The descent was accomplished without accident by another route, enabling our travellers to examine the Cueva de la Nieve, and to visit the forest of Aqua Garcia, watered by a limpid stream, and in which D'Urville made a rich collection of botanical specimens. In Major Megliorini's rooms at Santa Cruz the commander was shown, together with a number of weapons, shells, animals, fish, &c., a complete mummy of a Guanche, said to be that of a woman. The corpse was sewn up in skins, and seemed to be that of a woman five feet four high, with regular features and large hands. The sepulchral caves of the Guanches also contained earthenware, wooden vases, triangular seals of baked clay, and a great number of small discs of the same material, strung together like chaplets, which may have been used by this extinct race for the same purposes as the "quipos" of the Peruvians. On the 21st June the _Astrolabe_ once more set sail and touched at La Praya, and at the Cape Verd Islands, where D'Urville had hoped to meet Captain King, who would have been able to give him some valuable hints on the navigation of the coast of New Guinea. King, however, had left La Praya thirty-six hours previously, and the _Astrolabe_ therefore resumed her voyage the next day, i.e. on the 30th June. On the last day of July the rocks of Martin-Vaz and Trinity Island were sighted, and the latter appearing perfectly barren, a little dried-up grass and a few groups of stunted trees, dotted about amongst the rocks, being the only signs of vegetation. D'Urville had been very anxious to make some botanical researches on this desert island, but the surf was so rough that he was afraid to risk a boat in it. On the 4th August the _Astrolabe_ sailed over the spot laid down as "Saxembourg" Island, which ought to be finally erased from French as it has been from English charts; and after a succession of squalls, which tried her sorely, she arrived off St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands, finally anchoring on the 7th October in King George's Sound, on the coast of Australia. In spite of the roughness of the sea, and constant bad weather throughout his voyage of 108 days, D'Urville had carried on all his usual observations on the height of the waves, which he estimated at 80 and occasionally as much as 100 feet, off Needle Bank; the temperature of the sea at various depths, &c.