We took the opportunity to use the boat to survey the land around the large bay. words can evoke the feelings of a naturalist who first steps on soiloutside Europe. So many objects call for his attention that it is hard toorder his impressions. At each step he thinks he is coming across something new, and in his excitement he doesnot recognize things that commonly feature in botanical gardens and naturalhistory collections. Two hundred yards off the Coast we saw a man fishingwith a rod. We turned the boat towards him but he fled and hid behind a rock. It took our sailors someeffort to capture him. The sight of the corvette, the thunder of ourcannons in such a solitary place - possibly visited only by pirates - thelaunching of our boat, all this terrified the poor fisherman. He informed us that the island of Graciosa on whichwe had landed was separated from Lanzarote by a small channel called El Río. He offered to guide us to Los Colorados harbor to find outabout the blockade at Tenerife but, when the man assured us that for weeks he had not seen any ships out at sea, captain decided to set sail for Santa Cruz.