Thus passed two weary weeks. We pored over dry statistics, hunted up every scrap of weather record, and annoyed everybody with questions about cloud and wind; but to little purpose.

The crew of the Ascension is a changing one, three years being the usual term of service, so that no one was able to give us the benefit of long experience of Ascension weather. The answers to our questions were contradictory and distracting in the extreme, being based on casual observation or general impression. The only thing that everybody seemed to agree about was, that “such cloudy weather had not been known within the memory of the oldest inhabitant; it was altogether exceptional, and by-and-by there would be as clear skies as even we could desire.” Yes, “by-and-by” perhaps; but meantime Mars would not wait, and the present was threatening our expedition with disaster.

Oh! those weary weeks. Fearful of losing a single hour of star-light during the night, we watched alternately for moments of break in the cloud, sometimes with partial success, but more frequently with no result but utter disappointment, and the mental and physical strain, increasing every night, grew almost beyond our strength. What was to be done? There was the Observatory complete, the instruments faultless, and the astronomer idle, for there too was the cloud.