Teneriffe, abruptly from the sea, with no intervening hills to dwarf
or diminish their proportions. They were ten or twelve miles apart,
and the channel of water in which we were drifting flowed between
them.

Here the ice and snow ended. We thus came at last to land; but it was
a land that seemed more terrible than even the bleak expanse of ice
and snow that lay behind, for nothing could be seen except a vast and
drear accumulation of lava-blocks of every imaginable shape, without
a trace of vegetation--uninhabited, uninhabitable, and unpassable to
man. But just where the ice ended and the rocks began there was a
long, low reef, which projected for more than a quarter of a mile into
the water, affording the only possible landing-place within sight.
Here we decided to land, so as to rest and consider what was best to
be done.

Here we landed, and walked up to where rugged lava-blocks prevented
any further progress. But at this spot our attention was suddenly
arrested by a sight of horror. It was a human figure lying prostrate,
face downward.

At this sight there came over us a terrible sensation. Even Agnew's
buoyant soul shrank back, and we stared at each other with quivering
lips. It was some time before we could recover ourselves; then we went
to the figure, and stooped down to examine it.

The clothes were those of a European and a sailor; the frame was
emaciated and dried up, till it looked like a skeleton; the face was
blackened and all withered, and the bony hands were clinched tight. It
was evidently some sailor who had suffered shipwreck in these