Indian corn, potatoes, pumpkins, and onions, were all very scarce and double the price of what they are in summer.  Beef also was difficult to be procured and exceedingly poor; the price nearly sixpence farthing per pound.  The corn was three current dollars per fanega, which is full five shillings per bushel; and biscuit at twenty-five shillings for the hundred pounds.  Poultry was so scarce that a good fowl cost three shillings.  This is therefore not a place for ships to expect refreshments at a reasonable price at this time of the year, wine excepted; but from March to November supplies are plentiful, particularly fruit, of which at this time we could procure none except a few dried figs and some bad oranges.

Nautical remarks.

During our stay here the weather was fair with north-east winds and calms and small drizzling rain in the night.  The thermometer from 66 to 69 degrees at noon in the shade.  I could make no lunar observations for the longitude, but by the help of the timekeeper I have computed the situation of the town of Santa Cruz to be 28 degrees 28 minutes north latitude and 16 degrees 18 minutes west longitude.  I observed the variation by two compasses to be 20 degrees 1 minute west:  this much exceeded what I could have imagined; for in 1776 I observed it only 14 degrees 40 minutes west; a difference of above five degrees in eleven years:  and this makes me reflect on the uncertainty of obtaining the exact deviation of the magnetic pole, and of course its annual variation which never can be accurately ascertained unless the observations are made always in one spot and with the same compass.

Tenerife, though considerably without the tropic, is so nearly within the limits of the tradewind that navigators generally steer to it from the eastward.  The road of Santa Cruz lies on the east side of the island, at the end of a range of craggy hills, barren and very lofty, along with you sail west by south by compass into the road, with a sea unfathomable until near the shore.  The anchoring ground may be accounted from fifty fathoms to twenty, or even fifteen.  The bank is very steep and gives but little time to sound; for which reason it should be done effectually with a heavy lead, or a ship will be too near in before a stranger is aware of it:  he will likewise too soon expect to find bottom, owing to the great deception of the adjacent high land.  To obviate these difficulties it is necessary to observe that while a town which lies some distance to the southward of Santa Cruz is open with the castle on the south part of the road, though you may appear near to the shore, there is no anchorage; but after it is shut entirely in you get on the bank.  The church bearing west or west by south and the south point of the road south-west half south to south-west by west is a good situation for anchoring:  the depth about twenty-five fathoms.  The distance from the shore will be three quarters of a mile; and the southernmost land that can be seen then will be a half or quarter point of the compass farther out than the south point of the road.