Spain. Although the inmates of this establishment knew that Humboldt was a Protestant, they manifested no mark of distrust, nor proposed any indiscreet question, to diminish the value of the benevolence which they exercised with so much liberality. Even the light of science had in some degree extended to this obscure place; for, in the library of the superior, they found among other books the Traité d'Electricité by the Abbé Nollet, and one of the monks had brought with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's Treatise on Chemistry.

The height of this monastery above the sea is nearly the same as that of Caraccas and the inhabited parts of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.