1837-1838


After the wedding festivities I went back to sea, a lieutenant still, on
board the Hercule, 100 guns--Captain Casy. Captain, petty officers,
crew, all hands in fact save a few officers, were Provencal. Before a
week was out I caught myself talking with their accent!

We were bound for South America Gibraltar was our first port, and our
reception by the governor, Sir Alexander Woodford, Lady Woodford, and
their charming children was of the kindest. I have a recollection of it
which I treasure all the more in that later in the day I had to do with
another governor with whom I had no cause at all to be satisfied. From
Gibraltar we went to Tangier, the Moorish town I was to bombard some
years afterwards, but where on this occasion I fought with wild boars
only under the guidance of that first-class sportsman, Mr. Drummond Hay.
The beauty of the eyes and colouring and the originality of the costume
of the Jewish girls at Tangier delighted me, but not to the extent of
chasing a certain melancholy from my heart, which had clung about it
ever since the beginning of my cruise, through the long night watches,
and even amidst the amusements of our stays in port. I was thinking of
HER! There always is a HER when one is only twenty! After Tangier the
ship stopped at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe, to take in water, and during
this operation I organized a scientific expedition to the famous Peak of
Teneriffe, which is nearly twelve thousand feet high, and from which my
professor M. Pouillet had asked me to take some scientific observations.
My brother officer, Rigaud de Genouilly, one of the ship's lieutenants,
accompanied me. After two days climbing and bivouacking for one night at
a great height, we were only about five or six hundred feet or so from