Hierro (Ferro), the Barranco de los Balos (Grand Canary), Fuerteventura, and other items of the Fortunates have produced some undoubted inscriptions. They are compared by M. Berthelot with the signs engraved upon the cave-entrance of La Piedra Escrita in the Sierra Morena of Andalusia; with those printed by General Faidherbe in his work on the Numidic or Lybian epigraphs; with the 'Thugga inscription,' Tunis; and with the rock-gravings of the Sahara, attributed to the ancient Tawarik or Tifinegs. Dr. Gran-Bassas (El Museo Canario), who finds a notable likeness between them and the 'Egyptian characters (cursive or demotic), Phenician and Hebrew,' notes that they are engraved in vertical series. Dr. Verneau, of the Academy, Paris, suggests that some of these epigraphs are alphabetic, while others are hieroglyphic. [Footnote: El Museo Canario, No. 40, Oct. 22, 1881.] Colonel H. W. Keays-Young kindly copied for me, with great care, a painting in the Tacoronte museum. It represents a couple of Guanche inscriptions, apparently hieroglyphic, found (1762) in the cave of Belmaco, Isle of Palma, by the ancients called Benahoave. They are inscribed upon two basaltic stones.



I also inspected the collection of a well-known lawyer, Dr. Francisco Maria de Leon. Of the three Guanche skulls one was of African solidity, with the sutures almost obliterated: it was the model of a soldier's head, thick and heavy. The mass of mummy-balsam had been tested, without other result than finding a large proportion of dragon's blood. In the fourteenth century Grand Canary sent to Europe at one venture two hundred doubloons' worth of this drug.

By the kindness of the Governor I was permitted to inspect four Guanche mummies, discovered (June 1862) in the jurisdiction of Candelaria. Awaiting exportation to Spain, they had been temporarily coffined upon a damp ground-floor, where the cockroaches respected nothing, not even a Guanehe. I was accompanied by Dr. Angel M. Yzquierdo, of Cadiz, physician to the hospital, and we jotted down as follows:—

No. 1, a male of moderate size, wanted the head and upper limbs, while the trunk was reduced to a skeleton. The characteristic signs were Caucasian and not negro; nor was there any appearance of the Jewish rite. The lower right leg, foot, and toe-nails were well preserved; the left was a mere bone, wanting tarsus and metatarsus. The stomach was full of dried fragments of herbs (Ohenopodium, &c.), and the epidermis was easily reduced to powder. In this case, as in the other three, the mortuary skins were coarsely sewn with the hair inside: it is a mistake to say that the work was 'like that of a glove.'

No. 2 was large-statured and complete; the framework and the form of the pelvis were masculine. The skin adhered to the cranium except behind, where the bone protruded, probably the effect of long resting upon the ground. Near the right temporal was another break in the skin, which here appeared much decayed. All the teeth were present, but they were not particularly white nor good. The left forearm and hand were wanting, and the right was imperfect; the lower limbs were well preserved even to the toe-nails.

No. 3, also of large size, resembled No. 2; the upper limbs were complete, and the lower wanted only the toes of the left foot. The lower jaw was absent, and the upper had no teeth. An oval depression, about an inch in its greater diameter, lay above the right orbit. If this be a bullet-mark, the mummy may date from before the final conquest and submission in A.D. 1496. But it may also have resulted from some accident, like a fall, or from the blow of a stone, a weapon which the Guanches used most skilfully. Mr. Sprat, confirmed by Glas, affirms that they 'throw Stones with a force almost as great as that of a Bullet, and now use Stones in all their fights as they did antiently.'

No. 4, much smaller than the two former, was the best preserved. The shape of the skull and pelvis suggested a female; the arms also were crossed in front over the body, whereas in the male mummy they were laid straight. The legs were covered with skin; the hands were remarkably well preserved, and the nails were darker than other parts. The tongue, in all four, was absent, having probably decayed.

These crania were distinctly oval. The facial angle, well opened, and ranging from 80 deg. to 85 deg., counterbalanced the great development of the face, which showed an animal type. A little hair remained, coloured ruddy-chestnut and straight, not woolly. The entrails had disappeared, and the abdominal walls not existing, it was impossible to detect the incisions by which the tanno-balsamic substances, noted by Bory de Saint-Vincent and many others, were introduced. The method appears uncertain. It is generally believed that after removing the entrails through an irregular cut made with the tabona, or obsidian (knife), the operators, who, as in Egypt, were of the lowest caste, injected a corrosive fluid. They then filled the cavities with the balsam described above; dried the corpse; and, after, fifteen to twenty days, sewed it up in tanned goatskins. Such appears to have been the case with the mummies under consideration.

The catacombs, inviolable except to the sacrilegious, were numerous in the rockiest and least accessible parts of the island. Mr. Addison found them in the Canadas del Pico, 7,700 feet above sea-level. [Footnote: Tenerife: 'An Ascent of the Peak and Sketch of the Island,' by Robert Edward Alison. Quarterly Journal of Science, Jan. 1806.] Hence it has been remarked of the Guanches that, after a century of fighting, nothing remained of them but their mummies. The sharp saying is rather terse than true.

The Guanches were barbarians, not savages. De Bethencourt's two chaplains, speaking in their chronicle of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, tell us 'there are many villages and houses, with numerous inhabitants.' The ruins still found in the Isles are called 'casas hondas' ("deep houses"); because a central excavation was surrounded by a low wall. The castle of Zonzamas was built of large stones without lime. In Port Arguineguin (Grand Canary) the explorers sent by Alfonso IV. (1341) came upon 300 to 400 tenements roofed with valuable wood, and so clean inside that they seemed stuccoed. They encircled a larger building, probably the residence of the chief. But the Tenerifans used only caves.

The want of canoes and other navigating appliances in Guanche-land by no means proves that the emigration took place when the Canaries formed part of the Continent. The same was the case with the Australians, the Tasmanians, and the New Zealanders. The Guanches, at the same time, were admirable swimmers, easily able to cross the strait, nine miles wide, separating Lanzarote from La Graciosa. They could even kill fish with sticks when in the water. The fattening of girls before marriage was, and is still, a Moroccan, not an Arab custom. The rude feudalism much resembled that of the Bedawi chiefs. George Glas, [Footnote: The History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands, &c. 4to. London, 1764. I have given some notices of the unfortunate 'master mariner' in Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i. p. 79] or rather Abreu Galindo, his author, says of their marriages, 'None of the Canarians had more than one wife, and the wife one husband, contrary to what misinformed authors affirm.' The general belief is that at the time of the conquest polyandry prevailed amongst the tribes. It may have originated from their rude community of goods, and probably it became a local practice in order to limit population. Possibly, too, it was confined to the noble and the priestly orders.

Humboldt remarks, [Footnote: Personal Narrative, chap, i. p. 32, Bohn's ed. London, 1852.] 'We find no example of this polyandry except amongst the people of Thibet.' Yet he must have heard of the Nayr of Malabar, if not of the Todas on the Nilagiri Hills. D. Agustin Millares [Footnote: Historia de la Gran Canaria. Published at Las Palmas.] explains the custom by 'men and women being born in almost equal proportions,' the reverse being the fact. Equal proportions induce the monogamic relation.

Learned M. d'Avezac derives 'Guanche' from Guansheri or Guanseri, a Berber tribe described by El-Idrisi and Leo Africanus. This is better than finding it in the Keltic gwuwrn, gwen, white. Older authorities hold it a corruption of 'Vinchune,' the indigenous name of the Nivarian race. Again, 'the inhabitants of Tenerife called themselves Guan (the Berber Wan), one person, Chinet or Chinerf, Tenerife; so that Guanchinet meant a man of Tenerife, and was easily corrupted to Guanche. Thus, too, Glas's 'Captain Artemis' was Guan-arteme, the one or chief ruler. Vieira derives 'Tenerf' or'Chenerf' from the last king; and old MSS. have 'Chenerife.' The popular voice says it is composed of 'Tener,' mountain or snow, and of 'ryfe,' snow or mountain. Pritchard [Footnote: Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, book iii. chap. ii.] applied the term Guanche to all the Canarian races, and he is reproached for error by M. de Macedo, [Footnote: 'Ethnological Remarks,' &c., by J. J. de Costa de Macedo, of Lisbon, Royal Geographical Society's Journal, vol. ii. p. 172. Wanderings in West Africa, i. 116, contains my objections to his theory.] who would limit it to the Tenerifans. The same occurs in the Eev. Mr. Delany [Footnote: Notes of a Residence in the Canary Islands, &c. London, 1861.] and in Professor Piazzi Smyth, [Footnote: An Astronomer's Experiment, p. 190. L. Reeve, London, 1868.] who speaks of the 'Guanches of Grand Canary and Teneriffe.' According to popular usage all were right, 'Guanche' being the local and general term for the aborigines of the whole archipelago. But the scientific object that it includes under the same name several different races.

The language is also a point of dispute: some opine that all the islanders had one tongue, others that they were mutually unintelligible; many that it was Berber (Numidian, Getulian, and Garamantan), a few that it was less distinctly Semitic. The two chaplains of De Bethencourt [Footnote: Bontier and Le Verrier, Histoire de la premiere Decouverte e Conquete des Canaries. Bergeron, Paris, 1630.] noted its resemblance with that of the 'Moors' of Barbary. Glas, who knew something of Shilha, or Western Berber, made the same observation. But the Genoese pilot Niccoloso di Recco during the expedition of A.D. 1344 collected the numerals, and two of these, satti (7) and tamatti (8), are less near the original than the Berberan set and tem.

The catalogue of Abreu Galindo, who lived here in 1591 and printed his history in 1632, preserves 122 words; Vieira only 107, and Bory de Saint-Vincent [Footnote: Essai sur les Iles fortunees. Humboldt has only five.] 148. Webb and Berthelot give 909. Of these 200 are nouns, including 22 names of plants; 467 are placenames, and 242 are proper names. Many are questionable. For instance, sabor (council-place) is derived from cabocer, 'expression par laquelle les negres de la Senegambie denotent la reunion de leurs chefs.' [Footnote: Vol. i. part i. p. 223.] As all know, it is the corrupted Portuguese caboceiro, a headman.

Continuing our way from Tacoronte we reached Sauzal, beyond which the coach did not then run; the old road was out of condition, and the new not in working order. We offered a dollar each for carrying our light gear to sturdy men who were loitering and lying about the premises. They shook their heads, wrapped their old blanket-cloaks around them, and stretched themselves in the sun like dogs after a cold walk. I could hardly wonder. What wants have they? A covering for warmth, porridge for food, and, above all, the bright sun and pure air, higher luxuries and better eudaemonics than purple and fine linen. At last some passing muleteers relieved us of the difficulty.

The way was crowded with Laguneros, conspicuous in straw-hats; cloth jackets, red waistcoats embroidered at the back; bright crimson sashes; white knickerbockers, with black velveteen overalls, looking as if 'pointed' before and behind; brown hose or long leather gaiters ornamented with colours, and untanned shoes. Despite the heat many wore the Guanche cloak, a blanket (English) with a running string round the neck. The women covered their graceful heads with a half-square of white stuff, and deformed the coiffure by a hideous black billycock, an unpleasant memory of Wales. Some hundreds of men, women, and children were working on the road, and we were surprised by the beauty of the race, its classical outlines, oval contours, straight profiles, magnificent hair, and blue-grey eyes with black lashes. This is not the result of Guanche blood, as a town on the south-western part of the island presently showed me. Also an orderly of Guanche breed from the parts about Arico, who had served for years at the palace, was pointed out as a type. He stood six feet four, with proportional breadth; his face was somewhat lozenge-shaped, his hair straight, black like a Hindu's, and his tawny skin looked only a little darker than that of Portuguese Algarves. The beauty of the islanders results from a mixture of Irish blood. During the Catholic persecution before 1823 many fled the Emerald Isle to Tenerife, and especially to Orotava. The women's figures in youth are charming, tall, straight, and pliant as their own pine-trees. All remark their graceful gait.

We passed through places famed in the days of the conquest—La Matanza, the native Orantapata, where De Lugo's force was nearly annihilated. Now it is the half-way station to Orotava; and here the coche stops for dinner, prices being regulated by Government. The single inn shows the Pike, but not the subjacent valley. Then to Acentejo, the local Roncesvalles, where the invaders were saved only by St. Michael; and next to La Vitoria, where they avenged themselves. At Santa Ursula we first saw the slopes of Orotava, the Guanche Tavro or Atanpalata; and on the Cuesta de la Villa we were shown near its mark, a date-palm, the cave that sheltered the patriot chief, unfortunate Bencomo. As the fashionables came forth to walk and drive we passed the calvario and the place leading to the Villa Orotava, and found quarters in the fonda of D. Jose Gobea. The sala, or chief room, some 30 feet long, wanted only an Eastern divan round the walls; it was easily converted into a tolerable place of bivouac, and here we resolved to try country life for a while.

The first aspect of the Orotava Tempe was disappointing after Humboldt's dictum, 'Voici ce qu'il y a de plus delicieux au monde.' But our disappointment was the natural reaction of judgment from fancy to reality, which often leads to a higher appreciation. At last we learned why the Elysian [Footnote: In Arabic El-Lizzat, the Delight, or from the old Egyptian Aahlu,] Fields, the Fortunate Islands, the Garden of the Hesperides—where the sea is no longer navigable, and where Atlas supports the firmament on a mountain conical as a cylinder; the land of evening, of sunset, where Helios sinks into the sea, and where Night bore the guardians of the golden apples—were such favourites with the poets. And we came to love every feature of the place, from the snowy Pike of Teyde flushing pink in the morning sun behind his lofty rampart, to the Puerto, or lower town, whose three several reef-gates are outlaid by creamy surf, and whose every shift of form and hue stands distinct in the transparent and perfumed air. The intermediate slopes are clothed with a vegetation partly African, partly European; and here Humboldt, at the end of the last century, proposed to naturalise the chinchona.

La Villa lies some two miles and a half from and about 1,140 feet above the Puerto; and the streets are paved and precipitous as any part of Funchal. The population varied from 7,000 to 8,000 souls, whereas the lower town had only 3,500. It contains a few fine houses with huge hanging balconies and interior patios (courts) which would accommodate a regiment. They date from the 'gente muy caballerosa' (knightly folk) of three centuries ago. The feminine population appeared excessive, the reason being that some five per cent. of the youths go to Havannah and after a few years return 'Indianos,' or 'Indios,' our old 'nabobs.'

At the Puerto we were most kindly received by the late British Vice-Consul, Mr. Goodall, who died about the normal age, seventy-seven: if this be safely passed man in Tenerife becomes a macrobian. All was done for our comfort by the late Mr. Carpenter, who figures in the 'Astronomer's Experiment' as 'the interpreter.' Amongst the scanty public diversions was the Opera. The Villa theatre occupied an ancient church: the length of the building formed pit, boxes, and gallery; and 'La Sonnambula' descended exactly where the high altar had been. At the Puerto an old monastery was chosen for 'La Traviata:' the latter was realistic as Crabbe's poetry; even in bed the unfortunate 'Misled' one could not do without a certain truncated cylinder of acajou. I sighed for the Iberian 'Zarzuela,' that most charming opera buffa which takes its name from a 'pleasaunce' in the Pardo Palace near Madrid.

The hotel diet was peculiarly Spanish; already the stews and 'pilaffs' (pulaos) of the East begin in embryo. The staple dish was the puchero, or cocido, which antiquated travellers still call 'olla podrida' (pot-pourri). This lesso or bouilli consists of soup, beef, bacon, and garbanzos (chick-peas, or Cicer arietinium) in one plate, and boiled potatoes and small gourds (bubangos) in another. The condiments are mostly garlic and saffron, preferred to mustard and chillies. The pastry, they tell me, is excellent.

In those days the Great Dragon Tree had not yet lost its upper cone by the dreadful storm of January 3, 1868; thus it had survived by two centuries and a half the Garoe Laurel, or Arbol Santo, the miraculous tree of Hierro (Ferro). It stood in the garden of the Marquez de Sauzal, who would willingly have preserved it. But every traveller had his own infallible recipe, and the proprietor contented himself with propping up the lower limbs by poles. It stood upon a raised bank of masonry-work, and the north-east side showed a huge cavity which had been stopped with stone and lime. About half a century ago one-third came down, and in 1819 an arm was torn off and sent, I believe, to Kew. When we saw the fragment it looked mostly like tinder, or touchwood, 'eld-gamall,' stone-old, as the Icelanders say. Near it stood a pair of tall cypresses, and at some distance a venerable palm-tree, which 'relates to it,' according to Count Gabriel de Belcastel,

[Footnote: I quote from the Spanish translation, Las Islas Canarias y el Valle Orotava, a highly popular work contrasting wonderfully with some of ours. The courteous Frenchman even promised that Morocco would be the Algeria of the Canaries. His observations for temperature, pressure, variation, hygrometry, and psychrometry of the Orotavan climate, which he chose for health, are valuable. He starts with a theory of the three conditions of salubrity—heat-and-cold, humidity, and atmospheric change. The average annual mean of Orotava is 66.34 degrees (F.), that of Southern France in September; it never falls below 54.5 degrees nor rises above 73.88 degrees, nor exceeds 13.88 degrees in variation.]

'in the murmurs of the breeze the legends of races long disappeared.'

Naturalists modestly assigned to the old Dragon 5,000 to 10,000 years, thus giving birth to fine reflections about its witnessing revolutions which our planet underwent prior to the advent of man. So Adamson made his calabash a contemporary of the Noachian Deluge, if that partial cataclysm [Footnote: The ancient Egyptians, who ignored the Babylonian Deluge, well knew that all cataclysms are local, not general, catastrophes.] ever reached Africa. The Orotava relic certainly was an old tree, prophetic withal, [Footnote: It was supposed infallibly to predict weather and to regulate sowing-time. Thus if the southern side flowered first drought was to be expected, and vice versa. Now the peasant refers to San Isidro, patron of Orotava: he has only changed the form of his superstition.] when De Lugo and the conquistadores entered the valley in 1493 and said mass in its hollow. But that event was only four centuries ago, and dates are ticklish things when derived from the rings and wrinkles of little-studied vegetation. Already Mr. Diston, in a letter to Professor Piazzi Smyth, [Footnote: 'Astronomical Experiment on the Peak of Tenerife,' Philosoph. Trans., part ii. for 1858.] declared that a young 'dragon,' which he had planted in 1818, became in 38 years so tall that a ladder was required to reach the head. And let us observe that Nature, though forbidden such style of progression by her savans, sometimes does make a local saltus, especially in the change of climates. Centuries ago, when the fires about Teyde were still alight, and the lava-fields about Orotava were still burning, the rate of draconian increase, under the influence of heat and moisture, might have been treble or quadruple what it would now be.

[Footnote: The patriarch was no 'giant of the forest.' Its stature did not exceed 60 feet. Humboldt made it only 45 French feet(= 47 ft. ll ins. English) round the base. Dr. Wilde (Narrative, p. 40) blames the measurer and gives about the same measurement, Professor Piazzi Smyth, who in 1856 reproduced it in an abominable photo-stenograph, reckons 48.5 feet at the level of the southern foot, 35.6 feet at 6 feet above the ground, and 28.8 feet at 14.5 feet, where branches spring from the rapidly narrowing conical trunk. The same are said to have been its proportions in the days of the conquest. In 1866 Mr. Addison made it 60 feet tall, 35.5 feet at 6 feet from the ground, and 49.5 in circumference at the base which he cleared. Mr. Barker Webb's sketch in 1830 was the best; but the tree afterwards greatly changed. Mr. J. J. Williams made a neat drawing in boarding-school style, with a background apparently borrowed from Richmond Hill.]

The Jardin de Aclimatacion, or Botanical Garden, mentioned by Humboldt

[Footnote: Page 59. It is regretable that his forecasts have failed. Neither of the ohinohonas (C. tanoifolia and C. oblongifolia) has been naturalised in Southern Europe. Nor has the Hill of Duragno yet sent us the 'protea, the psidium, the jambos, the chirimoya of Peru, the sensitive plant, the heliconia, and several beautiful species of glyoine from New Holland.']

as far back as 1799, still flourishes. It was founded in 1788-95 by an able savan, the Marquis de Villanueva del Pardo (D. Alonso de Nava y Grimon), who to a Government grant of 1,000l. added 4,000l. of his own, besides 400l. a year for an average generation. The place is well chosen, for the Happy Valley combines the flora of the north and the south, with a Nivaria of snow-land above it and a semi-tropical temperature on the shores of the 'Chronian Sea.'



CHAPTER VI.

THE ROUTINE ASCENT OF MOUNT ATLAS, THE 'PIKE' OF TENERIFE.

The trip was so far routine that we followed in the steps of all previous travellers, and so far not routine that we made it in March, when, according to all, the Mal Pais is impassable, and when furious winds threaten to sweep away intruders like dry leaves.

[Footnote: The usual months are July and August. Captain Baudin, not favourably mentioned by Humboldt, ascended in December 1797 with M. Le Gros and the naturalists Advenier, Mauger, and Riedle. He rolled down from half-way on the cone to the bottom of La Rambleta, and was stopped only by a snow-covered lava-heap. Mr. Addison chose February, when he 'suffered more from enormous radiation than from cold.' He justifies his choice (p. 22) by observing that 'the seasons above are much earlier than they are below, consequently the latter part of the spring is the best season to visit the Peak.' In October, at an elevation of 10,700 feet, he found the cold greater than it was in February. In July 1863 I rode round the island, to the Cumbre pumice-plains, and by no means enjoyed the southern ride. A place near Guimar showed me thirty-six barrancos (deep ravines) to be crossed within three leagues.]

The good folk of the Villa, indeed, declared that the Ingleza could never reach even the Estancia de los Inglezes.

Our train was modest—a pair of nags with their attendants, and two excellent sumpter-mules carrying provisions and blankets. The guide was Manoel Reyes, who has already appeared in the 'Specialities of a Residence Above the Clouds.' He is a small, wizen-faced man, quiet, self-contained, and fond—exceedingly fond—of having his own way. By dint of hard work we left the Fonda Gobea at 9 A.M. on March 23, with loud cries of 'Mulo!' and 'Anda, caballo!' and 'So-o-o!' when the bat-beasts indulged in a free fight.

Morning smiled upon our incept. Nothing could be lovelier than the weather as we crossed the deluging Martinianez Fiumara; struck the coast-road westward, and then, bending to the south-west, made for the 'Gate of Taoro,' a gap in the Canada-wall. From the higher level truly charming was the aspect of Orotava: it was Funchal many times improved. Beyond the terraced foreground of rich deep yellow clay, growing potatoes, wheat, and the favourite chochos (lupines), with apple and chestnut trees, the latter of two kinds, and the lower fields marked out by huge agaves, lay the Happy Valley. Its contrast of vivid greens, of white quintas, of the two extinct volcanos overlooking Orotava, and of the picturesque townlets facing the misty blue sea, fringed with a ceaseless silvery surf by the brisa, or north-east trade, the lord of these latitudes, had not a symptom of the Madeiran monotony of verdure. Behind us towered high the snowy Pilon (Sugar-loaf), whose every wave and fold were picked out by golden sunlight, azure half-light, and purple shade.

As we advanced up the Camino de Chasna, a road only by name, the quintas were succeeded by brown-thatched huts, single or in clumps. On the left, 3,400 feet above sea-level, stood the Pino del Dornajito ('of the Little Trough'), one of the few survivors in this once wealthy pine-ground. The magnificent old tree, which was full grown in the days of the conquest, and which in the seventeenth century was a favourite halting-point, suffered severely from the waterspout of November 7, 1826; but still measured 130 feet long by 29 in girth. The vegetation now changed. We began brushing through the arbutus (callicarpa), the wild olive (Olea excelsa), the Canarian oak, the daphne, the myrtle entwined with indigenous ivy (Hedera canariensis); the cytisus, the bright green hypericum of three species, thyme, gallworts, and arborescent and other ferns in numbers, especially the hare's-foot and the peculiar Asplenium canariense, the Trichomanes canariensis, and the Davallia canariensis; the brezo (Erica aborea and E. scoparia), a heath whose small white bells scented the air; and the luxuriant blackberry, used to fortify the drystone walls. The dew-cloud now began to float upwards from the sea in scarf-shape, only a few hundred feet thick; it had hangings and fringes where it was caught by the rugged hill-flanks; and above us globular masses, white as cotton bales, rolled over one another. As in the drier regions of Africa the hardly risen sun made itself felt.

At 10.20 A.M. we had passed out of the cultivated region to the Montijo, or Monte Verde, the laurel-region. The 'wood' is the remains of a fine forest accidentally fired by charcoal-burners; it is now a copse of arborescent heath-worts, ilex (I. Perado), and Faya (Myrica Faya), called the 'Portugal laurel,' some growing ten feet high. We then entered upon rough ground, El Juradillo ('the Hollow'); this small edition of the Mal Pais, leading to the Canadas, is a mass of lava-beds and dry barrancos (ravines) grooved and sheeted by rushing torrents. The latter show the anatomy of the land—tufas, lavas, conglomerates, trachytes, trachydolerites, and basalts of various kinds. Most of the rocks are highly magnetic, and are separated by thin layers of humus with carbonised plant-roots. Around El Juradillo rises a scatter of montanetas, shaped like half-buried eggs: originally parasitic cones, they evidently connect with the main vent. About 1 P.M., after four hours' ride, we dismounted at the Estancia de la Sierra (6,500 feet); it is a pumice-floor a few feet broad, dotted with bush and almost surrounded by rocks that keep off a wind now blowing cold and keen. Consequently, as broken pots and bottles show, it is a favourite resting-place.

After halting an hour we rode up a slope whose obtuser talus showed that we were reaching the far-famed platform, called Las Canadas del Pico. The word, here meaning level ground, not, as usual, a canefield, applies especially to the narrow outer rim of the hollow plain; a bristling fortification of bluffs, pointing inwards, and often tilted to quoins 300 feet high, with an extreme of 1,000. Trachyte and basalt, with dykes like Cyclopean walls, are cut to jagged needles by the furious north-easter. Around the foot, where it is not encumbered with debris like the base of an iceberg, a broad line of comminuted pumice produces vegetation like a wady-growth in Somali Land. The central bed allows no short cut across: it is a series of rubbish-heaps, parasitic cones, walls, and lumps of red-black lavas, trachytes, and phonolites reposing upon a deluge of frozen volcanic froth ejected by early eruptions. The aspect was rejoicing as the Arabian desert: I would willingly have spent six months in the purest of pure air.

These flats of pumice, 'stones of emptiness,' loose incoherent matter, are the site of the first great crater. Tenerife is the type of a three-storied volcano, as Stromboli is of one and Vesuvius of two stages. The enormous diameter of this ancient feature is eight by seven miles, with a circumference of twenty-three—greater even than Hawaii—and here one feels that our earth was once a far sublimer scene. Such forms belong to the earlier volcanic world, and astronomers still suspect them in the moon. [Footnote: Las Canadas was shown to be a volcanic crater in 1803 by Professor Cordier, the first scientific visitor in modern days (Lettre a Devilliers fils), and in 1810 by D. Francisco Escobar (Estadistica). They make the old vent ten leagues round.] The altitude is 6,900 feet, nearly double the height of Vesuvius (3,890 feet); and the lines sweep upwards towards the Pilon, where they reach 8,950 feet.

The tints of Las Canadas, seen from above, are the tenderest yellow and a brownish red, like the lightest coat of vegetation turning ruddy in the sun. Where level, Las Canadas is a floor of rapilli and pumice-fragments, none larger than a walnut, but growing bigger as they approach the Pike. The colours are dun (barriga de monja), golden-yellow, and brown burnt red like autumnal leaves. There is marvellous colouring upon the bluffs and ridges of the rim—lamp-black and brown-black, purple (light and dark), vermilion-red, and sombre hues superficially stained ruddy by air-oxygen. The picture is made brighter by the leek-green vegetation and by the overarching vault of glaring blue. Nor are the forms less note-worthy. Long centuries of weathering have worked the material into strange shapes—here a ruined wall, there an old man with a Jesuit's cap; now a bear, then a giant python. It is the oldest lava we have yet seen, except the bed of the Orotava valley. The submarine origin is denoted by fossils found in the flank; they are of Miocene age, like those common in Madeira, and they were known as early as the days of Clavijo (1772).

Las Canadas is not wholly a 'dead creation;' the birds were more numerous than on the plains. A powerful raptor, apparently an eagle with black-barred wings, hung high in air amongst the swallows winging their way northwards, and the Madeiran sparrow-hawk was never out of sight; ravens, unscared by stone-throwing boys, flew over us unconcernedly, while the bushes sheltered many blackbirds, the Canary-bird (Fringilla canaria) showed its green belly and grey back and wings, singing a note unknown to us; and an indigenous linnet (F. teydensis), small and green-robed, hopped over the ground tame as a wren. We saw nothing of the red-legged partridge or the Tetraonidae, reported to be common.

The scattered growths were composed of the broomy Codeso and Retama. The former (Adenocarpus frankenoides), a leguminous plant, showed only dense light-green leaves without flower, and consequently without their heavy, cloying perfume. The woody stem acts in these regions as the doornboom of South Africa, the wild sage of the western prairies, and the shih (absinthium) of the Arabian desert. The Arabic Retama, or Alpine broom (Cytisus fragrans, Lam.; Cyt. nubigenus, Decan.; Spartium nubigenum, Alton and Von Buch), is said to be peculiar to Tenerife, where it is not found under one vertical mile of height. Some travellers divide it into two species, Spartium monospermum and S. nubigenum. The bush, 9 to 10 feet tall by 7 to 15 inches diameter, is easily distinguished from the Codeso by its denser and deeper green. This pretty rounded growth, with its short brown stem throwing out lateral branches which trail on the ground, flavours meat, and might be naturalised in Europe. From June till August it is covered with a profusion of white blossoms, making Las Canadas a Hymettus, an apiarian heaven. It extends as far as the second cone, but there it shrinks to a foot in height. We did not see the tree growing, but we met a party of Chasna men, [Footnote: A romantic tale is told of the origin of Chasna. In 1496, before the wars ended, one Pedro de Bracamonte, a captain under De Lugo, captured a 'belle sauvage,' who made her escape after a few days. He went about continually repeating, 'Vi la flor del valle' (I saw the valley flower), and died after three months. His soldiers buried him and priests said masses for the soul of this 'hot amorist.'] driving asses like onagers, laden with the gummy wood of the Tea or Tiya pine (P. canariensis). The valuable material, which resists damp and decay for centuries, and which Decandolle declares would grow in Scotland, is rapidly disappearing from the Pinals. The travellers carried cochineal-seed, for which their village is famous, and a hive which might have been Abyssinian. It was a hollow cylinder of palm-bole, closed with board at either end; in July and August it is carried up the mountain, where the bees cannot destroy the grapes. We searched in vain for M. Broussonet's white violet (V. teydensis), [Footnote: Humboldt's five zones of vegetation on the Pike are vines, laurels, pines, broom, and grasses (p. 116). Mr. Addison modifies this scale to vines, laurels, pines and junipers, mountain-brooms and pumice-plains, I should distribute the heights as growing cochineal, potatoes, and cereals, chestnuts, pines, heaths, grasses, and bare rock.] and for the lilac-coloured Viola cheiranthifolia, akin to V. decumbens.

The average annual temperature of Las Canadas is that of N. latitude 53 degrees, Holland and Hanover; in fact, here it is the Pyrenees, and below it Africa. The sun blazed from a desert of blue, and the waving heat-reek rose trembling and quivering from the tawny sides of the foregrounds. The clouds, whose volumes were disposed like the leaves of a camellia, lay far down to the north-east, as if unable to face the fires of day. And now the great trachytic dome, towering in the translucent air, was the marking feature. Its angle, 35 to 42 degrees, or double that of the lower levels, suggests distant doubts as to its practicability, nor could we believe that it rises 3,243 feet above its western base, Las Canadas. The summit, not including the terminal Pilon—a comparatively dwarf cone [Footnote: There is a very bad sketch of the Pike in Mr. Scrope's popular work on Volcanoes (p. 5); the eruptive chimney is far too regularly conical.]—is ribboned with clinker, and streaked at this season with snow-lines radiating, like wheel-spokes from a common centre. Here and there hang, at an impossible angle, black lava-streams which were powerless to reach the plain: they resembled nothing so much as the gutterings of a candle hardening on the outside of its upright shaft. Evidently they had flowed down the slope in a half fluid state, and had been broken by contraction when cooling. In places, too, the surface was streaked with light yellow patches, probably of sun-gilt tosa or pumice.

On our right, or to the north-north-east of the Pike, rose La Fortaleza, alias the Golliada del Cedro. The abrupt wall had salient and re-entering angles, not unlike the Palisades of the Hudson River, with intercalated strata and a smooth glacis at the base, except between the east and north-west, where the periphery has been destroyed. It is apparently basalt, as we may expect in the lower levels before reaching the trachytic region. The other notable features were Monte Tigayga, with its vertical cliff, trending northwards to the sea; the gap through which the Orotava lava-bed burst the crater-margin; the Llano de Maja ('Manja' in Berthelot), a strip of Las Canadas, and the horizontally striated Peak of Guajara (8,903 feet).

Riding over the 'pumice-beach of a once fiery sea,' whose glare and other accidents suggested the desert between Cairo and Suez, we made our way towards the Rastrojito. This 'Little Stubble' is a rounded heap of pumice, a southern offset of the main mountain. On the left rose the Montana Negra (Black Mountain) and the Lomo de la Nieve ('Snow Ridge),' a dark mass of ribbed and broken lavas (8,970 feet), in which summer-snow is stored. A little black kid, half wild, was skipping over the rocks. Our men pursued it with the garrotes (alpenstocks), loudly shouting,' Tio Jose!': 'Uncle Joseph,' however, escaped, running like a Guanche. Here it is allowed to shoot the animals on condition of leaving a shilling with the skin. The latter is used in preparing the national gofio, the Guanche ahoren, the kuskusu of north-western Africa, the polenta, or daily bread, of the Neo-Latins.

Climbing the Rastrojito slopes, we sighted the Pedras Negras: these are huge travelled rocks of basalt, jet-black, breaking with a conchoidal fracture, and showing debris like onion-coats about their base. The aspect was fantastic, resembling nothing so much as skulls 10 to 15 feet high. They are doubtless the produce of the upper slopes, which by slow degrees gravitated to the present pumice-beds.

The first step of the Pike is Las Canadas, whose glacis forms the Cumbre, or pumice-plains (6,500 feet), the long dorsum, which shows far out at sea. Bending abruptly to the east, we began to breast the red pumice-bed leading to the Estancia de Abajo or de los Inglezes. 'El es Inglez porque subio al Pico' ('he is English, because he climbed the Pike'), say the people. This ramp, whose extreme angle is 26 degrees, bordered by thick bands of detached lava-rocks, is doubtless the foundation-matter of the Pike. Hence the latter is picturesquely termed 'Hijo de las Canadas.' [Footnote: Especially by D. Benigno Carballo Wanguement in his work, Las Afortunadas (Madrid, 1862), a happy title borrowed from D. Francisco Escobar. Heyley (Cosmography), quoted by Glas and Mrs. Murray, tells us of an English ambassador who, deeming his own land the 'Fortunate Islands,' protested against Pope Clement VI. so entitling the Canaries in a deed of gift to D. Luis de la Cerda, the 'Disinherited' Conde de Claramonte. The latter was deprived of the Crown of Castile by his uncle, Sancho IV., and became the founder of the Medina Celi house.]

After a total climb and ride of six hours, we reached the 'English station.' M. Eden (Aug. 13, 1715) [Footnote: Trans. Royal Soc. of London, 1714-16.] calls it simply Stancha, and M. Borda 'Station des Rochers.' Pere Feutree, a Frenchman who ascended in 1524, and wrote the earliest scientific account, had baptised it Station de St. Francois de Paul, and set up a cross. It is a shelf in the pumice-slope, 9,930 feet high, and protected against the cold night-winds of the north-north-east, the lower or polar current, by huge boulders of obsidian, like gigantic sodawater-bottles. The routine traveller sleeps upon this level a few hundred yards square, because the guides store their fuel in an adjacent bed of black rocks. Humboldt miscalls the station 'a kind of cavern;' and a little above it he nearly fell on the slippery surface of the 'compact short-swarded turf' which he had left 4,000 feet below him.

The bat-mules were unpacked and fed; and a rough bed was made up under the lea of the tallest rock, where a small curral of dry stone kept off the snow. This, as we noticed in Madeira, is not in flakes, nor in hail-like globes: it consists of angular frozen lumps, and the selvage becomes the hardest ice. Some have compared it with the Swiss 'firn,' snow stripped of fine crystals and granulated by time and exposure. In March the greatest depth we saw in the gullies radiating from the mountain-top was about three feet. But in the cold season all must be white as a bride-cake; and fatal accidents occur in the Canada drifts. Professor Piazzi Smyth characterises the elevated region as cold enough at night, and stormy beyond measure in winter, when the south-wester, or equatorial upper current, produces a fearful climate. Yet the Pike summit lies some 300 feet below the snow-line (12,500 feet).

The view was remarkable: we were in sight of eighty craters. At sunset the haze cleared away from the horizon, which showed a straight grey-blue line against a blushing sky of orange, carmine, pale pink, and tender lilac, passing through faint green into the deep dark blue of the zenith. In this cumbre, or upper region, the stars did not surprise us by their brightness. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 32 degrees F.; the air was delightfully still and pure, [Footnote: We had no opportunity of noticing what Mr. Addison remarks, the air becoming sonorous and the sound of the sea changing from grave to acute after sunset and during the night. He attributes this increased intensity to additional moisture and an equability of temperature in the atmospheric strata. Perhaps the silence of night may tend to exaggerate the impression.] and Death mummifies, but does not decay.

A bright fire secured us against the piercing dry night-cold; and the arrieros began to sing like capirotes [Footnote: The Capirote or Tinto Negro, a grey bird with black head (Sylvia atricapilla), is also found in Madeira, and much resembles the Eastern bulbul or Persian nightingale. It must be caged when young, otherwise it refuses to sing, and fed upon potatos and bread with milk, not grain. An enthusiast, following Humboldt (p. 87), describes the 'joyous and melodious notes' of the bird as 'the purest incense that can ascend to heaven.'] (bulbuls), sundry seguidillas, and El Tajaraste. The music may be heard everywhere between Morocco and Sind. It starts with the highest possible falsetto and gradually falls like a wail, all in the minor clef.

We rose next morning with nipped feet and hands, which a cup of hot coffee, 'with,' speedily corrected, and were en route at 4.30 A.M. Formerly animals were left at the lower estancia; now they are readily taken on to Alta Vista. My wife rode a sure-footed black nag, I a mule which was perfect whilst the foot-long lever acting curb lay loose on its neck. Returning, we were amazed at the places they had passed during the moonless night.

Our path skirted the Estancia de los Alemanos, about 300 yards higher than the English, and zig-zagged sharply up the pumice-slope. The talus now narrowed; the side-walls of dark trachytic blocks pinching it in. At this grisly hour they showed the quaintest figures—towers and pinnacles, needles and tree-trunks, veiled nuns and monstrous beasts. Amongst them were huge bombs of obsidian, and masses with translucent, vitreous edges that cut like glass. Most of them contained crystals of felspar and pyroxene.

After half an hour we reached the dwarf platform of Alta Vista, 700 feet above the Estancia and 10,730, in round numbers, above sea-level. The little shelf, measuring about 100 to 300 yards, at the head of the fork where the north-eastern and the south-western lava-streams part, is divided by a medial ledge. Here we saw the parent rock of the pumice fragments, an outcrop of yellowish brown stone, like fractured and hardened clay. The four-footed animals were sent back: one rides up but not down such places.

Passing in the lower section the shell of a house where the Astronomer's

[Footnote: The author came out in 1856 to make experiments in astronomical observations. Scientific men have usually a contempt for language: we find the same in Our Inheritanse, &c. (Dalby & Co., London, 1877), where the poor modern hierogrammats are not highly appreciated. But it is a serious blemish to find 'Montana Blanco,' 'Malpays,' 'Chahzorra' (for Chajorra), and 'Tiro del Guanches.' The author also is wholly in error about Guanche mummification. He derides (p. 329) the shivering and shaking of his Canarian guide under a cloudy sky of 40 deg.F., when the sailor enjoyed it in their 'glorious strength of Saxon (?) constitution.' But when the latter were oppressed and discouraged by dry heat and vivid radiation, Manoel was active as a chamois. Why should enduring cold and not heat be held as a test of manliness?]

experiment had been tried, Guide Manoel pointed out the place where stood the tormentos, as he called the instruments. Thence we toiled afoot up the Mal Pais. This 'bad country' is contradictorily described by travellers. Glas (A.D. 1761) makes it a sheet of rock cracked cross-wise into cubes. Humboldt (1799) says, 'The lava, broken into sharp pieces, leaves hollows in which we risked falling up to our waists.' Von Buch (1815) mentions 'the sharp edges of glassy obsidian, as dangerous as the blades of knives.' Wilde (1857) tamely paints the scene as a 'magnified rough-cast.' Prof. Piazzi Smyth is, as usual, exact, but he suggests more difficulty than the traveller finds. I saw nothing beyond a succession of ridge-backs and shrinkage-crevasses, disposed upon an acute angle. These ragged, angular, and mostly cuboidal blocks, resembling the ice-pack of St. Lawrence River, have apparently been borne down by subsequent lava-currents, which, however, lacked impetus to reach the lower levels of Las Canadas.

Springing from boulder to boulder, an exhilarating exercise for a time, over a 'surface of horrible roughness,' as Prof. Dana says of Hawaii, we halted to examine the Cueva de Hielo, whose cross has long succumbed to the wintry winds. The 'ice-house' in a region of fire occupies a little platform like the ruined base of a Pompey's Pillar. This is the table upon which the neveros pack their stores of snow. The cave, a mere hole in the trachytic lava, opens to the east with an entrance some four feet wide. The general appearance was that of a large bubble in a baked loaf. Inside we saw a low ceiling spiky with stalactites, possibly icicles, and a coating of greenish ice upon the floor. A gutter leads from the mouth, showing signs of water-wear, and the blocks of trachyte are so loaded with glossy white felspar that I attempted to dust them before sitting down.

Local tradition connects this ice-cave with the famous burial-cavern near Ycod, on the northern coast; this would give a tunnel 8 miles long and 11,040 feet high. Many declare that the meltings ebb and flow with the sea-tide, and others recount that lead and lines of many fathoms failed to touch bottom. We are told about the normal dog which fell in and found its way to the shore through the cave of Ycod de los Vinos. In the latter a M. Auber spent four hours without making much way; in parts he came upon scatters of Guanche bones. Mr. Robert Edwards, of Santa Cruz, recounted another native tradition—that before the eruption of A.D. 1705 there was a run of water but no cave. Mr. Addison was let down into it, and found three branches or lanes, the longest measuring 60-70 feet. What the neveros call el hombre de nieve (the snow-man) proved to be a honeycombed mass of lava revetted with ice-drippings. He judged the cave to be a crater of emission; and did not see the smoke or steam issuing from it as reported by the ice-collectors.

Professor P. Smyth goes, I think, a little too far in making this contemptible feature compose such a quarrel as that between the English eruptionist and the Continental upheavalist. Deciding a disputed point, that elevation is a force and a method in nature, he explains the cave by the explosion of gases, which blew off the surface of the dome, 'when the heavy sections of the lava-roof, unsupported from below, fell downward again, wedging into and against each other, so as nearly to reform their previous figure.' But the unshattered state of the stones and the rounded surfaces of the sides show no sign of explosion. The upper Piton is unfitted for retaining water, which must percolate through its cinders, pumices, and loose matter into many a reservoir formed by blowing-holes. Snow must also be drifted in and retain, the cold. Moisture would be kept in the cavern by the low conducting power of its walls; so Lyell found, on Etna, a bed of solid ice under a lava-current. Possibly also this cave has a frozen substratum, like many of the ice-pools in North America.

We then toiled up to another little estancia, a sheltered, rock-girt hollow. The floor of snow, or rather frozen rain, was sprinkled with red dust, and fronts the wind, with sharp icy points rising at an angle of 45 deg.. Here, despite the penetrating cold, we gravely seated ourselves to enjoy at ease the hardly won pleasures of the sunrise. The pallid white gleam of dawn had grown redder, brighter and richer. An orange flush, the first breaking of the beams faintly reflected from above, made the sky, before a deep and velvety black-blue, look like a gilt canopy based upon a rim of azure mist. The brilliancy waxed golden and more golden still; the blending of the colours became indescribably beautiful; and, lastly, the sun's upper limb rose in brightest saffron above the dimmed and spurious horizon of north-east cloud. The panorama below us emerged dimly and darkly from a torrent of haze, whose waving convex lines, moving with a majestic calm, wore the aspect of a deluge whelming the visible world. Martin the Great might have borrowed an idea from this waste of waters, as it seemed to be, heaving and breaking, surging and sweeping over the highest mountain-tops. We saw nothing of the immense triangular gnomon projected by the Pilon as far as Gomera Island, [Footnote: At sunset of July 10, 1863, I could trace it extending to Grand Canary, darkening the southern half and leaving the northern in bright sunshine: the right limb was better defined than the left.] and gradually contracting as the lamp of day rises. Item, we saw nothing of the archipelago like a map in relief; the latter, however, is rarely visible in its entirety. Disappointment!

During the descent we had a fair prospect of the Canarian Triquetra. Somewhat like Madeira, it has a longitudinal spine of mountains, generically called Las Canadas; but, whilst the volcanic ridge of the Isle of Wood runs in a latitudinal line, the Junonian Cordillera has a whorl, the ancient as well as the modern seat of eruption. Around the island appeared to be a rim, as if the sea-horizon formed a raised saucer—a common optical delusion at these altitudes.

As we advanced the Mal Pais became more broken: the 'bad step' was ugly climbing, and we often envied our men, who wore heelless shoes of soft untanned leather with soles almost as broad as they were long. The roughness of the trachytic blocks, however, rendered a slip impossible. At 6.45 we reached the second floor of this three-storied volcano, here 11,721 feet high. The guides call it the Pico del Pilon, because it is the ancient Peak-Crater, and strangers the Rambleta (not Rembleta) Volcano, which strewed Las Canadas with fiery pumice, and which shot up the terminal head 'conical as a cylinder.' It has now become an irregular and slightly convex plain a mile in diameter, whose centre is the terminal chimney. Its main peculiarity is in the fumaroles, or escapes of steam, and mofetti, mephitic emanations of limpid water and sulphur-vapour. Of these we counted five narices within as many hundred yards. Their temperature greatly varies, 109 deg. and 158 deg. Fahr. being, perhaps, the extremes; my thermometer showed 130 deg.. These soupiraux or respiradouros are easily explained. The percolations from above are heated to steam by stones rich in 'grough brimstone.' Here it was that Humboldt saw apparent lateral shiftings and perpendicular oscillations of fixed stars; and our Admiralty, not wishing to be behind him, directed Professor P. Smyth's attention to 'scintillations in general.' Only the youngest of travellers would use such a place as an observatory; and only the youngest of observers would have considered this libration of the stars an extraordinary phenomenon.

Directed by a regular line of steam-puffs, we attacked El Pilon, the third story, the most modern cone of eruption, the dwarf chimney which looks like a thimble from the sea. The lower third was of loose crumbling pumice, more finely comminuted than we had yet seen; this is what Humboldt calls 'ash-cones.' There was also a strew of porphyritic lava-chips covered with a red (ochreous?) crust. Presently we reached a radiating rib of lately ejected lava, possibly the ridge of a dyke, brown below and gradually whitening with sulphuric acid as it rose towards the crater-walls. The resting took longer than the walking up the steep talus; and at 7.45: after a total of nine hours and a morning's work of two hours and a half, which occupied two in descending, we stood upon the corona or lip of 'Teyde.'

The height of the Tenerife Pike, once held the loftiest in the world, is 12,198 feet, in round numbers 12,200. Thus it stands nearly at the altitude of Mont Blanc (15,784 feet) above the Chamounix valley, a figure of 12,284 feet. The slope from the base is 1 in 4.6. The direct distance from Orotava on the map measures 10.5 miles; along the road 18, according to the guides. The terminal chimney and outlet for vapours which would erupt elsewhere, rises 520 feet from its pedestal, the central Rambleta, and its ascent generally occupies an hour. One visitor has reduced this montagne pelee to 60-70 feet, and compares it with the dome of a glass-house. From below it resembles nothing so much as a cone of dirty brown cassonade, and travellers are justified in calling it a sugarloaf. I can hardly rest satisfied with Von Buch's description. 'Teyde is a pointed tower surrounded by a ditch and a circular chain of bastions.'

The word Teyde is supposed to be a corruption of Echeyde, meaning Hades: hence the title Isla Infierno, found in a map of A.D. 1367. The Guanches also called it Ayadyrma, and here placed their pandemonium, under Guayota, the head-fiend. The country-folk still term the crater-ring 'la caldera de los diablos en que se cuecen todas las provisiones del Infierno' (the Devil's caldron, wherein are cooked all the rations of the infernals). Seen by moonlight, or on a star-lit night, the scenery would be weird and ghostly enough to suggest such fancies, which remind us of Etna and Lipari.

I had been prepared by descriptions for a huge chasm-like crater or craters like those on Theon Ochema, Camerones Peak. I found a spoon-shaped hollow, with a gradual slope to the centre, 100 x 150 feet deep, the greater length of the oval running north-east, where the side is higher, to south-west, where there is also a tilt of the cup. The floor was a surface of burning marl and whitish earthy dough-like paste, the effect of sulphurous acid vapours upon the argile of the lava. This stratum was in places more than 80 feet thick; and fumes rose fetid with sulphuric acid, and sulphates of soda, alumina, and ammonia from the dead white, purple red, vivid green, and brilliant yellow surface of the solfatara. Hence the puffs of vapour seen from below against the sparkling blue sky, and disappearing like huge birds upon the wings of the wind: hence, too, the tradition of the mast and the lateen sail. A dig with the Guanche magada or lanza, the island alpen-stock, either outside or inside the crater, will turn up, under the moist white clay, lovely trimetric crystals of sulphur, with the palest straw tint, deepening to orange, and beautifully disposed in acicular shapes. The acid eats paper, and the colours fade before they leave the cone.

[Footnote: Dr. Wilde (1837) analysed the sulphur as follows: Silica, 81.13; water, 8.87; and a trace of lime. Others have obtained from the mineral, when condensed upon a cold surface, minute crystals of alum. Mr. Addison found in the 'splendid crystals of octahedral sulphur' a glistening white substance of crystalline structure, yet somewhat like opal. When analysed it proved to contain 91 per cent. silex and the rest water.]

When sitting down it is advisable to choose a block upon which dew-drops pearl. A few minutes of rest upon a certain block of marl, whose genial warmth is most grateful, squatting in the sharp cold air, neatly removes all cloth in contact with the surface. More than one excursionist has shown himself in that Humphrey Clinker condition which excited the wrath of Count Tabitha. It is evident that Teyde is by no means exhausted, and possibly it may return to the state of persistent eruption described by the eye-witness Ca da Mosto, who landed on the Canaries in A.D. 1505.

Not at all impressed with the grandeur of the Inferno, we walked round the narrow rim of the crater-cirque, and were shown a small breach in the wall of porphyritic lava facing west. Mrs. Murray's authorities describe the Caldera as being 'without any opening:' if this be the case the gap has lately formed. The cold had driven away the lively little colony of bees, birds, and butterflies which have been seen disporting themselves about the bright white cauldron. There was not a breath of the threatened wind. Manoel pointed out Mount Bermeja as the source of the lateral lava-stream whose 'infernal avalanche,' on May 5, 1706, [Footnote: Preceding Ca da Mosto's day another eruption (1492) was noted by Columbus, shortly before his discovery of the Antilles. Garachico was the only port in Tenerife, with a breakwater of rocky isle and water so deep that the yardarms of men-of-war could almost touch the vineyards. Its quays were bordered by large provision-stores, it had five convents, and its slopes were dotted with villas. After an earthquake during the night a lava-stream from several cones destroyed the village Del Tanque at 3:30 A.M., and at 9 P.M. another flood entered Garachico at seven points, drove off the sea, ruined the mole, and filled the port. It was followed by a cascade of fire at 8 A.M. on the 13th of the same month, and the lava remained incandescent for forty days.] overwhelmed 'Grarachico, pueblo rico,'

[Footnote: Alluding to the curse of the Franciscan Friar, who devoted the town to destruction in these words:—

'Garachico, pueblo rico, Gastadero de dinero, Mal risco te caiga encima!']

and spared Guimar, which it enclosed between two fiery streams. Despite the white and woolly mists, the panorama of elevations, craters and castellated eminences, separated by deep gashes and by currals like those of Madeira, but verdure-bare, was stupendous. I have preserved, however, little beyond names and heights. We did not suffer from puna, or mountain sickness, which Bishop Sprat, of Rochester, mentions in 1650, and which Mr. Darwin—alas that we must write the late!—cured by botanising. I believe that it mostly results from disordered liver, and, not unfrequently, in young Alpinists, from indigestion.

The descent of the Teyde Piton, in Vesuvian fashion, occupied ten minutes. Our guides now whistled to their comrades below, who had remained in charge of the animals. Old authors tell us that the Guanche whistle could be heard for two leagues, and an English traveller declares that after an experiment close to his ear he did not quite recover its use for a fortnight. The return home was wholly without interest, except the prospects of cloud-land, grander than those of Folkestone, which seemed to open another world beneath our feet. Near the Santa Clara village all turned out to prospect two faces which must have suggested only raw beef-steaks. It was Sunday, and

(Garachico, wealthy town; wasteful of thy wealth, may an ill rock fall upon thy head!)

both sexes were in their 'braws.' The men wore clean blanket-mantles, the women coloured corsets laced in front, gowns of black serge or cotton, dark blue shawls hardly reaching to their waist, and the usual white kerchief, the Arab kufiyah, under the broad-brimmed straw or felt hat, whose crown was decorated with the broadest and gayest ribbons. But even this unpicturesque coiffure, almost worthy of Sierra Leone, failed to conceal the nobility of face and figure, the well-turned limbs, the fine hands and feet, and the meneo, or swimming walk, of this Guanchinesque race, which everywhere forced itself upon the sight. The proverb says—

De Tenerife los hombres; Las mugeres de Canaria.

It is curious to compare the realistic accounts of the nineteenth century with those of the vulcanio two centuries ago. Ogilby (1670) tells us that the Moors called it El-Bard (Cold), and we the 'Pike of Teneriff, thought not to have its equal in the world for height, because it spires with its top so high into the clouds that in clear weather it may be seen sixty Dutch miles off at sea.' His illustration of the 'Piek-Bergh op het Eilant Teneriffe' shows an almost perpendicular tower of natural masonry rising from a low sow-back whose end is the 'Punt Tenago' (Anaga Point). The 'considerable merchants and persons of credit,' whose ascent furnished material for the Royal Society, set out from Orotava. 'In the ascent of one mile some of our Company grew very faint and sick, disorder'd by Fluxes, Vomitings, and Aguish Distempers; our Horses' Hair standing upright like Bristles.' Higher up 'their Strong waters had lost their Virtue, and were almost insipid, while their Wine was more spirituous and brisk than before.' In those days also iron and copper, silver and gold, were found in the calcined rocks of the Katakaumenon. It is strange to note how much more was seen by ancient travellers than by us moderns.



CHAPTER VII.

THE SPANISH ACCOUNT OF THE REPULSE OF NELSON FROM SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE.

[Footnote: From the Relacion circumstanciada de la Defensa que hizo la Plaza de Santa Cruz, by M. Monteverde. Published in Madrid, 1798.]

The following pages afford a circumstantial and, I believe, a fairly true account of an incident much glossed over by our naval historians. The subject is peculiarly interesting. At Santa Cruz, as at Fontenoy, the Irish, whom harsh measures at home drove for protection to more friendly lands, took ample share in the fighting which defeated England's greatest sailor. Again, the short-sighted policy which sent to the Crimea 20,000 British soldiers to play second instrument in concert with 40,000 Frenchmen, thus lowering us in the eyes of Europe, made Nelson oppose his 960 hands to more than eight times their number. The day may come when the attack shall be repeated. Now that steam has rendered fleets independent of south-west winds, it is to be hoped the assailant will prefer day to night, so that his divisions can communicate; that he will not land in the 'raging surf' of the ebb-tide, and that he will attack the almost defenceless south instead of the well-fortified north of the city.

Already the heroic Island had inflicted partial or total defeat upon three English admirals. [Footnote: Grand Canary also did her duty by beating off, in October 1795, Drake's strong squadron.] In April 1657 the Roundhead 'general at sea,' Admiral Sir Robert Blake, of Bridgewater, attempted to cut out the Spanish galleons freighted with Mexican gold and with the silver of Peru. Of these the principal were the Santo-Cristo, the Jesus-Maria, the Santo Sacramento, La Concepcion, the San Juan, the Virgen de la Solitud, and the Nuestra Senora del Buen Socorro. This 'silver fleet' was moored under the guns of the 'chief castle,' San Cristobal, the mean work at the root of the mole. The English were preparing to board, when the Captain-General, D. Diego de Egues, whom our histories call 'Diagues,' ordered the fleet to be fired, after all the treasure had been housed in the fort. A steady fight lasted three hours, during which the wife of the brave Governor, D. Estevan de la Guerra, distinguished herself. 'I shall not be useless here,' she exclaimed when invited to leave the batteries; and this 'maid of Tenerife' continued to animate the garrison till the end. As was the case with his great successor, Roundhead Blake's failure proved to him far better than a success. For his francesada, or coup de tete, Nelson expected to lose his commission, instead of which some popular freak flung to him honour and honours. So Protector Cromwell sent a valuable diamond ring to his 'general at sea,' in token of esteem on his part and that of his Parliament. Our histories, relying on the fact that a few weak batteries were silenced, claim for the Admiral a positive victory, despite his losses—fifty killed and 500 wounded.

[Footnote: The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon (Life of Blake, p. 346) describes the open roadstead of Santa Cruz as a 'harbour shaped like a horse-shoe, and defended at the north side of the entrance by a regular castle.' In p. 350 we also read of the bay and its entrance. Any hydrographic chart would have set him right.]

In 1706, during the Spanish war of succession, Admiral Jennings sailed into Santa Cruz bay—the old Bay of Anaga or Anago—and lay off San Cristobal

[Footnote: This work still remains. It is a parallelogram with four bastions in star-shape, fronting the sea, and an embrasured wall facing the town. It began as a chapel, set up by De Lugo to N. S. de la Consolacion, and a tower was added in 1493. It was destroyed by the Guanches and rebuilt by Charles Quint: the present building assumed its shape in 1579. The main square, inland of San Cristobal, shows by a marble cross where the conqueror planted with one hand a large affair of wood—hence Santa Cruz. The original is, or was till lately, in the Civil Hospital.]

with twelve ships of the line. The Plaza was commanded, in the absence of the Captain-General, by the Corregidor, D. Antonio de Ayala, who assembled all the nobles in the castle's lower rooms and swore them to loyalty. The English attempted to disembark, and were beaten back; whereupon, as under Nelson, they sent a parliamentary and summoned the island to surrender to the Archduke Charles of Austria. The envoy informed the Governor, who is described by Dampier as sitting in a low, dark, uncarpeted room, adorned only with muskets and pikes, that Philip V. had lost Gibraltar, that Cadiz and Minorca had nearly fallen, and that the American galleons in the port of Vigo had been burnt or captured by the English, whose army, entering Castile, had overrun Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia. The braves reply was, 'If Philip, our king, had lost his all in the Peninsula, these islands would still remain faithful to him.' And the castle guns did such damage that the Jennings squadron sailed away on the same evening.

The third expedition, detached by Admmiral Sir John Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent, to 'cut out a richly freighted Manilla ship,' also resulted in a tremendous failure. Captain Brenton, to gratify national complacency, grossly exaggerates in his 'Naval History' the difficulty of the enterprise. 'Of all places which ever came under our inspection none, we conceive, is more invulnerable to attack or more easily defended than Teneriffe.' He forgets to mention its principal guard, the valour of the inhabitants. And now to my translation.

'At dawn on July 2, [Footnote: James (Naval History, vol. ii. p. 56) more correctly says July 20. So the Despatches, &c., of Lord Nelson, Sir H. Nicholas, vol. ii. p. 429. The thanksgiving for the victory took place on July 27, the fete of SS. Iago and Cristobal.] 1797, the squadron [Footnote: The squadron was composed as follows:—1. Theseus (74), Captain Ralph Willett Miller, carried the Rear-Admiral's flag; 2. Culloden (74), Commodore and Captain Thos. Troubridge; 3. Zealous (74), Captain Sam. Hood; 4. Leander (50), Captain Thos. Boulden Thomson, which joined on the day before the attack. There were three frigates:—1. Seahorse (38), Captain Thos. Francis Fremantle; 2. Emerald (36), Captain John Waller; and 3. Terpsichore (32), Captain Richard Bowen; also the Fox (cutter), Lieut. Commander John Gibson, and a mortar-boat or a bomb-ketch, probably a ship's launch with a shell-gun.] of Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, K.B., composed of nine ships, and carrying a total of 393 guns, appeared off Santa Cruz, the port of Tenerife, Canarian archipelago. The enemy at once manned and put off his boats. One division of sixteen occupied our front; the other twenty-three took the direction of the Bufadero valley, a wild gap two or three miles to the north of the harbour.

'An alarm signal was immediately made in the town, when the enemy returned to his ships, and made his troops prepare to disembark. At ten A.M. the three frigates, towed by their boats, cast anchor out of cannon-shot, near the Bufadero; whilst the other vessels plied to windward, [Footnote: At the time the weather was calm in the town, but a violent levante, or east wind, prevented vessels from approaching the bay, where the lee shore is very dangerous.] and disembarked about 1,200 men on the beach of Valle Seco, between the town and the valley. This party occupied the nearest hill before it could be attacked; its movements showed an intention to seize the steep rocky scarp commanding the Paso Alto—the furthest to the north of the town. [Footnote: Nelson's rough sketch, vol. ii. p. 434, shows that it had 26 guns. San Cristobal de Paso Alto commands the large ravine called by the Guanches 'Tahoide' or 'Tejode,' which is now defended by San Miguel. This is a small rockwork carrying six guns in two tiers, the upper en barbette and the lower casemated.] Thus the enemy would have been enabled to land fresh troops during the night; and, after gaining the heights and roads leading to the town, to attack us in flank as well as in front.

'Light troops were detached to annoy the invader, and they soon occupied the passes with praiseworthy celerity and boldness. One party was led by the Capitaine de Fregate Citizen Ponne [Footnote: James calls him Zavier Pommier. He commanded the French brig Mutine (14), of 349 tons, with a crew of 135. As he landed at Santa Cruz with 22 of his men on May 28, 1797, the frigates Lively, Captain Benjamin Hallowell, and the Minerva, Captain George Cockburn, descried the hostile craft. Lieutenant Hardy, of the Minerva, supported by six officers and their respective boats' crews, boarded her as she lay at anchor. Despite the fire of the garrison and of a large ship in the roads, he carried her, after an hour's work, safe out of gunshot. Only 15 men were wounded, including Lieutenant Hardy. This officer was at once put in command of the Mutine, which he had so gallantly won.] and by the Lieutenant de Vaisseau Citizen Faust. Both officers, who had been exchanged and restored at the same port, showed much presence of mind on this occasion, and on July 25 they applied to be posted at a dangerous point of attack—the beach to the south of the town, near Puerto Caballas, beyond where the Lazaretto now lies. When the enemy purposed assaulting a more central post, they came up at the moment of the affair, ending in our victory.

'A second party was composed of the Infantry Battalion of the Canaries, [Footnote: This battalion afterwards distinguished itself highly in the Peninsular war.] under Sub-Lieutenant Don Juan Sanchez. A third, composed of 70 recruits from the Banderas [Footnote: Bandera is a flag, a depot, also a levy made by officers of Government.] of Havana and Cuba, was led by Second Lieutenant Don Pedro Castillo; a fourth numbered seventeen artillerymen and two officers, Lieutenant Don Josef Feo and Sub-Lieutenant Don Francisco Dugi. A fifth, and the last, was of twenty-five free chasseurs belonging to the town, and commanded by Captains Don Felipe Vina and Don Luis Roman.

'Our Commandant-General, H. E. Senor Don Juan Antonio Gutierrez, [Footnote: Not Gutteri, as James has it, nor 'Gutienez,' as Mrs. Murray prefers.] was residing in the principal castle of San Cristobal. His staff consisted of the commandants of the Royal Corps of Artillery and Engineers, Don Marcelo Estranio and Don Luis Margueli; of the Auditor of War (an old office, the legal military adviser and judge), Don Vicente Patino; of Lieutenant-Colonel Don Juan Creagh (locally pronounced Cre-ah); of the Secretary of Inspection Captain Don Juan Creagh; of the Secretary to Government and Captain of Militia Don Guillermo de los Reyes; of the Captain of Infantry Don Josef Victor Dominguez; of Lieutenants Don Vicente Siera and Don Josef Calzadilla, Town-Adjutant—the latter three acting as aides-de-camp to his Excellency—and of the first officers of the Tobacco and Postal Bureaux, Don Juan Fernandez Uriarte and Don Gaspar de Fuentes.

'The five parties before alluded to, numbering a total of 191, were, at his own request, placed under Lieutenant-Colonel the Marquess de la Fuente de las Palmas, commanding the division of chasseurs. The first to mount the hill nearest the enemy, he saw the increased force of the attacker, who had placed a 4-pounder in position; whereupon he sent for reinforcements and some pieces of cannon. Our Commandant-General, on receipt of the message, ordered up four guns (3- and 4-pounders) with fifty men under a captain of the Infantry Battalion of the Canaries. Universal admiration was excited by the agility and intrepidity with which twenty militiamen of the Laguna Regiment, under the chief of that corps, Florencio Gonsalez, scaled the cliffs, carrying on their shoulders, besides their own arms and ammunition, the four guns and their appurtenances.

'Meanwhile our troops replied bravely to the enemy's deliberate fire of musketry and field-pieces. As he sallied out to a spring in the Valle Seco, two of his men were killed by the French party and the levies of Havana and Cuba, whilst a third died of suffocation whilst scaling the heights. At the same time Lieutenant-Colonel Don Juan Creagh, commanding the Infantry Battalion, accompanied by a volunteer, Don Vicente Siera, Lieutenant of the local corps (fixo) of Cuba, led thirty of his men and fifty Rozadores [Footnote: The insular name of an irregular corps, now done away with. Literally taken, the word means sicklemen.] belonging to the city of La Laguna. They proceeded across country in order to reconnoitre the enemy's rear. Before nightfall they succeeded in occupying high ground in the same valley opposite the heights held by the English, and in manning the defiles through which the latter must pass on their way to the town.

'As soon as the enemy saw these troops, he formed in five companies near his field-gun. Lieutenant-Colonel Creagh was joined by some 500 men of the Laguna militia, and their lieutenant, Don Nicholas Quintin Garcia, followed by the peasantry of the adjoining districts, under the Alcalde or Mayor of Taganana. These and all the other troops were liberally supplied with provisions by the Ayuntamiento (municipality) of the Island.

'On the next morning (July 23) our scouts being sent down to the valley, found that the enemy had disappeared during the night. Notwithstanding which, the Marquess de las Palmas ordered a deliberate fire to be kept up in case of surprise. Our General, when informed of the event, recalled the troops. The Marquess, who unfortunately received a fall which kept him hors de combat for many days, [Footnote: I find pencilled in the original volume, 'Que caida tam oportuna!' (What a lucky fall!)] obeyed with his command at 5 P.M., leaving behind him thirty men under Don Felix Uriundo, second lieutenant of the Battalion of Canaries. Don Juan Creagh did the same with his men. But as the French commandant reported that some of the enemy were still lurking about the place, our General-in-Chief directed Captain Don Santiago Madan, second adjutant of the same corps, to reconnoitre once more the Valle Seco with 120 Rozadores. This duty was well performed, despite the roughness of the paths and the excessive heat of the sun.

'The enemy's squadron now seemed inclined to desist from its attempt. At 6 A.M. of July 23 Rear-Admiral Nelson's flagship, which, with the other ships of the line, had kept in the offing, drew near, and signalled the frigates to sheer off from the point and to rejoin the rest of the squadron. These, however, at 3 P.M., allowed themselves to drop down the coast towards the dangerous southern reaches between Barranco Hondo, beyond the Quarantine-house and the village of Candelaria, distant a day's march from Santa Cruz. To prevent their landing men, Captain Don Antonio Eduardo, and the special engineer, Don Manuel Madera, reconnoitred the shore about Puerto Caballas, to see if artillery could be brought there. Meanwhile Sub-Lieutenant Don Cristobal Trinidad, of the Guimar Regiment, watched, with fifty of his men, the coast near San Isidro, [Footnote: Here the landing is easiest.] which is not far from Barranco Hondo. The squadron, however, retired to such a distance that it could hardly be discerned from the town, as it bore S.E. 1/4 E.: notwithstanding which, all preparations were made to give the enemy a warm reception.

'At daylight on July 24 the squadron again appeared, crowding on all sail to gain the weather-side. The look-out at Anaga Point, north of the island, signalled three ships from that direction, and two to the south, where we could distinguish only one of fifteen guns, which was presently joined by the rest. At 6 P.M. the enemy anchored with his whole force on the same ground which the frigates chose on the 22nd, and feinted to attack Paso Alto Fort. Our General and chiefs were not deceived. Foreseeing that we should be assaulted in front, and to the right or south, [Footnote: The town of Santa Cruz runs due north and south in a right line; the bay affords no shelter to shipping, and the beach is rocky.] they made their dispositions accordingly, without, however, neglecting to protect the left.

'At 6 P.M. a frigate and the bomb-ketch approached Paso Alto, and the latter opened fire upon the fort and the heights behind it. These positions were occupied by 56 men of the Battalion of the Canaries, 40 Rozadores, under Second Lieutenant Don Felix Uriundo, and 16 artillerymen, commanded by Sub-Lieutenant of Militia Artillery Don Josef Cambreleng. [Footnote: A Flemish name, I believe: the family is still in the island.] Of 43 shells, however, only one fell in the fort, bursting in a place where straw for soldiers' beds had been stored, and this, like the others, did no damage. [Footnote: A fragment of this shell is preserved in the Fort Chapel for the edification of strangers.] Paso Alto, commanded by the Captain of the Royal Corps of Artillery, Don Vicente Rosique, replied firmly. At the same time Don Juan del Castillo, sub-lieutenant of militia, with 16 men, reconnoitred, by H. E. the Governor's orders, the Valle Seco. The operation was boldly performed, despite the darkness of night and other dangers; and our soldiers returned with a prisoner, an Irish sailor of the Fox cutter, who had swum off from his ship.

'The enemy now prepared his force for the attack. One thousand five hundred men, [Footnote: James numbers 200 seamen and marines from each of the three line-of-battle ships, and 100 from each of the three frigates, besides officers, servants, and a small detachment of Royal Artillery. This made a total of 1,000 to 1,060 men, commanded by Captain, afterwards Admiral, Sir Thomas Troubridge, Bart. Nelson (Despatches, vol. ii. p. 43) says 600 to 700 men in the squadron boats, 180 on board the Fox, and about 70 or 80 in a captured boat; total, at most, 960.] as we were afterwards informed, well armed with guns, pistols, pikes, swords, saws, and hatchets, and led by their best officers, among whom was the Rear-Admiral, embarked in their boats. At 2.15 A.M. (July 25) they put off in the deepest silence. The frigate of the Philippine Islands Company, anchored outside the shipping in the bay, discovered them when close alongside. Almost at the same moment the Paso Alto Fort, under Lieutenant-Colonel Don Pedro de Higueras, and the Captain of Artillery Don Vicente Rosique, gave the signal to the (saluting) battery of San Antonio [Footnote: This old work, a fleur d'eau, still remains; and near it are the ruins of the Bateria de los Melones, on land bought by the Davidson family.] in the town, held by the Captain of Militia Artillery Don Patricio Madan. They alarmed the citizens by their fire, and the enemy attacked with rare intrepidity.

'The defence was gallantly kept up by the battery of San Miguel, under Sub-Lieutenant of Artillery Don Josef Marrero; by the Castle of San Pedro, [Footnote: The San Pedro battery dated from 1797. It defended the southern town with six embrasures and three guns en barbette. For many years huge mortars and old guns lay outside this work.] under the Captain of Artillery Don Francisco Tolosa; by the Provisional Battery de los Melones, [Footnote: Now destroyed. It was, I have said, near the new casemates north of the town.] under the Sergeant of Militia Juan Evangelista; by the Mole-battery, under Lieutenant of the Royal Corps of Artillery Don Joaquim Ruiz and Sub-Lieutenant of Militia Don Francisco Dugi; by the Castle of San Cristobal, under the Captain of the Royal Regiment of Artillery and Brigade-Major Don Antonio Eduardo, who commanded the central and right batteries, and Lieutenant of Militia Artillery Don Francisco Grandi, to whom were entrusted the defences on our left; by the battery of La Concepcion, [Footnote: Where the Custom House now is, in the middle of the town.] under Captain of the Royal Regiment of Artillery Don Clemente Falcon; and by that of San Telmo, [Footnote: Near the dirty little square south of the Custom House. The word is thus written throughout the Canary Islands; in Italy, Sant' Elmo.] under the Captain of Militia Artillery Don Sebastian Yanez.

'The rest of our line did not fire, because the enemy's boats had not passed the Barranco, or stony watercourse, which divides the southern from the northern town. In the Castle of San Juan,

[Footnote: It is the southernmost work, afterwards used as a powder-magazine. To the south of the town are also the Bateria de la Rosa, near the coal-sheds, and the Santa Isabel work. The latter had 22 fine brass guns, each of 13 centimetres, made at Seville, once a famous manufactory.]

however, Captain Don Diego Fernandez Calderia trained four guns to bear upon the beach, which was protected by the Laguna militia regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Juan de Castro.

'So hot and well-directed was our fire, that almost all the boats were driven back, and the Fox cutter, with her commander and 382 of the landing party—others said 450—also carrying a reserve store of arms and ammunition, was sunk. [Footnote: Nelson, loc. cit., says 180 men were in the Fox, and of these 97 were lost. So Captain Brenton, Naval History, says 97. In vol. ii. p. 84, speaking of Trafalgar, he informs us that the French ship Indomptable (84), M. Hubart, was wrecked off Rota, where her crew, said to be 1,500 men, all perished. Add, 'except M. Maffiote, of Tenerife, and about 143 others.'] Rear-Admiral Nelson lost his right arm before he could touch ground, and was compelled to return to his flag-ship, with the other officers of his boat all badly wounded. [Footnote: The grape-shot was fired from the Castle of San Pedro; others opine from San Cristobal; and the Canarese say that a splinter of stone did the work. According to most authorities, Nelson was half-way up the mole. James declares that Nelson's elbow was struck by a shot as he was drawing his sword and stepping out of his boat. In Nelson's Despatches, loc. cit., we read that the 'mole was instantly stormed and carried, although defended by 400 or 500 men, and the guns—six 24-pounders—were spiked; but such a heavy fire of musketry and grape-shot was kept up from the citadel and houses at the head of the mole that we could not advance, and nearly all were killed.'] The brave Captain Bowen was killed on the first step of the Mole, a volley of grape tearing away his stomach. [Footnote: This officer is said to have caused the expedition, by describing it to Admiral Jervis and the British Government as an easy exploit. He had previously cut out of this bay a Philippine Island frigate, El Principe Fernando; and he had with him, as guide, a Chinese prisoner, taken in that vessel. The guide was also killed. Captain Bowen's family made some exertions to recover certain small articles which he carried about him—watch, pistols, &c.—and failed. One pistol was lost, and for the other its possessor modestly demanded 14l.] Nineteen other Englishmen were struck down by a discharge of grape. The gun which fired it had, on that same night, been placed by the governor of the Castle of San Cristobal, Don Josef Monteverde, [Footnote: There is a note in my volume, 'Father of the adopted son, Miguelito Morales.'] at a new embrasure which he caused to be opened in the flank of the bastion. [Footnote: This part of the castle has now been altered, and mounted with brass 80-pounders.] Thus it commanded the landing-place, where before there was dead ground. The enemy afterwards confessed that the injury thus done was the first cause of his misfortunes.

'Notwithstanding the Rear-Admiral's wound and the enemy's loss in men and chief officers, a single boat, carrying Captain and Commodore Troubridge, covered by the smoke and the darkness, landed at the Caleta [Footnote: 'Caleta' means literally a cul de sac. At Santa Cruz it is applied to a rocky tract near the Custom-house Battery: in those days it was the place where goods were disembarked.] beach. At the same time the main body of the English, who had escaped the grape of the Castle of San Cristobal and the batteries La Concepcion and San Telmo, disembarked a little further south, at the Barranquillo del Aceyte, [Footnote: This ditch is now built over and converted into a drain. It runs a little above the present omnibus stables.] at the Butcheries, and at the Barranco Santo. [Footnote: Also called de la Cassona—'of the Dog-fish'—that animal being often caught in a charco, or pool, in the broad watercourse. So those baptised in the parish church are popularly said to have been 'dipped in the waters of the Dog-fish Pool.'] The levies of Havana and Cuba, posted in the Butcheries under Second Lieutenant Don Pedro de Castilla, being unable to repulse the enemy's superior force, retreated upon the Battalion of Infantry of the Canaries, consisting of 260 men and officers, including the militia. This corps, supported by two field-guns, [Footnote: In the original 'canones violentos,' i.e. 4-pounders, 6-pounders, or 8-pounders.] ably and energetically worked by the pilots, Nicolas Franco and Josef Garcia, did such damage that the English were in turn compelled to fall back upon the beaches of the Barranco and the Butcheries.

'These were the only places where the enemy was able to gain a footing in the town. He marched in two columns, one, with drums beating, by the little square of the parish church (La Concepcion) to the convent of Santo Domingo, [Footnote: Afterwards pulled down to make room for a theatre and a market-place.] and the other to the Plaza [Footnote: Plaza here means the square behind the castle. In other places it applies to the fortified part of the town.] of the San Cristobal castle. His plan of attack was to occupy the latter post, but he was driven back from the portcullis after losing one officer by the hot fire of the militia-Captain Don Esteban Benitez de Lugo. Thus driven back to the Caleta, the invaders marched along the street called "de las Tiendas." [Footnote: It is now the 'Cruz Verde.' In those days it was the principal street; the Galle del Castello (holding at present that rank) then showed only scattered houses.] They then drew up at the head of the square, maintaining a silence which was not broken by nine guns discharged at them by the Captain of Laguna Chasseurs Don Fernando del Hoyo, nor by the aspect of the two field-pieces ranged in front of them by the Mayor, who was present at all the most important points in the centre of the line. The cause was discovered in an order afterwards found in the pocket of Lieut. Robinson, R.M. It ran to this effect:—[Footnote: This and other official documents are translated into English from the Spanish. According to our naval despatches and histories the senior marine officer who commanded the whole detachment was Captain Thomas Oldfleld, R.M. The 'Relacion circumstanciada' declares that the original is in the hands of Don Bernardo Cologan y Fablon, another Irish-Spanish gentleman who united valour and patriotism. He was seen traversing, sabre in hand, the most dangerous places, encouraging the men and attending to the wounded so zealously that he parted even with his shirt for bandaging their hurts.]

'July 24, night.

'SIR,—You will repair with the party under your command to H.M.S. Zealous, where you will receive final instructions. Care must be taken to keep silence in the ranks, and the only countersign which you and your men are to use is that of "The Leander."

'I am, Sir, &c. &c., '(Signed) T. THOMPSON.

'Lieutenant Robinson, R.M.

'Standing at the head of the square, the enemy could observe that not far from them was a provision-store, guarded by Don Juan Casalon and Don Antonio Power, [Footnote: The original has it 'Pouver,' a misprint. The Irish-Spanish family of Power is well known in the Canaries.] the two "deputies of Abastos." [Footnote: Now called regidores—officers who are charged with distributing rations.] The English seized it, wounding Dons Patricio Power and Casalon, who, after receiving two blows with an axe, escaped. They then obliged, under parole, the deputy Power and Don Luis Fonspertius to conduct into the Castle a sergeant sent to parly. Our Commandant-General, when summoned to surrender the town within two minutes, under pain of its being burned, returned an answer worthy of his honour and gallantry. "Such a proposal," he remarked, "requires no reply," and in proof thereof he ordered the party to be detained. [Footnote: According to James, who follows Troubridge's report, the sergeant was shot in the streets and no answer was received.]

'Meanwhile our militiamen harassed the first column of the enemy, compelling it, by street-fighting, to form up in the little squares of Santo Domingo and of the parish church. Our Commandant-General was startled when he found that this position cut off direct communication between San Cristobal and the Battalion of the Canaries, whose fire, like that of the militiamen on the right, suddenly ceased. But he was assured that the battalion was unbroken, and all the central posts except the Mole were supported, by the report of Lieutenant Don Vicente Siera: this officer had just attacked with 30 men of that battalion the enemy's boats as they lay grounded at the mouth of the Barranco Santo, dislodging the defenders, who had taken shelter behind them, and making five prisoners. The English were stopped at the narrow way near the base of the pier by the hot fire of the troops under Captain and Adjutant of Chasseurs Don Luis Roman, the nine militiamen under Don Francisco Jorva, the sergeant of the guard Domingo Mendez, and a recruit of the Havana levy; these made forty-four prisoners, including six officers, whilst twelve were wounded. Our Commandant-General was presently put out of all doubt by Don Josef Monteverde. This governor of San Cristobal, when informed that 2,000 Englishmen had entered the town, intending probably to attack the Castle with the scaling-ladders brought from their boats, resolved himself to inspect the whole esplanade, and accordingly reconnoitred the front and flank of the Citadel.

'All our advantages were well-nigh lost by a report which spread through the garrison when our firing ceased. A cry arose that our chief was killed, and that as the English who had taken the town were marching upon La Laguna, they must be intercepted at the cuesta, or hill, behind Santa Cruz. It is easy to conceive what a panic such rumours would cause among badly armed and half-drilled militia. The report arose thus:—Our Commandant-General seeing the defenders of the battery at the foot of the Mole retreating, and hearing them cry, "Que nos cortan!" (We are cut off!), sallied out with Don Juan Creagh and other officers, the Port Captain, the Town Adjutant, and the chief collector of the tobacco-tax. After ordering the corps of Chasseurs, 89 men and 9 officers, to fire, our chief returned, leaning upon the arm of Don Juan Creagh, and some inconsiderate person thought that he was wounded. Fortunately this indiscretion went no further than the Chasseur Battalion of the Canaries and the militiamen on our right.

'When this battalion was not wanted in its former position it was ordered to the square behind the Citadel. The movement was effected about daybreak by Don Manuel Salcedo, Lieutenant of the King. [Footnote: An old title (now changed) given to the military governor of Santa Cruz and the second highest authority in the archipelago. Marshal O'Donnell was Teniente del Rey at Tenerife, and he was born in a house facing the cross in the main square of Santa Cruz.] That officer had never left his corps, patrolling with it along the beaches where the enemy disembarked, and he had sent to the barracks twenty-six prisoners, besides three whom he captured at San Cristobal. When the battalion was formed up and no enemy appeared, the Adjutant-Major enquired about them in a loud voice. Meanwhile the Laguna militia, who in two divisions, each of 120 men, under Lieut.-Col. Don Juan Baptista de Castro, had been posted from San Telmo to the Grariton, [Footnote: Meaning a large garita, or sentry-box. It is a place near the windmills to the south of the town.] were also ordered to the main square. In two separate parties they marched, one in direct line, the other by upper streets, to cut off the enemy's retreat and place him between two fires. As the latter, however, entered the little square of Santo Domingo, their commander, Lieut.-Col. de Castro, hearing a confusion of tongues, mistook for Spaniards and Frenchmen the English who were holding it. Thereupon the enemy fired a volley, which killed him and a militiaman and wounded many, whilst several were taken prisoners.

'The attackers presently manned the windows of Santo Domingo, and kept up a hot fire against our militiamen. They then determined to send an officer of marines to our Commandant-General, once more demanding the surrender of the town under the threat of burning it. At the order of Lieut.-Col. Don Juan Guinther the parliamentary was conducted to the Citadel by Captain Don Santiago Madan. Our chief replied only that the city had still powder, ball, and fighting men.

'Thereupon the affair recommenced. One battalion came up with two field-guns to support its friends, and several militiamen died honourably, exposing themselves to the fire of an entrenched enemy. Our position was further reinforced by the militia-pickets that had been skirmishing in the streets, and by the greater part of those who, deceived by a false report, had retired to the slopes of La Laguna.

'Already it was morning, when a squadron of five armed boats was seen making for our right. Our brave artillerymen had not the patience to let them approach, but at once directed at them a hot fire, especially from the Mole battery, under Don Francisco Grandi. That officer, accompanied by the second constable, Manuel Troncos, had just passed from the Citadel [Footnote: La Ciudadela, to the north of the mole, is not built, as we read in Colburn (U. S. Magazine, January 1864), on an artificial wall. It has a moat, casemates, loopholes, and twelve bouches a feu for plunging fire. The lines will connect with La Laguna and complete the defences of the capital.] to the battery in question, and had removed the spikes driven into the guns by Citoyen Francois Martiney when he saw them abandoned. [Footnote: The English diary shows that the Spaniards had spiked the guns.] The principal Castle and the Mole batteries, supported by that of La Concepcion, rained a shower of grape at a long range with such precision that three boats were sunk and the two others fell back upon the squadron. At the same time the Port Captain and Flag Officer of the frigate ordered his men to knock out the bottoms of eighteen boats which the enemy after his attack had left on the beach.

'The English posted in the convent, seeing the destruction of their reinforcements, lost heart and persuaded the prior, Fray Carlos de Lugo, and the master, Fray Juan de Iriarte, to bear another message to our chief. The officer commanding the enemy's troops declared himself ready to respect the lives and property of those about him provided that the Royal Treasury and that of the Philippine Company were surrendered, otherwise that he could not answer for the consequences.