[Footnote: The author came out in 1856 to make experiments in astronomical observations. Scientific men have usually a contempt for language: we find the same in _Our Inheritanse_, &c. (Dalby & Co., London, 1877), where the poor modern hierogrammats are not highly appreciated. But it is a serious blemish to find 'Montana Blanco,' 'Malpays,' 'Chahzorra' (for Chajorra), and 'Tiro del Guanches.' The author also is wholly in error about Guanche mummification. He derides (p. 329) the shivering and shaking of his Canarian guide under a cloudy sky of 40°F., when the sailor enjoyed it in their 'glorious strength of Saxon (?) constitution.' But when the latter were oppressed and discouraged by dry heat and vivid radiation, Manoel was active as a chamois. Why should enduring cold and not heat be held as a test of manliness?] experiment had been tried, Guide Manoel pointed out the place where stood the _tormentos_, as he called the instruments. Thence we toiled afoot up the Mal Pais. This 'bad country' is contradictorily described by travellers. Glas (A.D. 1761) makes it a sheet of rock cracked cross-wise into cubes. Humboldt (1799) says, 'The lava, broken into sharp pieces, leaves hollows in which we risked falling up to our waists.' Von Buch (1815) mentions 'the sharp edges of glassy obsidian, as dangerous as the blades of knives.' Wilde (1857) tamely paints the scene as a 'magnified rough-cast.' Prof. Piazzi Smyth is, as usual, exact, but he suggests more difficulty than the traveller finds. I saw nothing beyond a succession of ridge-backs and shrinkage-crevasses, disposed upon an acute angle. These ragged, angular, and mostly cuboidal blocks, resembling the ice-pack of St. Lawrence River, have apparently been borne down by subsequent lava-currents, which, however, lacked impetus to reach the lower levels of Las Cañádas. Springing from boulder to boulder, an exhilarating exercise for a time, over a 'surface of horrible roughness,' as Prof. Dana says of Hawaii, we halted to examine the Cueva de Hielo, whose cross has long succumbed to the wintry winds. The 'ice-house' in a region of fire occupies a little platform like the ruined base of a Pompey's Pillar. This is the table upon which the _neveros_ pack their stores of snow. The cave, a mere hole in the trachytic lava, opens to the east with an entrance some four feet wide. The general appearance was that of a large bubble in a baked loaf. Inside we saw a low ceiling spiky with stalactites, possibly icicles, and a coating of greenish ice upon the floor. A gutter leads from the mouth, showing signs of water-wear, and the blocks of trachyte are so loaded with glossy white felspar that I attempted to dust them before sitting down.