and bony, and weigh about ninety pounds a quarter.  The meat is but lean, and was, at present, sold for half a bit (three-pence sterling) a pound.  I, unadvisedly, bought the bullocks alive, and paid considerably more.  Hogs, sheep, goats, and poultry, are likewise to be bought at the same moderate rate; and fruits are in great plenty.  At this time we had grapes, figs, pears, mulberries, plantains, and musk-melons.  There is a variety of other fruits produced here, though not in season at this time.  Their pumpkins, onions, and potatoes, are exceedingly good of their kind; and keep better at sea than any I ever before met with.

The Indian corn, which is also their produce, cost me about three shillings and sixpence a bushel; and the fruits and roots were, in general, very cheap.  They have not any plentiful supply of fish from the adjoining sea; but a very considerable fishery is carried on by their vessels upon the coast of Barbary:  and the produce of it sells at a reasonable price.  Upon the whole, I found Teneriffe to be a more eligible place than Madeira, for ships bound on long voyages to touch at; though the wine of the latter, according to my taste, is as much superior to that of the former, as strong beer is to small.  To compensate for this, the difference of prices is considerable; for the best Teneriffe wine was now sold for twelve pounds a pipe; whereas a pipe of the best Madeira would have cost considerably more than double that sum.[70]

[Footnote 70:  Formerly, there was made at Teneriffe a great quantity of Canary sack, which the French call Vin de Malvesie; and we, corruptly after them, name Malmsey (from Malvesia, a town in the Morea, famous for such luscious wine).  In the last century, and still later, much of this was imported into England; but little wine is now made there, but of the sort described by Captain Cook.  Not more than fifty pipes of the rich Canary were annually made in Glas’s time; and he says, they now gather the grapes when green, and make a dry hard wine of them, fit for hot climates, p. 262.—­D.]

The Chevalier De Borda, commander of the French frigate now lying in Santa Cruz road, was employed, in conjunction with Mr Varila, a Spanish gentleman, in making astronomical observations for ascertaining the going of two time-keepers which they had on board their ship.  For this purpose, they had a tent pitched on the pier head, where they made their observations, and compared their watches, every day at noon, with the clock on shore, by signals.  These signals the chevalier very obligingly communicated to us; so that we could compare our watch at the same time.  But our stay was too short, to profit much by his kindness.

The three days comparisons which we made, assured us that the watch had not materially, if at all, altered her rate of going; and gave us the same longitude, within a very few seconds, that was obtained by finding the time from observations of the sun’s altitude from the horizon of the sea.  The watch, from a mean of these observations, on the 1st, 2d, and 3d of August, made the longitude 16 deg. 31’ W.; and, in like manner, the latitude was found to be 28 deg. 30’ 11” N.