The sailors expressed themselves delighted to see us again, and we were as pleased to witness the results of their active handiwork. There were now five rooms roofed in, round about the telescope enclosure; while along its inner southern side, ran a verandah, intended for meteorological instruments; and since discovered by the carpenter, to be a luxuriously calm place to sit in, when there was wind everywhere else.

This was previous to our return; for subsequently, the western gale grew so violent and squally, that there was no rest or defence for any of us. We were told, that a change had come over the weather during our absence, cold and dark, as if autumn had arrived. We looked to the thermometer and found it, on the morning after our return, 18° lower than when we had set off for the telescope; the air too was undoubtedly thick and turbid with dust-haze; but the chief change that had occurred, was in the appearance of the sea of cloud. Not only did this vast surface seem to have received a terrible shake, that had broken up its accustomed forms of long rolls of cumuloni, into short cumuli, but—an enemy had appeared in the field.

If there had been generally any part of the sea not amenable to influences of north-eastern wind, and not covered in by those clouds, it was to leeward of the Peak; there, long extents of water surface had been occasionally seen from Guajara.