had a sad appearance; the only green things one could see were a few fig trees and cactus. The latter grows very abundantly here, and is apparently considered a weed ( 018 ) as it has been seen growing in the walls between the gardens; The mountains were covered with these plants from bottom to top, but not densely. As I came out of the gardens onto the mountain, a single man followed me with a gun, intending to shoot game, as he signaled to me. I gave him a cigar, for which he seemed very grateful. As we continued walking we passed a small cross which I had not noticed because of its smallness, it was barely two feet high. I noticed that the man stopped, and even more so that he made signs that he wanted to cut off my neck, although he was smiling, but if he had not been a suspicious person he would hardly have made such a joke. I made a serious face and shook my head, indicating that he didn't have to do such a bad thing. Then he looked up at the cross standing several feet above us and touched his hat, and I, for my part, soon showed him that I had understood him by taking off my cap as quickly as I could.

We continued on this way, but partly because of very great exhaustion, partly to get away from this person, I soon turned back after giving [him] a small Spanish silver coin. In the afternoon we walked around the town with some English people, where we thought we could find a lot of French strolling; especially in the taverns. The city may have about 2,000 inhabitants, half of whom must be beggars, since we were always surrounded by begging boys, ( 019 ) wherever we turned. The owner of the inn where we had meal was an Englishman, so it was very expensive. So the following day

June 30th, 1838.
we did not go back again, but instead to a French coffee house. The only thing worth mentioning that we did today was that we went up another mountain, as far as we could go in the great heat. The external appearance of the island suggested that it was of volcanic origin, and the burnt appearance of the stones completely convinced us of this today. At the setting of the sun we had to go on board according to a law of the city, and we were indeed happy, being weary of the presumptions which the English allow themselves in a foreign country, and which we were aware of.

July 1st, 1838. Sunday.
This morning at 8am we left Sta. Cruz. As we got further out to sea, the beautiful peak(30) appeared; at first only its tip was noticed, but in the end it became completely free. A white patch was noticed at the top, which, in our captain's opinion, was made of snow, which is not at all improbable considering that the peak is over 12,000 feet high, and that the inhabitants of Sta. Cruz offered us frozen food and they brought the ice cream from the peak. Since it was very windy today, we only had the English prayers with their specific passages in the first cabin. The wind was entirely in our favor and so strong that we made about 2 German miles every hour.