Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3 - Alexander von Humboldt

Volume 3, the final volume of the “Personal Narrative”, records the travels of Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland in South and Central America, and the Caribbean. In this volume, they start at Angostura, the capital at that time of Spanish Guiana, where both required recuperation from serious febrile disease contracted on their journey on the Orinoco. Once well, they recommenced their travels, returning across Spanish Guiana and Venezuela to the coastal settlement of Nueva Barcelona, from whence they departed for Cuba and further travels in the Caribbean. As in the previous volumes, von Humboldt describes their travel with a narrative that is expressively descriptive of people, plants, animals and geology. Volume 3 also discusses slavery in Cuba and provides a geological description of South America north of the Amazon and east of the northern region of the Andes. (summary by Gail Timmerman-Vaughan)