probably in ancient times was in universal practice, but is now more
or less confined to one district, the neighbourhood of the Montaña de
Chipude, being very rarely used by the natives in San Sebastian, who
have most of them lost the art. The best whistlers can make themselves
heard for three or four miles, and in the whistling district all
messages are sent in this way, which no doubt is of the greatest
convenience where telegrams are unknown and deep _barrancos_ separate
one village from another. The greatest adepts in the art do not use
their fingers at all, and by mere intonations and variations of two
or three notes a sufficiently elaborate language has been invented to
enable a conversation to be carried on. The following may possibly
be a traveller’s tale, but it shows the use which can be made of the
language: “A landed proprietor from San Sebastian with farms in the
south took lessons secretly. The next time he visited his tenants he
heard his approach heralded from hill to hill, instructions being
given to hide a cow here or a pig there, and so on, in order that he
should not claim his _medias_ or share of the same.” The writer of
the above himself heard the following short message given: “There is
a _caballero_ here who wants a letter taken to San Sebastian. Tell
Fulano to take this place on his way and fetch it.” This was at once
understood and acted upon. If any doubt is held as to the accuracy
of the message, the answer comes to repeat, and when understood the
receiver answers back, “Aye, aye.” It is to be hoped that the practice
will not entirely die out, as I believe the whistling language of
Gomera is unique.
XIII
FUERTEVENTURA, LANZAROTE AND HIERRO
The three islands of Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, and Hierro, complete the
group of seven Fortunate Isles, as the little satellites of Graciosa,
Alegranza, Montaña Clara, are hardly more than large rocks, uninhabited
and only visited occasionally by fishermen.
Fuerteventura, though by no means a very small island, being over 60
miles long and about 18 miles broad, has remained in a primitive and
unexploited condition, because in spite of the fertility of the soil,
which is said to be remarkable, the scarcity of water is great and the
inhabitants are entirely dependent on the rainfall. In a good year,
namely a rainy year, the island grows a very good wheat crop, almost
larger than that of any other island, but the absence of fresh-water
springs, or the apathy of the natives in not making use of what there
are, has prevented any agricultural development. The island has no pine
forest and trees are scarce: great parts of it are barren, sandy and
rocky plains, and the little vegetation there is, is said to resemble
that which is found in certain parts of the northern deserts of Africa.
Its highest point is only about 2700 ft. and is called Orejas de Asno
(Ass’s Ears), situated in the sandy peninsula at the extreme south of
the island. At the present time travellers are warned that drinking
water is scarce, nasty, and frequently has to be paid for. Whether
the island is even drier than it was at the beginning of last century
I know not, but Berthelot and his companion remark that there were
many good springs, which even in July, the driest month, were cool and
clear, but were allowed to waste themselves, no trouble being taken to
collect the water either for irrigation or domestic use.
Both Fuerteventura and the neighbouring island of Lanzarote are given a
distinctly African appearance by the extensive use of camels as beasts
of locomotion and burden, donkeys even being comparatively uncommon and
difficult to procure so communication between the villages is almost
entirely carried on by means of camels.
Lanzarote received its name from a corruption of the Christian name of
a Genoese, Captain Lancelot de Malvoisel, and in the old Medici map the
island is marked with the Genoese coat-of-arms to show that it belonged
to that town.
Though not as near the African coast as Fuerteventura, which is only
about 60 miles from Cape Juby, the island is very African in aspect in
places, the camels, the vast stretches of blown sand and the absence of
vegetation being suggestive of the Sahara.
The few springs in the north of the island are utilised for growing
crops of wheat and tomatoes, but are not of sufficient size to allow
of any extensive plan of irrigation, and in the south the inhabitants
depend entirely on rain water.
Lanzarote is almost the most volcanic of all the islands, and between
1730 and 1737 no fewer than twenty-five new craters opened, so it is
not to be wondered at that the inhabitants were much alarmed when
fresh disturbances were felt in the summer of 1824. In a series of
letters written by Don Augustin Cabrera, an inhabitant of the island
at the time, an excellent account is given of the eruptions. A slight
earthquake preceded the sudden appearance of a new crater in the early
morning of July 1, 1824, in the neighbourhood of Tao, in the centre
of a plain. The crater, which at first had the appearance of a great
crevasse, emitted showers of sand and red hot stones, and did great
damage to the surrounding country, destroying some most valuable
reservoirs, and it was even feared that Tiagua, though a long distance
away, would be destroyed, as a _montañeta_ in the district began to
smoke. On September 16, the writer says that after eighteen hours
the crater had ceased its shower of hot ashes, but a dense column of
smoke spouted forth, and the rumbling could be heard for miles round,
and from the _montañeta_, which at first had only smoked, came a
torrent of boiling water. “Yesterday,” says the writer, “after there
had been comparative quiet for some time, a loud noise was heard, and
the boiling water spouted forth in torrents. At times there is dense
smoke, which clears away, and then comes the water again.” Writing in
October he gives a most graphic and alarming account of an eruption
on September 29, when the volcano burst through the lava deposit of
1730, and flaming torrents flowed down to the sea. A noise like loud
thunder had continued unceasingly, and prevented the inhabitants from
sleeping, even many miles away. No wonder they dreaded a repetition of
the disasters of 1730-37, as in two months two new craters had opened.
On October 18 another letter says: “There is no doubt a furnace is
under our feet. For twelve days the volcano had appeared dead, though
frequent shocks of earthquake warned us such was not the case, and
true enough yesterday the volcano burst through a bed of lava in the
centre of a great plain, sending up into the air a column of boiling
water 150 ft. high.” It is also said that for several days the heat was
suffocating, and sailors could scarcely see the island because of the
dense mist.
The island has been a source of the deepest interest to geologists,
and both M. Buch and Webb and Berthelot visited it between 1820-38,
spending many weeks in the island. Few travellers seem to find their
way there now, as there is no port and no mole passengers have to be
carried ashore.
The little island of Graciosa, only five miles long and a mile broad,
separated from Lanzarote by the narrow strait of El Rio, is a broad
stretch of sand covered with shells, but the three principal cones in
the island are said to be volcanic, and show the origin of the island.
After autumn rains, the sand is covered with herbaceous plants, and in
old days the inhabitants of the north of Lanzarote used to transport
their cattle to feed there.
Montaña Clara, hardly more than a rock some 300 ft. high, lies to the
north of Graciosa, and Allegranza, the “Joy” of Bethencourt, as it was
the first soil on which he set foot, is to the north again, and is
really the first island of the Canary Archipelago, so it consequently
boasts of a lighthouse. The possession of the island in old days was
a matter of much dispute, as the feathers of a bird (_Larus Marinus_)
were very valuable, and nearly as profitable as the down of the eider;
also puffins, which existed here in vast numbers, were salted and sold,
and now a small amount of fish-curing is done on the island at certain
seasons. The greater part of the island is taken up by a crater of
considerable extent, so even this tiny island is not without its Gran
Caldera.
[Illustration: A SPANISH GARDEN]
Hierro, the Isle of Iron, is to the extreme south-west of the
Canary Archipelago, and for several centuries was probably regarded
by ancient navigators as the most western point in the world--beyond
lay the unknown. The name is a corruption by the Spaniards of the word
_heres_, which in the language of the original Ben-bachirs, whose name
was in its turn changed to Bembachos, meant a small reservoir or tank
for collecting rain water. As the island is almost entirely dependent
on the rainfall these tanks were of the greatest value to the natives,
and in old records it is stated that a _here_ was much more valued
in a marriage settlement than land. The theory that the island was
called _hierro_, meaning iron, because of the presence of the metal
in the island is not much regarded, as we are especially told by old
historians that when Bethencourt attacked the island the natives
were armed with lances which had _not_ iron heads, and the historian
adds, the only iron these natives knew was from the chains of their
oppressors, who appear to have treated them with great cruelty.
The excessive moisture of the air and the presence of a fair amount
of wooded country which attracts the moisture, enables the flocks of
sheep to live on the natural vegetation. The only water they get is
from eating leaves of plants when saturated with dew, their principal
fodder being the leaves and even roots of asphodel, also mulberry and
fig leaves. Hierro is especially celebrated for its figs, which are the
best grown in any of the islands, and extremely free fruiting. One tree
alone may bear 400 lb. of fruit.
The best-known springs are those of Los Llanillos, which furnishes
the best drinking water in the islands, being said to be always clear
and cold, and the spring of Sabinosa. The latter is warm, smells of
sulphur, and has a bitter taste and medicinal properties. One of
Bethencourt’s chaplains mentions that it has a great merit: “When you
have eaten till you can eat no more, you then drink a glass of this
water, and after an hour all the meat is digested, and you feel just as
hungry as you did before you began, and can begin all over again!”
There is no sea-port village, the landing-place consisting merely
of a small cove sheltered by masses of fallen rock, and the little
capital of Valverde lies two hours distant on foot. As practically no
accommodation is to be relied on, those who are bent on exploring
the island are recommended to provide themselves with a tent. The
vegetation is said to be of great interest to botanists, and they
appear to be the only travellers who ever visit the island.
XIV
HISTORICAL SKETCH
Few people, until they are proposing to pay a visit to the “Fortunate
Islands,” a name by which the group of seven Canary Islands seems to
have been known since very early days, ever trouble themselves to learn
anything of their history. Beyond the fact that they belong to Spain,
a piece of information probably surviving from their school-room days,
they have never troubled their heads about them, and I have known a
look of surprise come over the face of an Englishwoman on hearing a
Spaniard mention a fact which probably dated “from before the Conquest,
quite five centuries ago,” entirely forgetting that “the Conquest”
could mean anything but the English conquest, instead of the conquest
of the Canary Islands by the Spaniards at the latter end of the
fifteenth century.
Possibly the reason that so few authentic records remain of their
ancient history is that though the outlying islands of the group are
only some 80 or 100 miles from the African coast, still they were on
the extreme limit of the ancient world. The various theories that they
were really the home of the Hesperides, or the garden of Atlas, King
of Mauretania, where the golden apple was guarded by the dragon, the
Peak being the Mount Atlas of mythology, or again that they were merely
the remains of the sunken continent of Atlantis, can never really
be settled, but it seems almost certain that they were not entirely
unknown to the ancients. The fact that Homer mentions an island “beyond
the Pillars of Hercules,” as the Straits of Gibraltar were called, has
caused the adoption of the Pillars of Hercules, with a small island in
the distance surmounted with _Oce ano_, as one of the coats-of-arms of
the Islands, though the more correct one appears to be the two large
dogs (because of the two native dogs which were taken back to King
Juba about 50 B.C., when he sent ships from Mauretania to inspect
Canaria) supporting a shield on which is depicted the seven islands.
Herodotus in his description of the countries beyond Libya says that,
“the world ends where the sea is no longer navigable, in that place
where are the gardens of the Hesperides, where Atlas supports the sky
on a mountain as conical as a cylinder.” Hesiod says that “Jupiter sent
dead heroes to the end of the world, to the Fortunate Islands, which
are in the middle of the ocean.” There is no doubt that the Romans, on
re-discovering the Islands, christened them _Insulæ Fortunatæ_, which
name has clung to them ever since.
Pliny, in writing about the islands, quotes the statements of Juba, who
said the islands were placed at the extreme limit of the world, and
were perpetually clothed with fire.
It is unfortunate that the Spaniards, when they conquered the islands,
took no trouble to preserve any of their ancient records, and as the
natives could not write, any history which might have been handed
down from generation to generation was entirely lost. For this reason
very little is known for certain as to what happened to the islands
in the Middle Ages, though they appear to be mentioned by an Arabian
geographer in the early part of the twelfth century, who writes of “the
island of the two magician brothers, Cheram and Clerham, from which,
in clear weather, smoke could be seen issuing from the African coast.”
Various European countries, having heard tales of islands beyond the
seas, appear to have made efforts to conquer them. The fate of the
Genoese expedition in A.D. 1291 is not known, and though
the French are said to have “discovered” them in 1330, it was the
Portuguese who took advantage of this discovery, and a few years later
sent an expedition to conquer them. They met with no success, and were
repulsed by the inhabitants of Gomera, and though they made yet another
attempt after a few years, it appears to have been without result.
No doubt the comparative peace which reigned in the islands for so long
was owing to the fact that Europe was too much occupied with civil wars
and crusades, to explore and conquer far-off lands, but during the
fourteenth century a French nobleman of Spanish extraction was made
“King of the Fortunate Islands” by the Pope, and told to Christianise
them in the best way he could. Nothing much seems to have come of these
instructions, though some missionaries were no doubt sent to Grand
Canary.
The conquest of the islands seems to have occupied the Spaniards for
nearly a century, as in 1402 we read of Jean de Bethencourt (a name
still common in the islands), who fitted out a ship for the purpose of
conquering them and settling there. Lanzarote was peaceably occupied,
as its fighting population was small, but in the neighbouring island
of Fuerteventura he was repulsed. Henry King of Castille provided
reinforcements, and, on condition that the Archipelago should be
annexed in his name, Bethencourt was to be made “Lord of the Isles”
of four of the group. The four smaller islands were soon brought
under subjection--Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Gomera, and Hierro; in
fact, in some of the islands the newcomers were welcomed. The three
larger islands--Canary, Teneriffe, and La Palma--proved a more serious
undertaking, and the invaders being stoutly resisted and lacking in
forces, their conquest was for a time abandoned, and Bethencourt did
not live to see them subjugated. His nephew sold his rights to the
Portuguese, which complicated matters. It was not until 1464 that any
determined attack was again made, though Spanish troops had made an
unsuccessful attempt to conquer La Palma some ten years previously.
The Lord of Gomera, Diego de Herrera, made most determined attacks
in 1464, beginning unsuccessfully in Canary; but in the same year he
again collected his forces and attacked Teneriffe, landing at Santa
Cruz. Don Diego, having been driven into a corner by the Canarios, sent
his son-in-law, Diego da Silva, to make a counter-attack. He fared no
better, and escape being cut off, offered to surrender, but quarter
was denied. By a stratagem a Canario leader was seized as a hostage,
and Silva demanded free passage to his ship, which was granted. Silva
had misgivings as to the sincerity of the Canarios, and apparently was
so glad to escape with his life, that when he arrived at his ship he
and all his men voluntarily gave up their arms, and vowed never again
to fight the Canarios--a vow which Silva, at any rate, kept, in spite
of the indignation of Diego. Some of the men broke their promise, and
joined Diego’s attacking forces again; and on being taken prisoners
by the natives, instead of being put to death were condemned to spend
their lives in brushing away flies, as execution was too high an honour
for such base creatures.
Some years after, the “fly-flappers” were set at liberty, as Diego
succeeded in making a treaty with the Canarios; but the island was far
from being conquered, and still offered stout resistance, though the
Spaniards seem by now to have determined not to let such a prize escape
them. Reinforcements came from Spain, and a small body of cavalry, we
are told, terrorised the natives, and though the Portuguese interfered
on behalf of the Canarios, the Spaniards now got a footing in the
island in the year 1478, during the reign of Ferdinand V. of Castille.
After many unsuccessful attacks from the other islands, it fell
to the lot of Don Alonso de Lugo to complete the work of Jean de
Bethencourt. “De Lugo el Conquistador, and afterwards Governor of the
Province of the Canaries, was a Galician nobleman, who had served with
distinction against the Moors in the conquest of Granada, and had
been presented with the valley of Ageste (Canary) in return for his
services. Whilst there he conceived the capture of Teneriffe and of La
Palma, reconnoitring their coasts and acquainting himself with their
geographical features.”
Helped by the inhabitants of Gomera, who by this time had become
accustomed to the rule of the conquerors, De Lugo made a desperate
though unsuccessful attempt in 1491 to conquer La Palma, which had
remained in comparative peace for over half a century. It was not till
1492, after months of desperate fighting, that he succeeded in subduing
the island and adding it as a prize to the dominions of Spain.
A year later he turned his attention to Teneriffe and landed at Añaza
(Santa Cruz). He hoped that quarrels among the Guanches might be in
his favour, but after a considerable number of his men had been cut to
pieces at Matanza (Place of Slaughter) he was forced to retire, and
after a year’s fighting evacuated the island, until reinforcements
were sent to him. Before the close of the same year he returned to the
attack, and desperate resistance was met with in the district of La
Laguna. The Guanches, though successful in keeping the invaders at bay,
were much discouraged by losing several of their leaders, and began to
quarrel among themselves; how long they might still have held out it is
impossible to know, but Providence seems at this moment to have come to
the help of the Spaniards.
The disease known as _Modorra_, possibly some form of typhus fever,
broke out among the Guanches. Old writings describe this disease as
being most malignant and mysterious, and its effects among the natives
were appalling. The Spaniards remained immune, but I should think it
was not without qualms that they watched the ghastly destruction of
their foes, who appear to have been seized with hopeless melancholia,
lost all wish to live, and wandered about listlessly in troops or laid
down in caves to die. One writer says: “Even at the present day such
retreats are occasionally discovered, little heaps of bones or seated
skeletons marking the spot where the despairing victims sank to rise no
more. It is said that some Spaniards, reconnoitring on the road to La
Laguna, met an old woman seated alone on the Montaña de Taco, who waved
them on, bidding them go in and occupy that charnel-house where none
were left to offer opposition.”
De Lugo seems to have passed through the district of the _modorra_,
but met with resistance in the valley of Orotava, where the Mencey
of Taoro (the old name of Villa Orotava) advanced to meet him with a
considerable force. Another sanguinary engagement took place at La
Victoria and the invaders again had to retreat. The _modorra_ still
raged, and in 1496 the site of the present villages of Realejo
Alto and Bajo, in the valley of Orotava, was the scene of the final
capitulation of the Guanches, worn out by illness and perpetual
fighting.
It is not altogether surprising that other countries looked rather
longingly at Spain’s new possession, and both their Portuguese
neighbours and the Moors made one or two feeble attempts to claim them.