VIEW OP ASCENSION. 
69 
as many as forty yards, if the crest of some inter- 
mediate wave offers a new starting place. The smaller 
ones generally move in shoals, while the large fish and 
those of greatest tenacity out of the briny element, are 
often solitary. The flavour of these latter is good. 
Wednesday, November 1*7 th . — The distant view of 
Ascension gives rise to pleasurable emotions, which 
unfortunately are not confirmed by a nearer approach. 
Perhaps the weary voyager has been looking during 
weeks or months for “ some green spot to rest upon,” 
and hails anything in the shape of terrdfirmd, but the 
nearer he comes to the land of promise, the less he 
finds to draw forth his admiration or reward his 
hopes. All the lower part is cinder, — brown scori- 
aceous cinder, — with scarce a blade of grass, or other 
sign of struggling vegetation : True, afar oflT, one 
little spot is adorned with verdure, and called par 
excellence “the green mountain;” but nowhere else can 
the eye fix on a pleasing, promising, feature; being 
without a trace of that luxuriance of nature which is 
inseparably connected in the mind with intertropical 
scenery. It presents one wide arid waste, which would 
seem to threaten to dry up all human feeling. It is 
not surprising, therefore, that some of our fair country- 
women shoidd have shed tears on landing, and seeing 
the inhospitable nature of the place in which they 
were to pass some years of their life. It is however 
surprising, but no less true, that they shed more 
tears at leaving the island, where they had passed 
