On the 21st of August, we rose early, excited alike by the novelties of the neighbourhood, and by the occurrence of another term-day. Our interpreter and his men had done their work famously in the preceding week, having erected altogether something like sixty yards of wall, four feet thick and six feet high; and so arranged, as to form a telescope enclosure in the centre, with cells or small rooms round about. One of these, intended subsequently for optical experiments, was soon furnished with half a roof over its southern end; and there we established the meteorological instruments.

The barometer was at 20·5 inches; the thermometer at 6 a.m., was 49°; and at noon, its maximum, was 65°. The air was thus found very sensibly cooler here, than on Guajara; while the dryness was rather less, the depression of the dew point varying from 18° at night, to 41° in the middle of the day. The power of radiation, however, appeared to be increased, and the inclination therefore, in the temperature, to mount up to a maximum with noon, became its marked feature.

The earlier part of the solar course, or from the eastern horizon upwards, could be well commanded at Alta Vista; but at 3h. 45m. p.m., the sun was lost behind the western lava ridges of the Peak; while other descending streams, on the immediate N. and S. of our station, cut off the lower part of the sky in those directions also.

Some three days after the storm, when our reduced party was engaged in packing up the telescope,—unexpected voices broke the stillness of the mountain air. Above the edge of the slope leading down to Estancia de los Ingleses, suddenly rose a head, and then the shoulders, of a stalwart Spanish peasant. His whole figure manifested itself quickly as he advanced, walking rapidly towards us. Behind him, other heads and other figures similarly rose up from the lower ground, with knapsacks on their backs, and iron-spiked poles in their hands, following their leader. When he had approached within a few paces, he doffed his hat, and pronounced the name of our friend, Don Martin Rodriguez.

The Don had sent a letter, and as usual, his men were not empty-handed. We rejoiced once more in his rich goats'-milk; as luscious as cream, and capable of being preserved in this high locality to the eleventh day, by boiling with a little sugar and water, and pouring into glass bottles. Then they produced a basket of fine fresh eggs, a luxury unknown for months, and a new goats'-milk cheese. We felt ourselves fortified once again, for another storm.

The leader of this party was a fine open countenanced fellow, a genuine specimen of the worth and strength of the country peasant. Our communications were not very fluent, from his understanding no other than his mother tongue, and our not having picked up much Castilian; but he was voluble in his inquiries as to how things had gone with us during the wet weather.

Soon after 10 o'clock, a.m., we were again meandering in long broken line on our upward way, with the clouds below, and a brilliant sun shining above. It was splendid climbing; a mountain ascent made very easy, was this riding up the gentle slope. Here we were, already at a height considerably above the top of Table Mountain,—to compare one of the islands with the continent, of Africa,—whose vertical precipices begin at half its height. But on Teneriffe, for upwards of 6000 feet, are still no greater average angles than 12° to contend with; and in most places so much soft soil, that after a shower of rain, there would be little difficulty in turning furrows with the plough, over a considerable part of the surface.

At 10h. 50m. we had reached a height of 4700 feet, and the first specimen was met with, of an interesting leguminous plant, to which we were afterwards to be greatly obliged, the “codeso” of the natives; the “adenocarpus frankenoides” of botanists. With closely packed composite leaves of light and warm green, a yellow flower, woody stem, branches like a miniature cedar tree, and with the bark of ages hanging about it, this specimen of the “legumineuses frutescentes” of the French savants, bore a certain acting resemblance to the “doorn booms,” or thorny acacias of South Africa, whose place it appeared to supply.

The method of “term,” or stated days, whereon meteorologists should observe throughout all the twenty-four hours, was an improvement introduced by Sir John Herschel, when studying the climate of South Africa. So admirably is it adapted to bring to light phenomena of short period, that I was happy when the morning of July 21st arriving, enabled me, with a semblance at least of utility, to begin the hourly observations of that particular term-day. At six o'clock, accordingly, the first entry of the series was made.

Our meteorological observatory was now pretty satisfactory as to arrangement, and was practically efficient in guarding against local disturbances. These were mainly two; first, the terrific radiation of the sun by day, with something of the same sort, but with an opposite sign, from the sky by night; and, secondly, the wind, which, if allowed its own sweet will, might at any moment blow all our instruments into the crater. To protect from these, a portion of a room had been erected, with walls to the S.E. and W., and with a bit of roof formed of planks and canvas, covered in with brushwood and weighted with rock. This roof was to keep out the almighty prying of a vertical mountain sun, whose rays did indeed try the nature of everything they had access to. The walls were of stone, and pretty nearly four feet thick, so that there was no fear of direct solar radiation getting through them.

Once within the parallels of the Trade-wind, every other natural phenomenon is found to give way before that grand commotion of the atmosphere. Therein does nature constantly seek—according to Lieutenant Maury's happy generalization—to restore to the air that moisture which was forcibly abstracted by the cold of the Polar circle; in order to be enabled, on passing into the opposite hemisphere, to distribute genial showers. The region of these winds appears eminently one of mechanical energy; for, driven by all the tropical power of the sun, its “cumuloni” clouds are ever hurrying along overhead, while the swell of the ocean hastens after them below; growing as it goes, and curling into foam, agitating and suffering agitation in a continually increasing ratio.

So we found it on board Mr. Stephenson's good yacht Titania, as she winged her speedy way to Teneriffe, with her important freight of astronomical instruments, in the latter end of June and beginning of July, 1856.

Her beautifully-formed iron hull bounded over the waves as lightly as a pleasure skiff, and with far greater velocity. But how she did roll! in manner not disagreeably,—for a delicate digestion was not disturbed,—yet that the quantity was most notable, let twenty measured angles, of 15° to 20° each, per minute, sufficiently testify.

September 26th saw us riding from Orotava to Santa Cruz.

During the first part of the journey, while still in that depressed or fallen-in region of the valley of Taoro; gardens were thick and close. Of their contents, none were perhaps so admirable as the double oleander; think of a rose-bush at least twenty feet high, and in a perfect explosion of flowers. Peaches were fine, as trees, but the fruit, strangely small; though numerous as the leaves. Date-palms, Phœnix Dactylifera, were not unfrequent; and after ascending the hill surface beyond the valley, villages were passed with almost groves of them. Yet none could be called well-grown. Stunted and stumpy they rather were, more like tree-ferns than palms; and whenever fruit appeared, it seemed dropping off immaturely. Whether the soil or climate be at fault, others must say. The latitude could not be, for in Egypt and Syria, several degrees north of Canary, date-palms wave on stems as tall and graceful as any in the world.

These countries, however, have no Trade-winds blowing on them every day, as in Teneriffe; not only bringing cold air from the Poles, but producing such mists through the greater part of summer, that the chief portion of solar heat, due to latitude, is reflected back to the blue sky, from a brilliant upper surface of an almost permanent sea of clouds.

Under such discouragement, vegetation along the northern coast of the island, is simply not so fine as it might be; with certain exceptions, there is more of the desert, than of the “scenery of plants.”

After our visit to the caldera of the Peak, with its walls of rock bleached by steam, and by acid vapours permeating them for ages, we could better understand the remarkable internal whiteness of lunar volcanoes, as shown by our telescope at Alta Vista.

Some geologists have, indeed, denied that the features seen by astronomers in the moon are to be considered as volcanoes; but we who duly noted the gentle external slope of some of those circular pits, their cliffy internal descents, their flat floors, and their central peaks—had little doubt in our minds. Occasionally could be traced something much like a collection of stony lava streams; which even the Spanish attendants, when looking by permission into the telescope, would call a Malpays. Generally too would they describe what they saw, with the same terms that they employed, for volcanic features of the mountain whereon we stood.

Could we have found in the moon, that dynamic trace, which was so important in proving relative ages among the red and yellow lavas of Teneriffe, viz., glacier wrinkles in one, and surf-like waves in the other,—all sceptical doubts must vanish. But we failed, and this point is left to a larger telescope, more constantly employed in lunar physics, on this or some higher mountain.

Details of a larger sort, however, were multitudinously brought out by the Pattinson Equatorial; to such an extent, indeed, as to be hopelessly beyond my poor efforts, to record them usefully in the small portion of time, that was available each evening.

The N.E. storm of the 1st of August, though exhausted of its greatest force in a few hours, was still dragging its slow length along through the following day. Every now and then a stray puff of wind came hurrying up, like a conspirator too late for the concerted rising, and throwing itself wildly against the northern cliffs of Gruajara, came spinning over their summits in the form of a little whirlwind. Sometimes, even our stone walls were enough to produce the effect; and then we saw an ordinary gust of wind blowing over the dry ground outside, raising a cloud of sand before it, and at the instant that it struck our wall, it eddied round the corner in a fine little revolving pillar of dust, occasionally entering our tent door in a most inconvenient manner. Amongst numerous young hurricanes which were thus generated before our eyes, one of them was remarkable for a regular increase in its diameter, as it travelled on, in a curving line; and for its diminishing velocity at the same time in the whirl. Mr. Redfield's theory, and Col. Reid's plates, of the West Indian storms, could not have been better illustrated.

Occasionally something more powerful came by; and one day, a heavy piece of canvas, ten feet square, spread out on the rock, was suddenly lifted up, whirled round and round in a horizontal plane, and then deposited again, as flat as before, almost in its former position.

The sailors expressed themselves delighted to see us again, and we were as pleased to witness the results of their active handiwork. There were now five rooms roofed in, round about the telescope enclosure; while along its inner southern side, ran a verandah, intended for meteorological instruments; and since discovered by the carpenter, to be a luxuriously calm place to sit in, when there was wind everywhere else.

This was previous to our return; for subsequently, the western gale grew so violent and squally, that there was no rest or defence for any of us. We were told, that a change had come over the weather during our absence, cold and dark, as if autumn had arrived. We looked to the thermometer and found it, on the morning after our return, 18° lower than when we had set off for the telescope; the air too was undoubtedly thick and turbid with dust-haze; but the chief change that had occurred, was in the appearance of the sea of cloud. Not only did this vast surface seem to have received a terrible shake, that had broken up its accustomed forms of long rolls of cumuloni, into short cumuli, but—an enemy had appeared in the field.

If there had been generally any part of the sea not amenable to influences of north-eastern wind, and not covered in by those clouds, it was to leeward of the Peak; there, long extents of water surface had been occasionally seen from Guajara.

On the morning of September 17, a file of men and horses having arrived from Orotava, the telescope, repacked in its many boxes, was sent down the mountain side under charge of the sailors. After duly depositing their burden with Mr. Goodall, they were to rejoin the yacht, and assist in repairing the unlucky damage that had been reported by the captain.

Their tales of the ups and downs they had been through, we were afterwards informed, were almost endless; and for three days they talked continuously. If they spoke of their doings as well as their sayings, they must have described much excellent work that they had both performed, and in the best spirit; though the circumstances had not been nautical; and the position, two miles above the sea level, not a usual one for sailors. At the time that Mr. Stephenson so kindly allowed us to take his men up the Peak, I had no idea of how much use they would become; and even he, perhaps, did not know all the varieties of labour that they were capable of; for the genius of the place, and the necessities of a strange style of life, were required to develope them. As the worthy fellows left us that morning, I could not but shake them both heartily by the hand, and thank them for their co-operation; wishing them well, as I still do, in their climbing the mountain of life.

At 4 p.m., on July the 10th, my wife and I rode into Orotava. We knew that we were now comparatively close to the Peak, but it was concealed from view by strata of mist, descending so low as 3000 feet, and extending over the greater part of the sky. The air was nearly calm; for the N.E. Trade-wind, the tyrant of Canarian seas, cannot blow home to this huge mountain, that, unlike the lower crests of Anaga, towers high above the influence of polar currents.

The streets were trafficless, and quiet reigned everywhere. The only noise, beyond the clattering of our horses' feet on the pavement as we passed along, was the pushing open of a trap in each wooden window, to allow of the protrusion of some curious head; and then the falling to again of the little panel when curiosity was satisfied. Our two attendants, the Spanish grooms, running alongside the horses, after having, in pride of their city, taken us up and down as many of the streets as possible—concluded by a grand career through the principal square, and a spirited entry into the courtyard of the inn, awakening all the echoes of the place. This could not be the inn! but “Si, senor,” they answered, it was the inn, the hotel, the grand hotel, and that whereat we were expected; and away they vanished with our tired steeds.

In the month of May, 1856, H. M. Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, advised by the Astronomer Royal, were pleased to entrust me with a scientific mission to-the Peak of Teneriffe. Their Lordships most liberally placed 500l. at my disposal for defraying the necessary expenses; and left me, within bounds of such expenditure, as untrammelled by detailed instructions, as any explorer could desire.

No sooner was the authorization known, than numerous and valuable instruments were kindly proffered by many friends of astronomy; and one of these gentlemen, Robert Stephenson, M.P.,—who had indeed fully appreciated the scientific question in 1855, and even asked me to accompany him to the Canaries in that year,—immediately offered the use of his yacht “Titania;” and by this, greatly ensured the prosperity of the undertaking.

The object mainly proposed, was, to ascertain how far astronomical observation can be improved, by eliminating the lower third part of the atmosphere. For the accomplishment of this purpose, an equatorial telescope and other apparatus were conveyed in the yacht to Teneriffe, in June and July 1856. There—with the approval of the Spanish authorities, (always ready in that island to favour the pursuits of scientific men of any and every country), the instruments were carried up the volcanic flanks of the mountain, to vertical heights of 8900, and 10,700 feet, and were observed with during two months.

With the accession of Don Rodriguez, and his attendants to our party, an excursion to the summit of the Peak was organized. Accordingly on September 8th, two men being left at the station to observe barometer and thermometers every quarter of an hour, all the rest of us,—loaded with meteorological instruments, photographical apparatus and other knickknacks,—started off on foot by break of day.

A few yards beyond our walls, coming to the end of the pumice-stone ground, that furthest limit of horses and mules, we entered the wilderness of the “Malpays,” or those ultimate lava streams of Rambleta, the torrents of black lava rocks and stones. At first the path led up a narrow angular valley, between the flanks of two adjacent ridges. The sides, inclined at a steep angle, were mere loose stones, of which the larger blocks formed the bottom of the channel, and had a little fine yellow pumice sifted in amongst them. This was dust that had been carried up by east winds from the plateau of Alta Vista, and had not travelled far. Step by step the quantity of it decreased, and before long we were walking up the ascending angular passage, on nothing but black disjointed stones.

Presently, large opposing masses, obliged us to make a slight diversion. One of the sailors, who was walking ahead; very zealous, and from having visited the Peak a few days before, anxious to show his knowledge,—went straight up the sloping side, sending down instantly a shower of rolling stones;

With the wind still mangling the clouds on the serrated crests of Anaga, and ruling supreme over the dark and mist-covered sea to the N.E.; but, nevertheless, with an admirably warm and bright day about us, we rowed ashore through the numerous vessels in the bay. They were rolling to an extent, that from at first seeming dangerous, grew at last to be positively absurd; so intent did they seem to be on first giving us a peep down their hatchways, and then trying to show the state of preservation of their keels. This was the effect of the swell from the eternal Trade-wind outside, prodigious in amount for a harbour, or a place where ships lie at anchor; but being here glassy and harmless, we rowed pleasantly over it—now catching a sight of the shore-line, with white surf breaking along its rocks; and now seeing all apparently submerged under a wave close by, up to the tops of the highest steeples of the town.

At the mole, what a scene!—what a place for my wife to land at! for there, though the structure is carried out into deep water, the swell is not so innocuous. Crowds of boats are about, and the place is alive with men, mules, and merchandize of import and export. Every few seconds comes a great wave, heaving up all the boats one after the other, and then letting them down crushing and grinding together; while the turbulent billow, rejoicing in the mischief it has done, rushes along in its appointed course, half deluging that side of the mole.

In descending from the ice-cavern, along the very ridge of lava that had issued from its site, the gradual change in aspect of its material was interesting; not only from the rolled and worn look of its earlier and now lower portions, but from the alteration of colour and quality. At the cavern itself, the substance was of a bluish grey in the mass, amazingly tough and of basaltic consistence; while lower down the stream, it became black, then brownish-black, somewhat cindery and brittle; this portion having been indeed the scum that the volcanic vent had first poured out.

Amongst other fragments met with, were occasional specimens having one or more sides as smooth, as if they had been polished. This was no result of simple fracture,—for of all the blocks which we broke by hammer, there was not one that did not show a rough, granular, though sometimes glossy surface. We were puzzled by those smooth natural faces, for they neither arose from the material being vitreous, nor from any result of rubbing and grinding; but of this we were quite certain, that they served admirably to display the laminated nature of the lava.

Perceiving presently a heavy lump, rather bigger than a man's head, excellently illustrative of the contortions of said laminæ, we picked it up as a prize specimen of the first class; but had no sooner done so, than the Canarian youth attending us, though loaded already with a box of chemicals and a photographic tent, prayed for his right of place to carry it.