Europe becoming too small for his genius, he visited the tropics. He sailed along the gigantic Amazon--the mysterious Orinoco--traversed the Pampas--climbed the Andes until he stood upon the crags of Chimborazo, more than eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and climbed on until blood flowed from his eyes and lips. For nearly five years he pursued his investigations in the new world, accompanied by the intrepid Bonplandi. Nothing escaped his attention. He was the best intellectual organ of these new revelations of science. He was calm, reflective and eloquent; filled with a sense of the beautiful, and the love of truth. His collections were immense, and valuable beyond calculation to every science. He endured innumerable hardships, braved countless dangers in unknown and savage lands, and exhausted his fortune for the advancement of true learning. 334. Humboldt's Illustrious Companions Humboldt was the friend and companion of the greatest poets, historians, philologists, artists, statesmen, critics, and logicians of his time. He was the companion of Schiller, who believed that man would be regenerated through the influence of the Beautiful of Goethe, the grand patriarch of German literature; of Weiland, who has been called the Voltaire of Germany; of Herder, who wrote the outlines of a philosophical history of man; of Kotzebue, who lived in the world of romance; of Schleiermacher, the pantheist; of Schlegel, who gave to his countrymen the enchanted realm of Shakespeare; of the sublime Kant, author of the first work published in Germany on Pure Reason; of Fichte, the infinite idealist; of Schopenhauer, the European Buddhist who followed the great Gautama to the painless and dreamless Nirwana, and of hundreds of others, whose names are familiar to and honored by the scientific world. 335. Humboldt the Apostle of Science Upon his return to Europe he was hailed as the second Columbus; as the scientific discover of America; as the revealer of a new world; as the great demonstrator of the sublime truth, that the universe is governed by law. I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side--above him the eternal snow--below, the smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm his forehead majestic--grander than the mountain upon which he sat--crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. Not satisfied with his discoveries in America, he crossed the steppes of Asia, the wastes of