I GO ASHORE.
The wind lulled away into a gentle breeze; reef after reef was shaken
out until a full spread of canvas once more covered the spars of the
_Eugenie_; and to repair some trifling damages of the night we crept
in shore.
As day brightened through clouds half rain, half mist, and wholly
gray or obscure, we saw the land looming high and dark. Beyond it in
the distance there was a space of vivid light; in the foreground,
surf white as snow was breaking on the beach, and high over all, in
mid-air, towered the wondrous Peak of Adam, on the eastern side of
which the sun (as yet _unrisen_ to us) was shining brightly when we
came to anchor in the harbor of Santa Cruz.
We moored in thirty-three fathoms water, about half a mile from the
shore, which in most places is steep, with green and lovely slopes
rising high above it. As Captain Weston proposed to weigh next
morning, he allowed me to go ashore, but sent with me, to be a guide
and companion, Tom Lambourne, the tattooed sailor, who had been
frequently before at the Grand Canary, and in whom he reposed great
trust.
He gave me a courier-bag containing some provisions, a flask of
spirits, and a telescope; and thus provided, old Tom and I, with such
emotions of pleasure as two newly-escaped schoolboys might feel,
landed on the shore, which seemed to heave, sink, and rise under my
feet--for after the late storm I still felt that which is termed "the
roll of the ship."
It was in this harbor of Santa Cruz that the famous old English
Admiral Blake encountered, and within six hours burned and sunk,
seven great Spanish galleons, though they were anchored under the
protecting cannon of seven forts and a strong castle, in the walls of
which some of his shot were shown imbedded for many years after.
I cast longing eyes to the summit of the mighty Peak of Adam. It
seemed to rise sheer from the sea, over which, literally _piercing_
the clouds, it towers to the height of more than twelve thousand
feet; but the idea of attempting to climb it within so short a space
of time as we had to spend on shore never occurred to me; but what a
feat it would have been to relate when I returned to Erlesmere!
The morning was early yet; the sun was barely above the now cloudless
horizon; so the shadow of this stupendous cone was cast not only over
the whole island, which seems to form merely its base, but to the far
horizon, perhaps beyond it; for there are writers who assert that in
clear weather Cape Bojadore, that dreary and barren promontory of
Africa, ninety miles distant, is visible from its summit.
Did the waves of the sea ever overflow that mighty Peak? At such a
question the mind becomes lost in conjecture.
As I am not writing a descriptive book of travels, but merely a plain
narrative of my own very recent adventures, I need not detail at
great length either the magnitude or the aspect of this great
island-mountain of the Atlantic.
From cliffs of dark-brown basalt, against which the ocean pours in
vain its foam and fury, we ascended the steep slope of the volcano
for a few miles. Then at our feet, as it were, we could see that
fertile island, where a perpetual spring seems to smile, and where
the fragrant myrtle, the golden orange-trees, and the dark funereal
cypress form the mere hedgerows of those plantations where the
sugar-cane, the broad-leaved plantain, the luscious Indian fig, the
trailing vine, the fragrant cinnamon, and the pretty coffee-bush,
were all flourishing in a luxuriance that filled us with wonder and
pleasure.
Further off was the boundless sea, of that deep blue which it
borrowed from the sky above and mirrored in its depth were the
shipping in the roadstead, with their white canvas hanging loose to
dry in the sun; the green woods and dark rocks reflected downward,
and the old turreted castle of Santa Cruz, with the scarlet and
yellow banner of Castile and Leon on its time-worn ramparts.
The summit of the great cone, on the clothed sides of which we never
tired of gazing, soon became lost in vapor; far above the dark-green
belt of many miles, named the Region of Laurels, and that other belt
or forest of timber, where pines, chestnuts, and oaks of vast size
mingle their varied foliage together, the mountain seemed all of a
violet tint, which paled away into faint blue as its apex mingled and
became lost amid the gossamer clouds.
The vines, in luxuriance, bordered the pathway as we ascended, and it
is said that for years after the wine has been taken from these isles
to England or elsewhere, it always ferments and becomes agitated when
the vineries from whence it came are in bloom; but this tale may
perhaps be as true as the accounts of those mighty ruins which Pliny
avers once covered all the Fortunate Islands, but of which no trace
remains now.
Tom Lambourne and I, after a ramble of some hours, found ourselves in
a wild and solitary place, where blocks of lava and heaps of
yellow-pumice dust were lying among shattered masses of basalt, which
were studded with spars and chrystals that glittered as the sunshine
streamed through a ravine upon them.
The sides of this ravine were clothed with rich copsewood and little
thickets of the _retamablanca_, which there grows about ten feet
high, and is covered with tufts of odoriferous flowers. The distant
sea, the waves of which seemed to bask or sleep in the sunshine,
closed the perspective of this ravine; and there we could see the
_Eugenie_ at anchor, with her snow-white courses loose and her other
canvas neatly handed. Being warmed by our walk, we sat down within
the mouth of a species of natural grotto, formed by masses of lava
and basalt, which in some past age the throes of the volcano had
thrown and heaped together. There a clear spring gurgled joyously
from a fissure in the rocks; and now, opening the courier-bag, we
proceeded to make our breakfast on the viands I had brought from the
ship--to wit, Bologna sausage and biscuits, with brandy-and-water.
The air was deliciously clear, and over the brow of the rocky chasm
in which we sat, there fell a natural screen of the wild Indian fig
and vine creepers, and these shaded us from the increasing heat of
the morning sun. All was still there.
We heard only the coo of the great wood-pigeons among the gorgeous
foliage, or the sweet notes of the little golden-colored canary
birds, as they twittered about us when we scared them from their
nests, which they usually build in the barrancas or watercourses,
such being the coolest places in that volcanic isle.