23rd September 1768

Tenerife
Light breezes and Clear weather. At 6 a.m. saw the Peak of Teneriff bearing West by South 1/2 South, and the Grand Canaries South 1/2 West. The Variation of the Compass from 17 degrees 22 minutes to 16 degrees 30 minutes, Wind South-West, North-East; course South 26 degrees West; distance 54 miles; latitude 28 degrees 51 minutes North, longitude 15 degrees 50 minutes West; at noon, Funchal North 12 degrees 45 minutes West, 77 leagues.

Joseph Banks Journal
This morn we were calld up very early to see the pike of Teneriffe, which now for the first time appeard at a vast distance much above the clouds (I mean those which form a bank near the Horizon); the hill itself was so faint, that no man who was not used to the appearance of land at a great distance could tell it from a cloud, it soon however appeard something clearer and a sketch was made of it.

While we were engagd in looking at the hill a fish was taken which was describ'd and called Scomber serpens; the seamen said they had never seen such a one before except the first lieutenant, who rememberd to have taken one before just about these Islands; Sr Hans Sloane in his Passage out to Jamaica also took one of these fish.

The Pike continued in sight almost all day, tho sometimes obscurd by the clouds; at sunset however its appearance was most truely elegant, the rays of the sun remaining upon it sometime after it was set and the other land quite Black, and giving it a warmth of colour not to be express'd by painting.

Sydney Parkinson’s Journal
On the 23d we fell in with the trade-winds at N. E. and on the same day discovered the peak of Teneriffe.

No comments:

Post a Comment