CHAPTER I.

THE SEA.

Ar sunset on the third day they saw from the masthead an English convoy, sailing along the coast, and steering towards the southeast. To avoid it they altered their course. From that moment no light was allowed in the great cabin, for fear of their being seen at a distance. Humboldt and Bonpland were obliged to make use of dark lanterns to examine the temperature of the

water.

From the time of their sailing until they reached the 36th degree of latitude they saw no organic beings, except sea swallows and dolphins; they even looked in vain for sea-weeds and mollusca. On the sixth day however they entered a zone where the waves were covered with a prodigious quantity of medusa. The sea was nearly becalmed, but the medusa were bound towards the south-east, with a rapidity four times greater than that of the current.

Between the island of Madeira and the coast of Africa, they had slight breezes and dead calms, which were favorable for the magnetic observations that occupied Humboldt during the passage. The travellers were never weary of admiring the beauty of the nights;

nothing could be compared to the transparency and serenity of the African sky. They were struck with the innumerable quantity of falling stars, which appeared at every instant. The farther progress they made towards the south, the more frequent was this phenomenon, especially near the Canaries. Forty leagues east of the island of Madeira a swallow perched on the topsail yard. It was so fatigued that it suffered itself to be caught by the hand.

The Pizarro had orders to touch at the isle of Lancerota, one of the seven great Canary Islands; and at five in the afternoon of the 16th of June, that island appeared so distinctly in view that Humboldt was able to take the angle of altitude of a conic mountain, which towered majestically over the other summits.

The current drew them toward the coast more rapidly than they wished. As they advanced, they discovered at first the island of Forteventura, famous for its numerous camels; and a short time after saw the island of Lobos in the channel which separated Forteventura from Lancerota. They spent part of the night on deck. The moon illumined the volcanic summits of Lancerota, the flanks of which, covered with ashes, reflected a silver light. Antares threw out its resplendent rays near the lunar disk, which was but a few degrees above the horizon. The night was beautifully serene and cool. The phosphorescence of the ocean seemed to augment the mass of light diffused through the air. After midnight, great black clouds rising behind the volcano shrouded at intervals the moon, and the beautiful constellation of the Scorpion. They beheld lights carried to and fro on shore, which were probably those of fish

ermen preparing for their labors. Humboldt and Bonpland had been occasionally employed during their passage, in reading the old voyages of the Spaniards, and these moving lights recalled to their fancy those which Pedro Gutierrez, page of Queen Isabella, saw in the isle of Guanahani, on the memorable night of the discovery of the New World.

On the 17th, in the morning, the horizon was foggy, and the sky slightly covered with vapor. The outlines of the mountains of Lancerota appeared stronger: the humidity, increasing the transparency of the air, seemed at the same time to have brought the objects nearer their view. They passed through the channel which divided the isle of Alegranza from Montaña Clara, taking scundings the whole way, and examined the archipelago of small islands situated northward of Lancerota, In the midst of this archipelago, which was seldom visited by vessels bound for Teneriffe, they were singularly struck with the configuration of the coasts. They thought themselves transported to the Euganean mountains in the Vicentin, or the banks of the Rhine near Bonn.

The whole western part of Lancerota bore the appearance of a country recently convulsed by volcanic eruptions. Everything was black, parched, and stripped of vegetable mould. They distinguished, with their glasses, stratified basalt in thin and steeply-sloping strata. They were forced by the winds to pass between the islands of Alegranza and Montaña Clara, and as none on board the Pizarro had sailed through this passage, they were obliged to be continually sounding.

From some notions which the captain of the Pizarro had collected in an old Portuguese itinerary, he thought

38

MOUNTAINS OF GRACIOSA.

himself opposite to a small fort, situated north of Teguisa, the capital of the island of Lancerota. Mistaking a rock of basalt for a castle, he saluted it by hoisting a Spanish flag, and sent a boat with an officer to inquire of the commandant whether any English vessels were cruising in the roads. He was not a little surprised to learn that the land which he had considered as a prolongation of the coast of Lancerota, was the small island of Graciosa, and that for several leagues there was not an inhabited place. Humboldt and Bonpland took advantage of the boat to survey the land, which inclosed a large bay. The small portion of the island which they traversed resembled a promontory of lava. The rocks were naked with no marks of vegetation, and scarcely any of vegetable soil.

They re-embarked at sunset, and hoisted sail, but the breeze was too feeble to permit the Pizarro to continue her course to Teneriffe. The sea was calm; a reddish vapor covered the horizon, and seemed to magnify every object.

In this solitude, amidst so many uninhabited islets, the travellers enjoyed for a long time the view of rugged and wild scenery. The black mountains of Graciosa appeared like perpendicular walls five or six hundred feet high. Their shadows, thrown over the surface of the ocean, gave a gloomy aspect to the scenery. Rocks of basalt, emerging from the bosom of the waters, wore the resemblance of the ruins of some vast edifice, and carried their thoughts back to the remote period when submarine volcanoes gave birth to new islands, or rent continents asunder. Everything which surrounded them seemed to indicate destruction and sterility; but the back-ground of the picture, the coasts of Lancerota,

DANGEROUS CURRENTS.

presented a more smiling aspect.

39

In a narrow pass

between two hills, crowned with scattered tufts of trees, marks of cultivation were visible. The last rays of the sun gilded the corn ready for the sickle.

The captain of the Pizarro endeavored to get out of this bay by the pass which separated Alegranza from Montaña Clara, and through which he had easily entered to land at the northern point of Graciosa. The wind having fallen, the currents drove the vessel very near a rock, on which the sea broke with violence, and which was noted in the old charts under the name of Hell, or Infierno. Examined at the distance of two cables' length, this rock was found to be a mass of lava, full of cavities, and covered with scoriæ resembling coke.

As the vessel was prevented by the fall of the wind, and by the currents, from repassing the channel of Alegranza, the captain resolved on tacking during the night between the island of Clara and the West Rock. This resolution had nearly proved fatal. A calm was very dangerous near this rock, towards which the current drove with considerable force. They began to feel the effects of this current at midnight. The proximity of the stony masses, which rose perpendicularly above the water, deprived the vessel of the little wind which blew; she no longer obeyed the helm and they dreaded striking every instant.

The wind having freshened a little towards the morning of the 18th, they succeeded in passing the channel.

From the time of their departure from Graciosa the horizon continued so hazy that they did not discover the island of Canary, notwithstanding the height of its mountains, till the evening of the 18th. On the morning