PART i. INTRODUCTION TO THE INQUIRY. 3 



The next day, when crossing the still farther southern 

 parallel of 35 latitude, the sun smote down on the ship 

 with even more than its Lisboan power. And at evening 

 a preacher-passenger, who had been the greater part of 

 the day usefully conversing with seamen in the fore- 

 castle, came aft amongst the panting, recumbent figures 

 there, and with a face glowing scarlet in the light of 

 the western sky, exclaimed for their encouragement : 



" To-day, the boatswain allows, has been warm ; but 

 to-morrow, he says, near Madeira, it will be hot" And 

 that last word. was given out with all the force of Eliza- 

 bethan days when it was spelt with two t's ! 



Yet when the morrow came and Madeira was so 

 much closer to us, the weather was not by any means hot. 

 It was barely not cold. No sun was to be seen, and the 

 sky was everywhere covered in with thick, damp, cottony 

 rolls of cloud, packed tightly one against another. After 

 breakfast, land was announced ; a dull rocky island, with 

 a pointed mountain peak about 1600 feet high, and a 

 specially wet-looking, extra cloud hanging down over it. 

 This island was Porto Santo, and when we had left that 

 behind us by several more hours of rapid steaming, they 

 told us Madeira was in sight ! But how ? 



The clouds of the sky seemed to have strangely thick- 

 ened in front, or far to the south, and west, of us. From 

 high above they came down as impalpable mist almost 

 to the very water's edge itself, between which and the 

 clouds' lowest rims lay a narrow vista of distant inscrut- 



