The Belle-Poule put in at Teneriffe to take in provisions and water, and I took advantage of this stoppage to finish the ascent of the famous Peak which I had had to break off in 1837.  The last cone, all of crumbly pumice stone, and at a very acute angle, is tolerably tiring.  On the summit is a small plateau, the soft soil of which is covered with flowers of sulphur and creviced with smoke holes from which scalding steam keeps escaping.  Having got up in two days, we descended rapidly to the smiling little town of Orotava, built amidst the most lovely vegetation in a sort of ravine opening out on the sea.  The female population of Orotava has a well-deserved reputation for beauty, and we were very kindly met by an invitation to make sure of the fact by being present at an afternoon dance, a sort of “garden party” got up in our honour—­a great temptation truly, but a great perplexity as well!  People coming back off a mountain climb, including two waterless bivouacs and a pull through the smoke and ashes of a volcano, are not in ball trim, either as to costume or to cleanliness.  After a hasty council of war, it was decided that we should draw lots for the names of three of our party, who were to wash themselves, and to whom each of the non-chosen should furnish the least damaged articles of his own clothing, so as to put them in proper condition to go to the ball and keep up the honour of our flag before the belles of Orotava.  We retired into a wood to proceed to draw lots and embellish the elect Fate did not favour me.  I did not go to the ball, but my boots did, and our comrades came back full of admiration of all they had seen.

From Teneriffe our passage was a slow one.  We had calms, storms, even gales, and then a fresh delay in port at Bahia in Brazil.  I had been advised on leaving Paris to arrange the progress of the mission so as to make the return of the ashes of the Emperor to Europe coincide with the opening of the Chambers in the end of December.  Indeed I believe the chief importance of the return of the ashes of Napoleon, in M. Thiers’ mind, lay in this coincidence.  It was the tom-tom by beating which he hoped to drown all those reports and inklings of ministerial changes which always sprout at such moments in the parliamentary soil.  But it was somewhat difficult to time our arrival to a given moment, with a sailing ship, and after such a long voyage.  Originally I was to have called at the Cape before going to St. Helena.  I thought it better to replace our stoppage at the Cape by one at Bahia, so as to shorten the journey and save time.  Very uninteresting our stay at Bahia was, save for the following picturesque incident.