and then we wound down the hill-side into sunshine and Cintra town, where we finished our day by going over an old Moorish palace, with divers anecdotes and histories attached to every room; one ceiling was painted all over with magpies, each holding a scroll with "pro bem" written on them, the history of which is that a certain Queen found a certain King-her husband-paying certain attentions to a certain court lady. Queen thereon taxes King with flirting, King gaily replies Honi soit qui mal y pense, and has a slap at the Queen and the tittle-tattle of the court by painting the aforesaid magpies all over a ceiling. Moral-when wives and women tittle-tattle, let them tittle-tattle good little stories and not scandalous And then with a couple of mules we rattled back to Lisbon in double-quick time. ones. The weather was atrocious during most of our stay; some of us went up the river duck-shooting, with but little success, one man being nearly buried in soft mud in which he sank, but was rescued in time. We passed what time we had on shore in dining at hotels and going to a rather poor opera, where I declare we never saw a pretty face among the audience night after night. I may mention that the landlady of one of the hotels is the mother of 32. children, equally divided between two dead husbands, and really if she re-married she looks quite capable of performing the same feat over again! Courtship is carried on in a curious way in Lisbon. The men are not allowed to come into the houses where their beloveds live, but have to remain in the street, while the young women are allowed to talk to them from verandahs; and walking along the streets in the late evenings these exciting interviews between the two lovers may sometimes be seen and heard. On the 18th we arrived at Gibraltar, having had fine weather from Lisbon. We dredged several times with entire success, in depths under 1,000 fms., great hauls of mud and a few animals. The mud! ye gods, imagine a cart full of whitish mud, filled with minutest shells, poured all wet and sticky and slimy on to some clean planks, and then you may have some faint idea of how globigerina mud appears to us. In this the naturalists paddle and wade about, putting spadefuls into successively finer and finer sieves, till nothing remains but the minute shells, &c. But this cruise is memorable in the annals of the Challenger, as during it we first tried the trawl instead of the dredge, which revolutionized eventually our dredging system. We had a trawl or two on board-the ordinary beam trawl-which somebody proposed trying; so it was forthwith rigged up and sent down in 620 fms., after the dredge had come up with the usual hundredweight or two of mud and a few animals. And lo! in the trawl there appeared three fish of two different and exceedingly rare species, ghastly objects, bursting and blown out like balloons, with eyes starting out from their heads. There were also beautiful corals, two feet high, and brilliantly phosphorescent when stirred in a darkened room. The "cod" of the trawl was full of jellyfish and starfish, and there was a pleasant absence of mud, which the large mesh allowed to wash out as the net was hauled up. We stayed at Gibraltar till the 26th, during which period nothing occurred of which I need write to you; and besides, everybody knows all about "old Gib," which was doubly pleasant to us with its brilliant sunshine, and gardens a blaze of flowers, coming from England in winter, and south-westerly gales in the Channel and Lisbon. Between Lisbon and Madeira we had to take a line of soundings for a telegraph cable, the first 50 miles of which we did coming out from Lisbon the other day; this "line" we now picked up and continued, finding no deeper water across than 2,250 fms. We trawled three times in depths between 1,100 and 2,125 fms. with great success. In the first haul three fish came up; one is allied to a species we have got before, and the others are probably new, having peculiar soft skins and big brown eyes; also rare salpa, new starfish, corals, sponges, shrimps, &c. The next haul brought up several fine sponges-one quite new; a few sea-urchins—also new, or very rare; and a beautiful animal like a flowering plant. And from the third and deepest haul we brought to light a splendid umbellularia, the history of which is curious. It was got for the first time last century, and was never found again until last year, when a Swedish expedition dredged one up off the coast of Greenland. Our specimen is a thin flexible stalk about three feet long, with a bunch of wavy fibres at its head. We have made improvements in the trawl-doubled the lower part of the net, so as to make the mesh smaller, and also put in an inner cod, on the principle of a lobster-pot. Boats away seeking for animal life on the surface caught a small turtle one day, and missed two others by a hair's breadth; shoals of big fish were swimming about, going freely into a hand-net which was put down to catch them but always swimming out again before the net could be hauled in, much to the despair of the man manoeuvring it. When close to Madeira we put the trawl over, which, however, fouled something at the bottom, the rope being carried away, and we lost our only trawl. On Feb. the 2nd we arrived at Madeira, having sounded right up to the harbour. Madeira was, as it always is, delicious and lovely. Leaving on the 6th, we ran down with a fresh breeze to Teneriffe, where we anchored, early in the morning of the second day, off Santa Cruz, an uninteresting little town lying at the foot of a broken range of steep hills. The town is remarkable only for very badly paved streets, dirt, smells, and a church, in which are two English boats' ensigns, trophies of a repulse sustained by Nelson when attempting to land. The sight of these two captured ensigns so stirred the indignant soul of a midshipman not long ago, that he managed to steal them, and bore them secretly on board his ship; but the authorities found him out, and he had to give them up ignominiously with many expressions of apology and regret, and since then they have been placed high out of anybody's reach. The chief cultivation around the town is a species of cactus, planted in small fields, on which the cochineal insect is reared. The cacti are swaddled in strips of white cloth, on which first are sprinkled the eggs; the insects, when hatched, feeding on the plant till they are old enough to be used for the dye. The effect of these gaunt, blue cacti swathed in white bandages is ugly in the landscape. A few dromedaries in pompous procession passed us carrying loads: these are the only ones we saw in the island, and come, I suppose, from Africa. The hills, and gullies between, in the immediate vicinity of the town, are sterile, covered with large stones, low bushes, euphorbias and cacti, so the scenery there is not very cheerful. A party of three scientifics and self made an excursion up the Peak, or rather partly up the Peak, in this wise:M. started in the early morning by public coach for Orotava, a town lying on the other side of the island, whence the start for the ascent must be made, to make preparation for, if possible, our going up that same evening. We other three, with tent, baggage, provisions, and three servants, followed in carriages, ourselves in a large open waggonette drawn by four horses, and the servants and impedimenta in a two-horsed machine. We drove along an excellent road winding up the mountain range, from the top of which we had, for the first time, a magnificent view of the Peak covered with snow. Then we cantered down the other side, a long gradual descent diagonally across the mountain slope passing, as we got lower down, groups of date-palms, bananas, oranges, big fuchsia and geranium bushes, and here and there an old "dragon tree." This side of the island is very different from the other, the long gradual slope from the shore to where the mountain-ridge breaks in abruptly in precipitously wooded heights, being all carefully cultivated and dotted with hamlets and houses; the snow-clad Peak, invisible from the anchorage, rising ahead of us, the mountain-ridge on the left, while far below our right lay the sea, beating heavily against the shore. We reached Orotava in about five hours, having first driven into a hamlet where uproarious laughter met our driver's remark that we were going up the mountain, and the villagers sarcastically questioned us as to whether we were going to drive up in our carriage and four? The English eccentricity for mountain-climbing is a proverb out here, and the season being winter makes our wish to go up all the more ludicrous to them. Orotava is a clean little town, the Brighton of Teneriffe. We hear that we cannot start to-night, and that the guides say they will not even try to take us to the top on account of the snow, so we must just go as high up as we can. Near the town are some pretty little botanic gardens, and in the town a prison, where Carlist prisoners are confined, who were hanging out of the windows, singing Carlist songs in a loud and unrepressed manner. We passed a dreadful night: beds full of insects, which dropped from the ceiling-too disagreeable for words. Glad enough to rise at daylight, we breakfasted, ten horses then gradually making their appearance, five of which were loaded with our baggage, the remaining five to be used for riding, and about eight o'clock we started off, some riding, some walking. It was Sunday morning, and the people were flocking in to church all dressed in their best. For an hour or so we walked across the foot of the slope towards a high precipitous mountain spur, which shot out into the sea, and up which in course of time we climbed by a very steep road, and then we kept along its top, passing the last cottages and cultivation; up, up, and ever up through a broad belt of beautiful tall heather, till we came to a spring and trees, where we uncheoned; then on again through a belt of white cloud, |