Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/76

10 Bananas, dates, figs, spices, and all the choice tropical fruits, grow abundantly in the gardens about the town: and the quantity of coffee raised in the island, and which is of a very good quality, is sufficient to supply the wants of the whole population.

Our magnetic and other observations were only just completed, when a strong westerly breeze and heavy south-westerly swell, attended with such indications as to the experienced islanders predicted a coming storm, obliged us hurriedly to depart at 4h. on the 31st. At daylight on the 2d of November we saw the lofty peak of Teneriffe, distant about sixty miles: our object being to land our letters, we steered for Santa Cruz, the chief town of the Canary Islands; but, baffled by calms and light winds, it was not until the evening of the 4th that we were enabled to accomplish our purpose, and to bear away for the Cape de Verd Islands.

We got the N.E. trade wind on the 6th, in latitude 27° N., and passed the tropic of Cancer on the evening of the 8th. We met with large numbers of flying-fish, attended by their persecutors, the bonito and dolphin; and thus early on our voyage we began the collection of natural history, by preserving as many different kinds of these creatures as we could procure, and by means of towing nets and other devices, gathered numerous curious and entirely new species of animalculæ, which, like the grass of the meadows to land animals, constitute the foundation of marine animal subsistence; and by their emitting a phosphorescent light upon