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Day We Drifted Due North, And On The Third Day, The Fury Of The Gale
Having Somewhat Moderated, We Resumed - Not Our Course, But A Course Only
Four Points Off It.
The next several days we were baffled by foul
winds, jammed down on the coast of Portugal; and then
We had another
gale from the south, not such a one as the last, but still enough to
drive us many miles out of our course; and then it fell calm, which was
almost worse, for when the wind fell the sea rose, and we were tossed
about in such a manner as would have forbidden even Morpheus himself to
sleep. And so we crawled on till, on the morning of the 24th of
October, by which time, if we had had anything like luck, we should have
been close on the line, we found ourselves about thirty miles from the
Peak of Teneriffe, becalmed. This was a long way out of our course,
which lay three or four degrees to the westward at the very least; but
the sight of the Peak was a great treat, almost compensating for past
misfortunes. The Island of Teneriffe lies in latitude 28 degrees,
longitude 16 degrees. It is about sixty miles long; towards the
southern extremity the Peak towers upwards to a height of 12,300 feet,
far above the other land of the island, though that too is very elevated
and rugged. Our telescopes revealed serrated gullies upon the mountain
sides, and showed us the fastnesses of the island in a manner that made
us long to explore them. We deceived ourselves with the hope that some
speculative fisherman might come out to us with oranges and grapes for
sale. He would have realised a handsome sum if he had, but
unfortunately none was aware of the advantages offered, and so we looked
and longed in vain. The other islands were Palma, Gomera, and Ferro,
all of them lofty, especially Palma - all of them beautiful. On the
seaboard of Palma we could detect houses innumerable; it seemed to be
very thickly inhabited and carefully cultivated. The calm continuing
three days, we took stock of the islands pretty minutely, clear as they
were, and rarely obscured even by a passing cloud; the weather was
blazing hot, but beneath the awning it was very delicious; a calm,
however, is a monotonous thing even when an island like Teneriffe is in
view, and we soon tired both of it and of the gambols of the blackfish
(a species of whale), and the operations on board an American vessel
hard by.
On the evening of the third day a light air sprung up, and we watched
the islands gradually retire into the distance. Next morning they were
faint and shrunken, and by midday they were gone. The wind was the
commencement of the north-east trades. On the next day (Thursday,
October 27, lat. 27 degrees 40 minutes) the cook was boiling some fat in
a large saucepan, when the bottom burnt through and the fat fell out
over the fire, got lighted, and then ran about the whole galley, blazing
and flaming as though it would set the place on fire, whereat an alarm
of fire was raised, the effect of which was electrical:
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