The Atlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glittering faint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand; only the high back of the island shut out the other side--save here and there through a deep-notched gully or two--and accordingly you saw the sea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, clasping the dark-coloured lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms lifting it high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it into their wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, where they meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the first lieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to go with them, lest they got into mischief; for my part, I preferred the chance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as I fancied not unlikely, or, what was less to be looked for, a sight of Bonaparte himself. "Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handed round one side of the Devil's Punch-bowl, when I heard a clatter of horse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick riding quickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood--which, curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving down from the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather some kind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after, that such was often the case, the climate up there being quite different from below, where they never feel a gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow I got into, it was hot and still as it would have been in India, the blackberry trailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed with prickly-pear bushes, willows, gumwood, and an African palm or two; though from the look of the sea, I could notice the southeast trade had freshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night than ordinary, and to shift a little round.