although shivering with cold the whole way. One slip would have
been a slip into eternity; but the thought of danger was diverted
by the clouds which were still rising out of the valley, and which,
frequently concealing the precipices the torch would otherwise
have disclosed, seemed to assure our steps by the impression, that
we were riding on the margin of some Vast rocky lake. My guide
tied a handkerchief over his head, leaving it to float out behind
from beneath his sharp pointed cap, tucked up his trowsers, pulled
up his swarthy boots, which looked like a skin shrivelled and
discoloured with age and dirt, let his shirt hang loose over his
waistband, and waving the torch every touch and turn to keep it
in, preceded me, looking like the most haggard of wizards: as I
shrunk from the breeze and looked around me, I could not but
recall the words of Ossian, “ Ghosts ride on clouds, and fly upon the
winds, and meet together in some secret cave to talk of mortal
man.” I arrived at Mr. Veitch’s quinta in about three hours.
My next attempt was more successful. I slept in the Coural the
night before, and starting before sunrise, was on the top of the
Pico Ruivo by half past nine in the morning. We passed through
thickets of the clethra arborear, vaccinium cappadocium, and laurels,
before we reached the arborescent heaths, which contribute with
the thick grass to give the peak its unusual verdure: the mentha
and melissa shed their fragrance even on the summit, and the
purple digitalis presented itself very nearly as high. There was
not a cloud to be seen when we first arrived, and the broken volcanic
peaks, the abrupt breaks, and deep abysses, which met the
eye in every direction, almost led me to feel like one who, surviving
some great convulsion of nature, had crawled to the highest
eminence to contemplate the ruins of a divided continent. The
'This clethra does not seem tome to have been well described, or else it is a
different species: it has no bracteae, the ovary is covered with hairs, and the stigma is
forked at the fop.
scene was soon changed ; the clouds advanced at first like vast
floating glaciers, but soon formed an entire sea, from which the
points of the peaks emerged like desert rocks and breakers. I did
not quit the summit until noon, when the thermometer stood at
49 in the shade, and at 80 in the sun ; De Saussure’s hygrometer
remained at 57, for there was not a cloud above us ; and the electrometer,
armed with its conductor and elevated, was not affected
in the smallest degree. I made the height of the peak 6164 feet5,
(or about 650 feet lower than the range of hills considered as the
base of the Peak of Teneriffe,) and I think it was impossible for
the day to be more favourable*.
s Barom. 619.65, T. 9.45, T.d. 9.45 c. 49 F : in the turret of Mr. Veitch’s house in
Funchal, 154 feet above the level of the sea, (allowing seven feet for the rise of the
tide at the syzygies, when the height of the turret was determined,) 770.70, T. 20.5,
T.d. 20.5 c. 69 F : T — T = 16“ 2; x 2 (t + t') = 103“ 2; correction for
latitude, 8".
* For the Peak of Teneriffe to be visible from Ruivo, it would require the latter to
be upwards of 18,000 feet high. “ M. Cordier mesura le Pic de Ténériffe, le 10 Avril,
1803, en employant un excellent baromètre qu’il avoit fait bouillir la veille, et par un
temps très-beau et très-constant, qui se prolongea pendant un mois; Les instrumens
étoient placés au vent du Pic, et la hauteur barométrique fut ramenée à la température
de l’air ambiant................ M. Cordier a tenu compte des petits changemens de
niveau dans la cuvette, et ce physicien, très exercé aux mesures barométriques, a pris
toutes les precautions nécessaires pour obtenir un résultat exact.”' M. Cordier’s
observation, calculated by La Place’s formula, gives 1920 toises, or 12,162 English feet.
Voyage de Humboldt, 1. 1, c. 3. In a MS. communication of Dr. Savignon’s, (a
Spanish physician resident at Lagunae,) the summit of the Peak is stated to be 12,208
English feet, with the following observation: “ Orotavastands 1042 feet above the
level of the sea ; the range of hills, which may be considered as the base on which the
Peak of Teneriffe rests, 6810 feet, and the base of the sugar loaf, 11,670 feet : these
heights are the result of a. series of observations made by several intelligent gentlemen
of Teneriffe, and agree extremely well with those made by Baron Von Bueh and
Professor Smith in 1815.” I need not add, that Baron Von Buch (whose work I have
not yet seen), as a scientific traveller, is allowedly second only to Baron de Humboldt.
I merely mention these two barometrical observations, differing only forty-six feet in
a height of 12,0QQ, because they seem to have escaped the attention they merit. See
Journal of Science for March,. 1823, p. 79.