Another journey which may be mentioned here was his trip to Teneriffe in the spring of 1891. His health at this time was far from robust, and was indeed causing some anxiety to his friends; but he was determined as usual to gain from his visit intellectual profit as well as (if possible) some benefit to his health. He wrote to H. D. Grissell on March 16, 1891: Orotava, Teneriffe. I date to you from this eccentric place, whither I have come to try and patch myself together by a stay of a few weeks. Of course these islands are utterly unknown to me, and the vegetation in particular is at first sight quite startlingly novel. The air is delicious, but I feel the want of sun, and there is much cold wind. As Piazzi Smyth speaks much of the clouds here, I suspect that this stupendous {168} mountain (of which we rarely see the top, and only in early morning or late evening) has much to do with it. The outcome of Bute's sojourn in the Canary Islands was a remarkable paper, "On the Ancient Language of the Inhabitants of Teneriffe," which he read at the meeting that summer of the British Association at Cardiff, and afterwards published in the _Scottish Review_. Like most of his writings on such recondite subjects, it was more or less "caviare to the general"; but it aroused considerable attention among philologists, who recognised it as a genuine and valuable contribution to linguistic science. Professor Sayce wrote to him from Queen's College, Oxford: _October_ 17, 1891. Many thanks for your kindness in sending me your monograph on the extinct language of Teneriffe. I wish that all linguistic investigations had been conducted with similar care and caution; we should have had fewer difficulties to contend with in the study of linguistic science. You have shown us exactly what are the materials on which we can base our opinion on the ancient language of Teneriffe, and how far those materials can be trusted. For this reason your paper seems to me to be of very real value. It seems right to refer in this place to another and later tribute paid by another and equally distinguished man of science, who in his estimate of Bute's remarkable attainments makes special allusion to the article we are now considering. Sir William Huggins, who was very intimate with him in the later years of his life, wrote as follows: