Ferdinand Deppe's Travels in Mexico, 1824-1829

Abstract

The establishment of Mexican independence, which dates from 1821, made it possible for Europeans of any nationality to settle in Mexico and to send home whatever they wanted.As early as 1823 William Bullock went to Mexico with the aim of acquiring abandoned gold and silver mines.Bullock formerly was a London goldsmith and was well known for being the owner of the London Museum which was dissolved by auction in 1819.When he returned to London at the end of 1823 he brought back with him all sorts of Mexican curiosities which served for a public show, called "New Mexico," in his "Egyptian Hall."Included-among these curiosities were a few birds mounted on artificial palms and cacti and picturesquely arranged around some Mexican mammals.In Germany the news of mysterious Mexico having become accessible even to the ordinary traveller excited the curiosity of a wealthy nobleman, the Count von Sack, "Zweiter Ober-Jagermeister" and chamberlain to the King of Prussia.He had recently returned from a voyage to Egypt and Cyprus where he made a small collection of birds (Stresemann, Ibis, 1953: 549), and he at once felt inclined to visit Mexico, provided that there was a collecting naturalist of good reputation to go with him.A gardener, appointed to the Royal Gardens, by the name of Ferdinand Deppe, was recommended for this task by Professor Hinrich Lichtenstein, Director of the Zoological Museum of Berlin University.Deppe was an intelligent and energetic young man born in 1794.For a long while his connection with the Zoological Museum had been intimate, the more so as his oldest brother Wilhelm was accountant of that institution.On Count von Sack' s advice Deppe gave up his job in 1821 and prepared for the voyage to Mexico.He trained himself in skinning birds and mammals, a technique which he soon mastered to great perfection.Besides, he studied, books on the zoology, botany, and geography of South America, took lessons in drawing and painting, and acquired English and Spanish.However, the wayward Count remained undecided for three more years, and it was only due to the insistence of Deppe that the plan to go to Mexico was at last carried out in 1824.The party, increased by the Count' s domestic, arrived in London on August 23, 1824, where Deppe visited, besides the British Museum (the zoological section of which he judged far inferior to the Berlin Museum), Mr. Bullock' s Mexican Show and Mr. Leadbeater' s shop where his eyes were caught by some fine Mexican birdslike "Ibis mexicana" and hummingbirds.On October 8 they sailed from Falmouth on board a British ship via Barbados to Jamaica.From there they took another vessel bound for Alvarado, Veracruz, arriving there in mid-December, 1824, soon after the Count' s footman had succumbed on board to an infection with yellow fever.Two years later, in January, 1827, Deppe again left Mexico after having travelled via Mexico City to Oaxaca and Tehuantepec and back via Oaxaca to Alvarado.He and William Bullock' s son, who joined him on the voyage from Mexico City to Tehuantepec, are the first naturalists who ever collected birds in Mexico for scientific purposes.The results of their efforts, studied by Swainson, Wagler, and many subsequent systematists, have formed the foundation of Mexican ornithology.The following itinerary has been compiled from Deppe' s letters kept in the archives of the Zoological Museum in Berlin and from the entries in Lichtenstein' s lists of acquisitions.

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