32 PEAK OF TENERIFE. 



Eight Stones," thus adding another though almost 

 needless " testimony to their non-existence, at least 

 in the place assigned them in the old charts." 



In passing the gut of Gibraltar we remarked the 

 current setting us into it : this I have before noticed 

 in outward voyages : in the homeward, one is gene- 

 rally too far to the westward to feel its effects. A 

 small schooner sailed for England on the 20th, and 

 most of us took the opportunity of sending letters by 

 her. I learnt from the master of her that a timber 

 ship had been recently picked up near the island, 

 having been dismasted in a gale off the banks of 

 Newfoundland ; she was 105 days drifting here. 



We were not so fortunate on this occasion as to 

 obtain a distant sea view of the far-famed peak of 

 Tenerife. There are few natural objects of greater 

 interest when so beheld. Risinof at a distance of 

 some 40 leagues in dim and awful solitude from the 

 bosom of the seemingly boundless waves that guard 

 its base, it rests at first upon the blue outline of the 

 horizon like a conically shaped cloud : hour after 

 hour as you approach the island it seems to grow 

 upon the sight, until at length its broad reflection 

 darkens the surrounding waters. I can imagine 

 nothing better calculated than an appearance of this 

 kind to satisfy a beholder of the spherical figure of 

 the earth, and it would seem almost incredible that 

 early navigators should have failed to find conviction 

 in the unvarying testimonies of their own experience, 

 which an approach to every shore aflforded. 



