6 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



a sort of background to the scene. Some amongst these little 

 distant clouds from time to time assumed fantastic shapes, and 

 once we were almost persuaded that we were looking upon the 

 sea in the distance with two very far-off ships upon it, but it 

 was merely a delusion. The sea was entirely shut out from our 

 view, except once for a few instants when a small rift in the 

 cloud -bank occurred and gave us a momentary glimpse of the 

 rippling surface far below, a sort of vista view dimmed by the 

 misty frame through which it was seen. 



All the while the snowy peak itself was perfectly cloudless 

 and stood out clear and sharp against a deep blue arctic-looking 

 sky. Soon the sunlight faded and the moon came out bright, 

 and the peak glistened in its light, which was strong enough for 

 me to read by easily. The view of our tent and camp fire 

 amongst the dark broom bushes with the moonlit snowy peak 

 in the background, fronted by some dark ridges of lava, was 

 most picturesque.* 



We set fire to some of the large Eetama bushes and soon had 

 a tremendous blaze, the bushes fizzing and crackling loudly in 

 the flare, the flames shooting high up into the air so that they 

 were seen at Orotava, and even at Santa Cruz. The ground 

 froze on the surface around our tent during the night, the 

 thermometer standing at 30° F. just before sunrise. 



I walked from the camp to the Canaclas — a remarkable plain 

 covered with scoriae, and shut in on nearly all sides by a perpen- 

 dicular wall of basaltic cliff. From this plain of vast extent the 

 present terminal cone of the mountain rises. The Canadas 

 represents an ancient and much larger crater in the centre 

 of the remnant of winch the more modern smaller peak has 

 been thrown up. The bottom of the Canadas is dotted over 

 with the Retama. The ground was devoid of any other vegeta- 

 tion. I was surprised to find that rabbits were tolerably abun- 

 dant in the Canadas. I saw several but could not manage to 

 get a shot as they were wary. They feed on the Eetama. They 

 have no holes, but live in any chance crack or hole in the rock 



* For an account of the Peak of Teneriffe and its cloud phenomena, 

 see C. Piazzi Smyth, F.E.S., &c, " Teneriffe : an Astronomer's Experiment." 

 London, Reeve, 1858. 



