TENERIFE 
29 
of lava a low wall to windward, the guides grudging such assistance as they 
rendered; the Alpenstocks were built into it, and a very tolerable tent made by 
stretching rugs over them. The ladies meanwhile busied themselves with cutting 
large quantities of Retama twigs for bedding, while the guides in a leisurely manner 
collected dead Retama, of which there was abundance at hand for firing. In two 
hours we had a really comfortable bivouac and a blazing fire. Without our assist¬ 
ance the guides and their beasts would have been miserable; the muleteer would 
not even melt snow for his animals, and was in truth a surly, lazy fellow. We 
supped at sundown and at once made ourselves snug for the night, and with such 
success that instead of being cold as we had expected we were all too warm. 
A bivouac 8000 ft. up a mountain is too exciting a situation for sleep, and we 
soon found ourselves sitting up in a row looking at the stars and waiting for the 
moon to rise. The guides made no attempt to keep the fire going ; this was left to 
their employers, who had, moreover, late in the night, to sally forth to replenish the 
scanty store of wood that their lazy improvidence had supplied. At midnight 
we roused the camp—the guides grumbling bitterly—and, after some food, were 
soon on the move in the brilliant moonlight. Easy gradients over pumice and 
small patches of snow took us in an hour and a half over the Montana Blanca to 
the foot of the Pico del Teyde itself, and we began the ascent. A slight path led 
by zigzags up a steep slope of loose cinders, 1 at the top of which some huge blocks 
of lava constitute a resting place, where in summer the night is often spent, but 
which is now inhospitable owing to snow drifts. This spot, 9700 ft. above the 
sea, bears a name which shows the enterprise of our countrymen— Estancia de los 
Ingleses. Here the guides again rebelled; they said it was impossible to go 
further in consequence of the snow. Accordingly we took the furs and other wraps 
they were carrying, and again bid them good-night. 
By this time the great rarity of the atmosphere at such an elevation told severely 
on one of the ladies, who was attacked with “ mountain sickness.” After every 
200 yards or so she was compelled to lie down on the rocks; finally, both ladies 
were overcome with the cold of the strong north-west wind that nearly cut one’s 
ears off, and produced an effect on the nose that no quantity of pocket-handkerchiefs 
sufficed to assuage. Further progress was impossible under the circumstances, and 
the four of us had to seek an apology for shelter on the lee side of a crag that might 
have afforded a perch for a pair of ravens, but gave most inadequate and angular 
accommodation for four human beings. However, we had to huddle together under 
such wraps as we had, and economise heat as much as possible. 
In about an hour and a half the sun rose magnificently, and we rejoiced in all 
those glories of cloud and light which are peculiar to a mountain sunrise and defy 
description. Here and there the sea was visible through a sheet of clouds, and far, 
far below lay the Villa and the Puerto de Orotava. The heavy surf breaking on 
thirty miles of coast showed that the wind was not confined to the top of the 
mountain. To the south-east, among the clouds and scarcely distinguishable from 
them, appeared the mountains of Grand Canary. 
On looking about us after sunrise we found that we were close to Alta Vista 
1 Though the coarser volcanic ejectamenta are commonly, and conveniently, 
termed “cinders,” and the finer “ashes,” it should not be forgotten that, since but 
little true combustion occurs in volcanoes, those terms are not strictly correct. Like 
slag, which some forms of lava and scoria closely resemble, most of the solids poured 
forth by volcanoes partake rather of the nature of glass, or porcelain. Lava is a 
generic term; basalt and obsidian (“ volcanic glass ”) are species. 
