20 
FROM TENERIFFE TO BERMUDAS. 
The 13th February found us once more anchored before Santa Cruz. Notwithstanding 
its somewhat rude and forbidding aspect, the town is not without the attractions of civilised 
life. A visit to the theatre and a ball at the house of the British Consul, attended by the 
notabilities of the place, gave us an opportunity of paying our tribute of admiration to the 
graceful senoritas, otherwise seldom visible to the passing traveller except when quietly gliding 
with veil and parasol to afternoon mass. 
Late on the 14th, H.M.S. “Challenger” started on her first long cruise across the 
Atlantic, her next port being St. Thomas in the West Indies, distant about 2700 miles. Our 
progress during the first days was rather slow, on account of the light winds and the frequent 
stoppages. The dredge came up empty once or twice; but in the course of the 18th we 
made one of the most interesting captures of the cruise. The dredge came to the surface 
filled with fragments of a large coral, which, from their number and size, must have formed 
a shrub several feet high, attached by its base to the rocky bottom of the sea. The outer 
layer of the fragments was black, but the fracture showed that the original colour of the 
coral had been white. Entangled among its branches were two large sponges, which 
were soon identified as vitreous sponges, so called because the more solid portion or 
skeleton of their bodies consists of a network of delicate transparent needles or spicules, 
which resemble threads of spun glass, and present under the microscope an extra¬ 
ordinary variety of form and combinations. Some of these spicules attain a considerable 
length, and, clustering at the base of the sponge, form a white glassy beard, probably intended 
to enable the sponge to obtain a firm hold upon the ooze in which they are generally 
found embedded. In the present case, the two sponges were joined together by their beards, 
and the interstices between the spicules were choked with a mass of small shells, chiefly of 
pteropods and other minute inhabitants of the sea. We looked upon this curious find as a 
promise of the many wonders which the ocean had in store for us. 
We were now approaching the sailor’s paradise, namely, the region of the trade 
winds ; and, after devoting the day to our usual work, were sure of being able to add during 
the night another hundred miles to our log. A visit to one of Her Majesty’s ships is a 
favourite treat for the landsman at home, though it conveys to him a very imperfect idea of 
life on board when at the full height of its activity. A man-of-war is an epitome of a nation, 
with its complement of king, prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, executive staff, 
board of health, church and school dignitaries, and obedient subjects skilled in every craft 
devised to satisfy the daily wants of man. Imagine the stately ship, half-hidden under her 
press of sails, running swiftly before the steady breeze, coquettishly leaning now to one side, 
now to the other, as she ploughs her straight furrow across the watery plain. Above, the 
blue sky, with its banks of soft clouds; below, the intense blue sea, speckled with white 
crests. Bioad sunbeams fall upon the dry, smooth decks, and light up the interior in all its 
fair-weather finery of gilding, painting, and whitewash. The big guns, in their pride of polished 
metal and varnish, look more like toys than formidable engines of destruction. And what life 
between decks ! The cook, the baker, the butcher, the tailor, the shoemaker, the carpenter, 
