4 



A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



shone brilliantly upon the snowy peak of the mountain, high up 

 in the sky above the clouds. On the shore lay the town of 



PEAK OF TENERIFFE FROM THE KOAD ABOVE OEOTAVA. 



(From a sketch by the Author.) 



Orotava, from which the ascent was to be made. The English 

 vice-consul at Orotava, who kindly made arrangements for the 

 trip, told me that the growth of the vine in Teneriffe was fast 

 being supplanted by the cultivation of Cochineal ; 2,000 pipes 

 only were being produced around Orotava, whereas 200,000 

 were formerly made. He expected, however, that since Cochi- 

 neal was falling in price, the wine trade would revive. The 

 Canary wine is certainly of most excellent flavour. 



The route up the mountain lay up a long sloping ridge, 

 which leads to the base of the actual cone of the Peak. This 

 ridge is bounded by a precipice on the side facing Orotava. The 

 villagers tried to dissuade the party from going farther after we 

 had ascended about 2,000 feet, saying that we should be frozen 

 to death. 



The well-known zones of vegetation of the Peak of Teneriffe 

 are not very well defined on the route which we adopted. The 

 limit of cultivation was reached at about 3,000 feet, at which 

 height corn of some kind was just springing up, and we passed 



