It was a gloomy home-coming. I was tired and cross, and the skies were angry too. Clouds were thicker and heavier than I had ever seen them in Garrison; and not even the news of a complete measurement of Mars on the previous night, could remove the heavy weight of fog that had settled on me and Mars Bay. My bright vision of a land where skies were always blue was bidding me farewell, and the parting was grievous. To be sure the tents were much improved since my former visit, and altogether there was now a good foundation on which to build comfort; but I looked at everything through the fog, having, unfortunately, lost my couleur-de-rose spectacles for the time, and I felt that I should not find them until I had seen Mars.

No observations were possible that night, and next day—Sunday, it rained heavily. This was the first wet day we had experienced in Ascension, and the first we had ever spent under canvas. Our tent doors of course faced windward, and a tepid shower-bath roused us early in the morning.

The bedroom-tent was now floored with undressed planks. The ropes were well secured to the ground by iron pegs, driven into the clinker, the usual wooden pegs having no hold here. An ample mosquito net protected the bed; and a military-chest of drawers, an iron wash-stand, a bath, and a couple of wicker chairs completed the furnishing.