"It is a beautiful sight to look along the shores of some of the islands near the equator and mark the endless variety of shells thrown up by the winds and waves--the houses of tenants long since dead; but if we could rake the bottom of the sea near those islands and find the living shells, they would be much more beautiful. The shells the divers brought us with the inhabitant alive were in beauty of tints far more exquisite than those bleached by the sun and rains, and washed by ten thousand tides."

Entry for Sunday, July 26, 1891: "While it cannot in truth be said that the spot is a specially attractive one, it would be equally untrue to describe it as being entirely devoid of charm or attraction. Flowers bloom in abundance on all sides, and their varied colors, -- white, pink, and yellow, -- scattered through a somewhat somber base of green, picture a carpet of almost surpassing beauty. Rugged cliffs of sandstone, some sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred feet high, in which the volcanic forces have built up long black walls of basalt, rise steeply behind us, and over their tops the eternal ice-cap is plainly visible. Only a few paces from the base of the knoll are the silent and still partially ice-covered waters of the bay, which extends five miles or more over tot he opposite shore, and perhaps three times that distance eastward to its termination. A number of lazy icebergs still stand guard between us and the open waters of the western horizon, where the gray and ice-flecked bluffs of Northumberland and Hakluyt Islands disappear from sight."

"After a pleasant but hot ride, we arrived at the villa about noon, and went to the house of Senor Don Antonio de Monteverde, who accompanied us to M. Franqui's garden, to see one of the wonders of the island, the famous Dragon Tree. Humboldt has celebrated this tree in its vigour; it is now a noble ruin. In July, 1819, one half of its enourmous crown fell: the wound is plaistered up, the date of the misfortune marked on it, and as much care is taken of the venerable vegetable as will ensure it for at least another century. . . . The dragon tree is the slowest growth among vegetables; it seems also to be slowest in decay. In the 15th century, that of Oratava had attained the height and size which it boasted till 1819. It may have been in its prime for centuries before; and scarcely less than a thousand years must have elapsed, before it attained its full size."