After, having dwelt at Mars Bay for three weeks in perfect peace and harmony, we were beginning to fancy ourselves a model happy family, when one Sunday morning we had a rude awakening from our dream. While quietly reading after breakfast in the dining tent, Sam's black face suddenly appeared at the door without its accustomed grin, and wearing an expression altogether new.

“Graydon beat me—he say he kill me,” were the only coherent phrases in poor Sam's excited, broken English; and he really looked so savage and so unlike himself that I felt afraid of him. David was perplexed, and went at once to seek an explanation in the kitchen.

After a short time he came back, satisfied that he had read the Riot Act to good purpose. Sam had been teazing Graydon, who had lost his temper and threatened to strike him, but the little quarrel seemed to have passed over, and we thought we should hear no more of it. Judge then of my dismay when, an hour or two afterwards, I saw Graydon and Sam engaged in a hand to hand fight on the clinker! We both rushed out instinctively, to separate the combatants, who desisted immediately we appeared; but by this time they were bleeding profusely, and looked shamefully disreputable. Each, of course, blamed the other, but both were so excited, that it was impossible to arrive at any clear understanding of the matter.

The sun has set on our last Ascension Sunday; but a day or two yet remain for us to scramble among the clinker, and we have determined on a visit to the “Devil's Riding School.”

When, from Green Mountain, we had looked down upon all the little craters that are scattered over the plains, we had longed to get to them, and this was our first opportunity. At four o'clock on Monday morning we were astir, and, having well broken our fast, were ready within an hour to set out crater-climbing.

Dear old Jimmy Chivas was patiently waiting for me, tied to the verandah gate; Rover, and Brackley's little terrier, Captain, were wild with excitement, and, while we were getting ready, they kept running hither and thither, kicking up dust in all directions, and barking furiously; no doubt to the annoyance of the still slumbering Garrison. Fortunately Jimmy Chivas had seen too much of the world's vanities to care to join in these frolics, and started off sedately, after I had comfortably seated myself on his poor old back, and hung from the pommel of the saddle a leather bag, containing some bottles of ginger-beer and designed to carry a return freight of clinker souvenirs.

The night had been tolerably cool, and, as we turned southwards just before sunrise, we were met by a chilly breeze that was perfectly delightful.

For many years I have had almost daily to reply to inquiries respecting the best method of manipulating with various kinds of Spectroscopes.

It had been suggested to me long since, by our highest authority on the subject, that I should write a small work giving the required information. For reasons which will be understood by my friends, I had a great objection to issue such a work, and trusted it would be done by some of the leading scientific men who have worked in this direction. But recently the inquiries for information have been more and more numerous, and I am compelled, both to save my own time and to assist my numerous correspondents, to attempt to supply what appears to be an evident want.

Mr. Proctor's admirable little Manual on the Work of the Spectroscope will be found invaluable by those who do not wish to incur the expense of Roscoe's or Schellen's works on Spectrum Analysis. But Mr. Proctor states that it did not enter into his plans to give detailed instructions for the use of the various kinds of Spectroscopic Apparatus.

I have, therefore, endeavoured to supply such information in the following Pamphlet. The fact that a list of prices is appended of the various Instruments which are described, will not, I hope, be considered to detract from its value. My extensive correspondence leads me to conclude that such information is exceedingly welcome to all those who think of making any experiments for themselves.

And now followed a repetition of sea-discomfort—nausea and stuffiness; but on this occasion it was short lived, for after a couple of days the captain kindly arranged that our cabin, near the screw, should be changed for one on deck, far forward.

Here we caught the welcome current of air caused by the ship's motion, and for the first time in my sea experience I awoke in the morning refreshed. I awoke too, with the sweet sense of home upon me, and pleasant recollections of a certain dear old farmhouse; for my dreams had been mingled with the bleating of sheep, the cackling of geese and the crowing of cocks. Poor things, there was little chance of their being led out to green pastures, or participating ever again in the varied pleasures of a fascinating dung-hill. Prisoners they were, under sentence of death, but they crowed lustily, and “ba'a ba'aed” sweetly, nevertheless; and, grateful for the cheer their good spirits gave to me, I would hope that they dreamt not of to-morrow. I know not whether to ascribe it to the inspiriting influence of these, my feathered and four-footed neighbours, but certain it is, that on the third day of voyaging I could see things straight, and had sensations of pleasure in the prospect of dinner.

It was a gloomy home-coming. I was tired and cross, and the skies were angry too. Clouds were thicker and heavier than I had ever seen them in Garrison; and not even the news of a complete measurement of Mars on the previous night, could remove the heavy weight of fog that had settled on me and Mars Bay. My bright vision of a land where skies were always blue was bidding me farewell, and the parting was grievous. To be sure the tents were much improved since my former visit, and altogether there was now a good foundation on which to build comfort; but I looked at everything through the fog, having, unfortunately, lost my couleur-de-rose spectacles for the time, and I felt that I should not find them until I had seen Mars.

No observations were possible that night, and next day—Sunday, it rained heavily. This was the first wet day we had experienced in Ascension, and the first we had ever spent under canvas. Our tent doors of course faced windward, and a tepid shower-bath roused us early in the morning.

The bedroom-tent was now floored with undressed planks. The ropes were well secured to the ground by iron pegs, driven into the clinker, the usual wooden pegs having no hold here. An ample mosquito net protected the bed; and a military-chest of drawers, an iron wash-stand, a bath, and a couple of wicker chairs completed the furnishing.

In order to make the process of taking root on Ascension intelligible, it is necessary first to explain something of the nature of its soil, and the peculiar manner of its cultivation. In other words, to make our own particular story less incoherent, it will be advisable, in the first place, to tell the little I know of the past history of our new home, and in what condition we found it in 1877.

Like its upturned face, the history of Ascension is featureless and colourless, being only redeemed from utter inanity by its contradictoriness. Doubtless there were stirring times here once on a day when Vulcan's forge was alight, but that was before we short-sighted mortals dared to peep into this now deserted workshop of the grimy god.

On Ascension Day, 1501, Juan de Nova, the great Portuguese navigator, found the fire gone out, and only hills of cinder and plains of ash to bear record of past labours. Ascension, so called by its discoverer from the fact of his having sighted it on Ascension Day, is one of the peaks of a submarine volcanic ridge which separates the northern and southern basins of the Atlantic, and is situated in lat. 8° S., long. 14° W., almost midway between the coasts of Africa and South America. It is one of the most isolated islands in the world, and has no land nearer than St. Helena, which lies 800 miles to the South-East.

Three days brought us within sight of Ascension. What a sight it was! The sun had been up some hours when we anchored in Clarence Bay on the 13th of July, and the “Abomination of Desolation” seemed to be before our eyes as we looked eagerly at the land.

A few scattered buildings lay among reddish-brown cinders near the shore—a sugar-loaf hill of the same colour rose up behind and bounded the view. We looked about in a sort of hopeless way for “Green Mountain,” but it was nowhere to be seen, and we set it down as a fable—a mere myth. “Nothing green,” we said, “exists, or could exist here.” Stones, stones, everywhere stones, that have been tried in the fire and are now heaped about in dire confusion, or beaten into dust which we see dancing in pillars before the wind. Dust, sunshine, and cinders, and low yellow houses frizzling in it all!

Is that Ascension?

Well, not quite; its coast presented a livelier scene, though one that we would gladly have dispensed with. A black perpendicular wall of rock jutted out into the bay, and on either side of it a stretch of white glistening sand swept to north and south. It is on this rock that the “Tartar Stairs” are cut, and here we must land.