This comes wishing you many happy returns of the day, though a little late in the arrival.  Harry sends his love, and desires me to say that he took care to write a letter which should arrive in time, but unfortunately forgot to mention the birthday in it!  So I think, on the whole, I have the pull of him.  We ought to be back about the 18th or 19th, as I have put my name down for places in the “Conway Castle”, which is to call here on the 12th, and I do not suppose she will be full.  In the meanwhile, we shall fill up the time by a trip to the other side of the island, on which we start to-morrow morning at 7.30.  You have to take your own provisions and rugs to sleep upon and under, as the fleas la bas are said to be unusually fine and active.  We start quite a procession with a couple of horses, a guide, and two men (owners of the nags) to carry the baggage; and I suspect that before to-morrow night we shall have made acquaintance with some remarkably bad apologies for roads.  But the horses here seem to prefer going up bad staircases at speed (with a man hanging on by the tail to steer), and if you only stick to them they land you all right.  I have developed so much prowess in this line that I think of coming out in the character of Buffalo Bill on my return.  Hands and face of both of us are done to a good burnt sienna, and a few hours more or less in the saddle don’t count.  I do not think either of us have been so well for years.

You will have heard of our doings in Teneriffe from M—.  The Canadas there is the one thing worth seeing, altogether unique.  As a health resort I should say the place is a fraud—­always excepting Guimar—­and that, excellent for people in good health, is wholly unfit for a real invalid, who must either go uphill or downhill over the worst of roads if he leaves the hotel.

The air here is like that of South Devon at its best—­very soft, but not stifling as at Orotava.  We had a capital expedition yesterday to the Grand Corral—­the ancient volcanic crater in the middle of the island with walls some 3000 feet high, all scarred and furrowed by ravines, and overgrown with rich vegetation.  There is a little village at the bottom of it which I should esteem as a retreat if I wished to be out of sight and hearing of the pomps and vanities of this world.  By the way, I have been pretty well out of hearing of everything as it is, for I only had three letters from M—­ while we were in Teneriffe, and not one here up to this date.  After I had made all my arrangements to start to-morrow I heard that a mail would be in at noon.  So the letters will have to follow us in the afternoon by one of the men, who will wait for them.

We went to-day to lunch with Mr. Blandy, the head of the principal shipping agency here, whose wife is the daughter of my successor at the Fishery Office.

Well, our trip has done us both a world of good; but I am getting homesick, and shall rejoice to be back again.  I hope that Joyce is flourishing, and Jack satisfied with the hanging of his pictures, and that a millionaire has insisted on buying the picture and adding a bonus.  Our best love to you all.