28th. This morning left the "still vext" bay of Oratava, and before sunset saw Palma and Gomera. The Canary Islands, supposed to be the Fortunate Islands of the ancients, were discovered accidentally in 1405. Betancour, a Frenchman, took possession of them for Spain; but the natives were brave, and it cost both the Spaniards and Portuguese, who possessed them by turns, much blood and treasure to conquer the country and exterminate the people, for their wars ended in nothing less. Purchas complains that he could not obtain the reading of some travels by an Englishman who had visited the Peak; the good pilgrim's curiosity had been strongly excited by the particulars he had learnt from books, and the journals of some of his friends who had travelled, which he has carefully related: they are such as to make me regret that he has not recorded more, and that I cannot see more. We brought with us from Oratava one of the finest goats I ever saw; I presume she was a descendant of the original flock which the supreme deity of the Guanches created to be the property of the kings alone: she is brown, with very long twisted horns, a very remarkable white beard, and the largest udder I ever saw. 29th. Passed the island of Hierro or Ferro, the old first meridian; which honour, I presume, it enjoyed from having been considered as the most western land in the world until the discovery of America. We were very close to it, and all agreed that we never saw so hard-looking and inaccessible a place. We saw some fine woods, a few scattered houses, and one village perched upon a hill, at least 1500 feet above us. The Peak of Teneriffe still visible above the clouds. _Sept._ 1st. The flying-fish are become very numerous, and whole fleets of medusæ have passed us; some we have picked up, besides a very beautiful purple sea-snail. This fish has four horns, like a snail, the shell is very beautifully tinted with purple, and there is a spongy substance attached to the fish which I thought assisted it to swim: it is larger in bulk than the whole fish. One of them gave out fully a quarter of an ounce of purple fluid from the lower part of the fish. A fine yellow locust and a swallow flew on board; and as we believe ourselves to be four hundred miles from the nearest land, Cape Blanco, we cannot enough admire the structure of the wings that have borne them so far.