Chapter III 
From Bermudas to Cape of Good Hope. 
- 4 - 
HE 1800 miles which separate Bermudas from the Azores were traversed in 
eighteen days. The weather proved very favourable for our operations, and, 
although the dredge or trawl came up on several occasions empty, or nearly 
so, the naturalists on board appeared satisfied with the results. As a matter of 
course, a single specimen hitherto unknown to science would outweigh a bagful 
of specimens which had already found a name in the daily lengthening records of zoology. 
The soundings taken during this cruise establish the great depth of this portion of the 
North Atlantic. Showing a depth of 2000 fathoms at a distance of about thirty miles from 
Bermudas, it attains a maximum depth of nearly 2900 fathoms in the first third of the total 
distance between the two island-groups. For the space of the second third, the sea-bottom 
remains at an almost uniform level of 2700 fathoms, from which it seems to ascend by successive 
terraces towards the plateau of the Azores, reaching the latter with a depth of 1700 fathoms 
and at a distance of 300 miles from Fayal. At this point a large current of cold water was 
discovered, probably a branch of the Labrador Current, which seems to flow along the western 
slope of the plateau, and makes its influence felt to a depth of several hundred fathoms. 
But for the frequent stoppages, and the monotonous character of our daily labours, our 
lot, as we floated from island to island, might well be envied. The sunny Bermudas still 
fresh in our memories, we were now approaching another cluster of islands of much greater 
extent, and justly famous for the grandeur of its scenery, its gardens and groves of oranges, 
and its most genial climate. In the course of the last day of June, Flores, the most westerly 
of the Azores, was just visible above the horizon, and in the afternoon of the 1st July, Fayal 
and Pico came in sight. 
FAYAL. 
The volcanic celebrity of these islands was called to mind by the sight of two extinct 
craters close upon the sea-shore not far to the westward of Horta, the capital of Fayal. Castello 
Branco—so called probably from the white rim of the crater, which, at a distance, suggests 
