TO TENERIFE, LA LAGUNA, AND OROTAVA.
When I left, in 1865, the western coast of the Dark Continent, its
transit and traffic were monopolised by the A(frican) S(team) S(hip)
Company, a monthly line established in 1852, mainly by the late
Macgregor Laird. In 1869 Messieurs Elder, Dempster, and Co., of Glasgow,
started the B(ritish) and A(frican) to divide the spoils. The junior
numbers nineteen keel, including two being built. It could easily 'eat
up' the decrepit senior, which is now known as the A(frican)
S(tarvation) S(teamers); but this process would produce serious
competition. Both lines sail from Liverpool on alternate Saturdays, and
make Funchal, with their normal unpunctuality, between Fridays and
Sundays. This is dreary slow compared with the four days' fast running
of the 'Union S. S. C.' and the comfortable 'Castle Line,' alias the
Cape steamers.
The B. and A. s.s. _Senegal_ is a fair specimen of the modern West
African trader 'improved:' unfortunately the improvements affect the
shareholders' pockets rather than the passengers' persons. The
sleeping-berths are better, but the roomy, well-lighted, comfortable old
saloon, sadly shorn of its fair proportions, has become the upper story
of a store-room. The unfortunate stewards must catch fever by frequent
diving into the close and sultry mine of solids and fluids under
floor. There being no baggage-compartment, boxes and bags are stowed
away in the after part, unduly curtailing light and air; the stern
lockers, once such pleasant sleeping-sofas, and their fixed tables are
of no use to anything besides baskets and barrels. Here the surgeon,
who, if anyone, should have a cabin by way of dispensary, must lodge his
medicine-chest. Amongst minor grievances the main cabin is washed every
night, breeding a manner of malaria. The ice intended for passengers is
either sold or preserved for those who ship most cargo. Per contra, the
cook is good, the table is plentiful, the wines not over bad, the
stewards civil, and the officers companionable.
Both lines, however, are distinctly traders. They bind themselves to no
time; they are often a week late, and they touch wherever demand calls
them. The freight-charges are exorbitant, three pounds for fine goods
and a minimum of thirty-six shillings, when fifteen per ton would
pay. The White Star Line, therefore, threatens _concurrence_. Let
us also hope that when the Gold Mines prosper we shall have our special
steamers, where the passenger will be more prized than the puncheon of
palm-oil. But future rivals must have a care; they will encounter a
somewhat unscrupulous opposition; and they had better ship American
crews, at any rate not Liverpudlians.
The night and the next day were spent at sea in a truly delicious
climate, which seemed to wax softer and serener as we advanced. Here the
moon, whose hue is golden, not silvern, has a regular dawn before
rising, and an afterglow to her setting; and Venus casts a broad cestus
of glimmering light upon the purple sea. Mount Atlas, alias the Pike of
Teyde, gradually upreared his giant statue, two and a half miles high:
travellers speak of seeing him from Madeira, a distance of some 260
(dir. geog.) miles; but this would be possible only were both termini
15,000 feet in altitude. The limit of sight for terrestrial objects
under the most favourable conditions does not exceed 210 miles. Yet here
it is not difficult to explain the impossible distances, 200 miles
instead of 120, at which, they say, the cone has been sighted: mirage or
refraction accounts for what the earth's convexity disallows.
We first see a low and regular wall of cloud-bank whose coping bears
here and there bulges of white, cottony cloud. Then a regular pyramid,
at this season white as snow, shows its gnomon-like point, impaling the
cumuli. Hour by hour the outlines grow clearer, till at last the
terminal cone looks somewhat like a thimble upon a pillow--the
_cumbre_, or lofty foundation of pumice-plains. But the aspect
everywhere varies according as you approach the island from north,
south, east, or west.
The evening of January 9 showed us right abeam a splendid display of the
Zodiacal Light, whose pyramid suggested the glow of a hemisphere on
fire. The triangle, slightly spherical, measured at its base 22 degrees
to 24 degrees and rose to within 6" of Jupiter. The reflection in the
water was perfect and lit up with startling distinctness the whole
eastern horizon.
At 7 A.M. next morning, after running past the Anaga knuckle-bone--and
very bony it is--of the Tenerife _gigot_, we cast anchor in the Bay
of Santa Cruz, took boat, and hurried ashore. In the early times of the
A.S.S. halts at the several stations often lasted three days. Business
is now done in the same number of hours; and the captain informs you
that 'up goes the anchor' the moment his last bale or bag comes on
board. This trading economy of time, again, is an improvement more
satisfactory to the passenger than to the traveller and sightseer who
may wish to see the world.
Brusque was the contrast between the vivid verdure of Sylvania, the Isle
of Wood, and the grim nudity of north-eastern Tenerife; brusquer still
the stationary condition of the former compared with the signs, of
progress everywhere evident in the latter. Spain, under the influence of
anticlerical laws and a spell of republicanism, has awoke from her sleep
of ages, and we note the effects of her revival even in these
colonies. A brand-new red fort has been added to La Ciudadela at the
northern suburb, whence a mole is proposed to meet the southern branch
and form a basin. Then comes the triangular city whose hypothenuse,
fronting east, is on the sea; its chief fault is having been laid out on
too small a scale. At the still-building pier, which projects some 500
yards from the central mass of fort and _cuadras_ (insulae or
house-blocks), I noticed a considerable growth of buildings, especially
the Marineria and other offices connected with the free port. The old
pink 'castle' San Cristobal (Christopher), still cumbers the jetty-root;
but the least sentimental can hardly expect the lieges to level so
historic a building: it is the site of Alonso Fernandez de Lugo's first
tower, and where his disembarkation on May 3, 1493, gave its Christian
name 'Holy Cross' to the Guanche 'Añasa.' Meanwhile the Rambleta de
Ravenal, dated 1861, a garden, formerly dusty, glary, and dreary as the
old Florian of Malta, now bears lovers' seats, a goodly growth of planes
and tamarinds, a statue, a fountain, and generally a gypsy-like
family. By its side runs a tramway for transporting the huge blocks of
concrete intended to prolong the pier. The inner town also shows a new
palace, a new hospital, and a host of improvements.
Landing at Santa Cruz, a long dull line of glaring masonry, smokeless
and shadeless, was to me intensely saddening. A score of years had
carried off all my friends. Kindly Mrs. Nugent, called 'the Admiral,'
and her amiable daughter are in the English burial-ground; the
hospitable Mr. Consul Grattan had also faded from the land of the
living. The French Consul, M. Berthelot, who published [Footnote:
_Histoire naturelle des Iles Canaries_, par MM. P. Barker Webb et
Sabin Berthelot, ouvrage publié sous les auspices de M. Guizot, Ministre
de l'Instruction Publique, Paris, 1839. Seven folio vols., with maps,
plans, and sketches, all regardless of expense.] by favour of the late
Mr. Webb, went to the many in 1880. One of the brothers Richardson had
died; the other had subsided into a clerk, and the Fonda Ingleza had
become the British Consulate. The new hotel kept by Señor Camacho and
his English wife appeared comfortable enough, but it had none of those
associations which make the old familiar inn a kind of home. _En
revanche_, however, I met Mr. Consul Dundas, my successor at the port
of Santos, whence so few have escaped with life; and his wife, the
daughter of an Anglo-Brazilian friend.
Between 1860 and 1865 I spent many a week in Tenerife, and here I am
tempted to transcribe a few extracts from my voluminous notes upon
various subjects, especially the Guanche population and the ascent of
the Pike. A brief history of the unhappy Berber-speaking goatherds who,
after being butchered to make sport for certain unoccupied gentlemen,
have been raised by their assailants to kings and heroes rivalling the
demi-gods of Greece and Rome, and the melancholy destruction of the
race, have been noticed in a previous volume. [Footnote: Yol. i. chap,
ii., _Wanderings in West Africa_. The _modorra_, lethargy or
melancholia, which killed so many of those Numidian islanders suggests
the pining of a wild bird prisoned in a cage.] I here confine myself to
the contents of my note-book upon the Guanche collections in the island.
One fine morning my wife and I set out in a venerable carriage for San
Cristobal de la Laguna. The Camiño de los Coches, a fine modern highway
in corkscrew fashion from Santa Cruz to Orotava, was begun, by the grace
of General Ortega, who died smoking in the face of the firing party, and
ended between 1862 and 1868. This section, eight kilomètres long,
occupies at least one hour and a half, zigzagging some 2,000 feet up a
steep slope which its predecessor uncompromisingly breasted. Here stood
the villa of Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcott), who hymned the fleas of
Tenerife: I would back those of Tiberias. The land is arid, being
exposed to the full force of the torrid northeast trade. Its principal
produce is the cactus (_coccinellifera_), a fantastic monster with
fat oval leaves and apparently destitute of aught beyond thorns and
prickles. Here and there a string of small and rather mangy camels, each
carrying some 500 lbs., paced _par monts et par vaux_, and gave a
Bedawi touch to the scene: they were introduced from Africa by De
Béthencourt, surnamed the Great. We remarked the barrenness of the
bronze-coloured Banda del Sur, whose wealth is in cochineal and
'dripstones,' or filters of porous lava. Here few save the hardiest
plants can live, the spiny, gummy, and succulent cactus and thistles,
aloes and figs. The arborescent tabayba (_Euphorbia canariensis_),
locally called 'cardon,' is compared by some with the 'chandelier' of
the Cape, bristling with wax tapers: the Guanches used it extensively
for narcotising fish. This 'milk plant,' with its acrid, viscid, and
virulent juice, and a small remedial shrub growing by its side, probably
gave rise to the island fable of the twin fountains; one killed the
traveller by a kind of _risus Sardonicus_, unless he used the other
by way of cure. A scatter of crosses, which are impaled against every
wall and which rise from every eminence; a ruined fort here and there; a
long zigzag for wheels, not over-macadamised, with an older short cut
for hoofs, and the Puente de Zurita over the Barranco Santo, an old
bridge made new, led to the _cuesta_, or crest, which looks down
upon the Vega de la Laguna, the native Aguere.
The 'noble and ancient city' San Cristobal de la Laguna was founded on
June 26, 1495, St. Christopher's Day, by De Lugo, who lies buried in the
San Miguel side-chapel of La Concepcion de la Victorias. The site is an
ancient lava-current, the successor of a far older crater, originally
submarine. The latest sub-aerial fire-stream, a broad band flowing from
north to south--we have ascended it by the coach-road--and garnished
with small parasitic craters, affords a bed and basis to the
capital-port, Santa Cruz. After rains the lake reappears in mud and
mire; and upon the lip where the town is built the north-east and the
south-west winds contend for mastery, shedding abundant tears. Yet the
old French chronicler says of the site, 'Je ne croy pas qu'il y eu ait
en tout le monde aucune autre de plus plaisante.' The mean annual
temperature is 62° 51' (F.), and the sensation is of cold: the altitude
being 1,740 feet. Hence, like Orotava, it escaped the yellow fever which
in October 1862 had slain its 616 victims.
[Footnote: The list of epidemics at Santa Cruz is rather formidable,
_e.g._ 1621 and 1628, _peste_ (plague); 1810 and 1862, yellow
Jack; 1814, whooping cough, scarlatina, and measles; 1816-16, small-pox
(2,000 victims); 1826, cough and scarlet ferer; 1847, fatal dysentery;
and 1861-62, cholera (7,000 to 12,000 deaths).]
La Laguna offers an extensive study of medieval baronial houses, of
colonial churches, of _ermitas_, or chapels, of altars, and of
convents now deserted, but once swarming with Franciscans and Augustines
and Dominicans and Jesuits. These establishments must have been very
rich, for, here as elsewhere,
Dieu prodigue ses biens
À ceux qui font voeu d'être siens.
St. Augustine, with its short black belfry, shows a Christus Vinctus of
the Seville school, and the institute or college in the ex-monastery
contains a library of valuable old books. The Concepcion boasts a
picture of St. John which in 1648 sweated for forty days. [Footnote:
Evidently a survival of the classic _aera sudantia_. Mrs. Murray
notices the 'miracle' at full length (ii. 76).] The black and white
cathedral, bristling with cannon-like gargoyles, a common architectural
feature in these regions, still owns the fine pulpit of Carrara marble
sent from Genoa in 1767. The _chef d'oeuvre_ then cost 200_l._;
now it would be cheap at five times that price. In the sacristy
are the usual rich vestments and other clerical curios. The
Ermita de San Cristobal, built upon an historic site, is denoted as
usual by a giant Charon bearing a small infant. There is a Carriera or
Corso (High Street) mostly empty, also the great deserted Plaza del
Adelantado, of the conqueror Lugo. The arms of the latter, with his
lance and banner, are shown at the Ayuntamiento, or town-house; I do not
admire his commercial motto--
Quien lanza sabe tener,
Ella le da de comer.
[Footnote:
Whose lance can wield
Daily bread 'twill yield.]
Conquering must not be named in the same breath as 'bread-winning.'
There, too, is the scutheon of Tenerife, given to it in 1510; Michael
the Archangel, a favourite with the invader, stands unroasted upon the
fire-vomiting Nivarian peak, and this grand vision of the guarded mount
gave rise to satiric lines by Vieira:--
Miguel, Angel Miguel, sobre esta altura
Te puso el Rey Fernando y Tenerife;
Para ser del asufre y nieve fria
Guardia, administrador y almoxarife.
[Footnote:
Michael, archangel Michael, on this brow
Throned thee King Ferdinand and Tenerife;
To be of sulphur grough and frigid snow
Administrator, guard, and reeve-in-chief.]
The deserted streets were long lines with an unclean central
gutter. Some of the stone houses were tall, grand, solid, and stately;
such are the pavilion of the Counts of Salazar, the huge, heavy abode of
the Marquesses de Nava, and the mansions of the Villanuevas del
Pardo. But yellow fever had driven away half of the population--10,000
souls, who could easily be 20,000--and had barricaded the houses to the
curious stranger. Most of them, faced and porticoed with florid pillars,
were mere dickies opening upon nothing, and only the huge armorial
bearings showed that they had ever been owned. Mixed with these
'palaces.' were 'cat-faced cottages' and pauper, mildewed tenements,
whose rusty iron-work, tattered planks, and broken windows gave them a
truly dreary and dismal appearance. The sole noticeable movement was a
tendency to gravitate in the roofs. The principal growth, favoured by
the vapour-laden air, was of grass in the thoroughfares, of moss on the
walls, and of the 'fat weed' upon the tiles. The horse-leek
(_sempervivum urbium_), brought from Madeira, was first described
by the 'gifted Swede' Professor Smith, who died on the Congo
River. Finally, though the streets are wide and regular, and the large
town is well aired by four squares, the whole aspect was strongly
suggestive of the _cocineros_ (cooks), as the citizens of the
capital are called by the sons of the capital-port. They retort by
terming their rival brethren _chicharreros_, or fishers of the
_chicharro_ (horse-mackerel, _Caranx Cuvieri_.)
From La Laguna we passed forward to Tacoronte, the 'Garden of the
Guanches,' and inspected the little museum of the late D. Sebastian
Casilda, collected by his father, a merchant-captain de long
_cours_. It was a chaos of curiosities ranging from China to
Peru. Amongst them, however, were four entire mummies, including one
from Grand Canary. Thus we can correct M. Berthelot, who follows others
in asserting that only the Guanches of Tenerife mummified their
dead. The oldest description of this embalming is by a 'judicious and
ingenious man who had lived twenty years in the island as a physitian
and merchant.' It was inserted by Dr. Thomas Sprat in the 'Transactions
of the Royal Society,' London, and was republished in John Ogilby's
enormous folio [Footnote: The 'physitian' was Dr. Eden, an Englishman
who visited Tenerife in 1662.--Bohn's _Humboldtr_, i. 66] yclept
'Africa.' The merchant 'set out from Guimar, a Town for the most part
inhabited by such as derive themselves from the Antient
_Guanchios_, in the company of some of them, to view their Caves
and the corps buried in them (a favour they seldom or never permit to
any, having the Corps of their Ancestors in great veneration, and
likewise being extremely against any molestation of the Dead); but he
had done many Eleemosynary Cures amongst them, for they are very poor
(yet the poorest think themselves too good to Marry with the best
_Spaniard_), which endeared him to them exceedingly. Otherwise it
is death for any Stranger to visit these Caves and Bodies. The Corps are
sew'd up in Goatskins with Thongs of the same, with very great
curiosity, particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness of
the Seams; and the skins are made close and fit to the Corps, which for
the most part are entire, the Eyes clos'd, Hair on their heads, Ears,
Nose, Teeth, Lips, and Beards, all perfect, onely discolour'd and a
little shrivell'd. He saw about three or four hundred in several Caves,
some of them standing, others lying upon Beds of Wood, so hardened by an
art they had (which the Spaniards call _curay_, to cure a piece of
Wood) that no iron can pierce or hurt it.[Footnote: The same writer
tells that they had earthen pots so hard that they could not be
broken. I have heard of similar articles amongst the barbarous races
east of Dalmatia.] These Bodies are very light, as if made of straw; and
in some broken Bodies he observ'd the Nerves and Tendons, and also the
String of the Veins and Arteries very distinctly. By the relation of one
of the most antient of this island, they had a particular Tribe that had
this art onely among themselves, and kept it as a thing sacred and not
to be communicated to the Vulgar. These mixt not themselves with the
rest of the Inhabitants, nor marry'd out of their own Tribe, and were
also their Priests and Ministers of Religion. But when the
_Spaniards_ conquer'd the place, most of them were destroy'd and
the art perisht with them, onely they held some Traditions yet of a few
Ingredients that were us'd in this business; they took Butter (some say
they mixed Bear's-grease with it) which they kept for that purpose in
the Skins; wherein they boyl'd certain Herbs, first a kind of wild
Lavender, which grows there in great quantities upon the Rocks;
secondly, an Herb call'd _Lara_, of a very gummy and glutinous
consistence, which now grows there under the tops of the Mountains;
thirdly, a kind of _cyclamen_, or sow-bread; fourthly, wild Sage,
which grows plentifully upon this island. These with others, bruised and
boyl'd up into Butter, rendered it a perfect Balsom. This prepar'd, they
first unbowel the Corps (and in the poorer sort, to save Charges, took
out the Brain behind): after the Body was thus order'd, they had in
readiness a _lixivium_ made of the Bark of Pine-Trees, wherewith
they washt the Body, drying it in the Sun in Summer and in the Winter in
a Stove, repeating this very often: Afterward they began their unction
both without and within, drying it as before; this they continu'd till
the Balsom had penetrated into the whole Habit, and the Muscle in all
parts appear'd through the contracted Skin, and the Body became
exceeding light: then they sew'd them up in Goat-skins. The Antients
say, that they have above twenty Caves of their Kings and great
Personages with their whole Families, yet unknown to any but themselves,
and which they will never discover.' Lastly, the 'physitian' declares
that 'bodies are found in the caves of the _Grand Canaries_, in
Sacks, quite consumed, and not as these in Teneriff.'
This assertion is somewhat doubtful; apparently the practice was common
to the archipelago. It at once suggests Egypt; and, possibly, at one
time, extended clean across the Dark Continent. So Dr. Barth [Footnote:
_Travels_, &c., vol. iv. pp. 426-7.] tells us that when the chief
Sonni Ali died in Grurma, 'his sons, who accompanied him on the
expedition, took out his entrails and filled his inside with honey, in
order that it might be preserved from putrefaction.' Many tribes in
South America and New Zealand, as well as in Africa, preserved the
corpse or portions of it by baking, and similar rude devices. According
to some authorities, the Gruanche _menceys_ (kinglets or chiefs)
were boxed, Egyptian fashion, in coffins; but few are found, because the
superstitious Christian islanders destroy the contents of every
catacomb.
In the Casilda collection I observed the hard features, broad brows,
square faces, and _flavos crines_ described by old writers. Two
showed traces of tongue and eyes (which often were blue), proving that
the softer and more perishable parts were not removed. There were
specimens of the dry and liquid balsam. Of the twenty-six skulls six
were from Grand Canary. All were markedly of the type called Caucasian,
and some belonged to exceptionally tall men. The shape was
dolichocephalic, with sides rather flat than rounded; the perceptive
region was well developed, and the reflective, as usual amongst savages
and barbarians, was comparatively poor. The facial region appeared
unusually large.
The industrial implements were coarse needles and fish-hooks of
sheep-bone. The domestic _supellex_ consisted of wooden ladles
coarsely cut, and of rude pottery, red and yellow, generally without
handles, round-shaped and adorned with scratches. None of these
_ganigos_, or crocks, were painted like those of Grand Canary. They
used also small basaltic querns of two pieces to grind the _gofio_,
[Footnote: The _gofio_ was composed of ripe barley, toasted,
pounded, and kneaded to a kind of porridge in leathern bags like Turkish
tobacco-pouches. The object was to save the teeth, of which the Guanches
were particularly careful.] or parched grain. The articles of dress were
grass-cloth, thick as matting, and _tamarcos_, or smock-frocks, of
poorly tanned goatskins. They had also rough cords of palm-fibre, and
they seem to have preferred plaiting to weaving; yet New Zealand flax
and aloes grow abundantly. Their _mahones_ correspond with Indian
moccasins, and they made sugar-loaf caps of skins. The bases of shells,
ground down to the thickness of a crown-piece, and showing spiral
depressions, were probably the _viongwa_, necklaces still worn in
the Lake Regions of Central Africa. The beads were of many kinds; some
horn cylinders bulging in the centre, and measuring 1.25 inch long;
others of flattened clay like the American wampum or the ornaments of
the Fernando Po tribes; and others flattened discs, also baked, almost
identical with those found upon African mummies--in Peru they were used
to record dates and events. A few were of reddish agate, a material not
found in the island; these resembled bits of thick pipe-stem, varying
from half an inch to an inch in length. Perhaps they were copies of the
mysterious Popo-bead found upon the Slave Coast and in inner Africa.
The Gruanches were doomed never to reach the age of metal. Their
civilisation corresponded with that of the Chinese in the days of
Fo-hi. [Footnote: Abel Rémusat tells us that of the two hundred
primitive Chinese 'hieroglyphs' none showed a knowledge of metal.] The
chief weapons were small triangles of close-grained basalt and
_iztli_ (obsidian flakes) for _tabonas,_ or knives, both being
without handles. They carried rude clubs and _banot,_ or barbed
spears of pine-wood with fire-charred points. The _garrotes_
(pikes) had heads like two flattened semicircles, a shape preserved
amongst negroes to the present day. Our old author tells us that the
people would 'leap from rock to rock, sometimes making ten Fathoms deep
at one Leap, in this manner: First they _tertiate_ their Lances,
which are about the bigness of a Half-Pike, and aim with the Point at
any piece of a Rock upon which they intend to light, sometimes not half
a Foot broad; in leaping off they clap their Feet close to the Lance,
and so carry their bodies in the Air: the Point of the Lance comes first
to the place, which breaks the force of their fall; then they slide
gently down by the Staff and pitch with their Feet on the very place
they first design'd; and so from Rock to Rock till they come to the
bottom: but their Novices sometimes break their necks in the learning.'
I observed more civilisation in articles from the other islands,
especially from the eastern, nearer the African continent. In 1834
Fuerteventura yielded, from a depth of six feet, a dwarfish image of a
woman with prominent bosom and dressed in the native way: it appeared
almost Chinese. A pot of black clay from Palmas showed superior
construction. Here, too, in 1762 a cavern produced a basalt plate, upon
which are circular scrawls, which support the assertions of old writers
as regards the islanders not being wholly ignorant of letters. I could
trace no similarity to the peculiar Berber characters, and held them to
be mere ornamentation. The so-called 'Seals of the Kings' were dark
stones, probably used for painting the skin; they bore parallelograms
enclosed within one another, diaper-work and gridirons of raised
lines. In fact, the Guanches of Tenerife were unalphabetic.
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 Sahará, attributed to the ancient Tawárik
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.
[Illustration: THE NOMIDIO INSCRIPTIONS OF HIEBRO.]
[Illustration]
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° to 85°, 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 Cañádas 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 Béthencourt'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 Rev. 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 Béthencourt
[Footnote: Bontier and Le Verrier, _Histoire de la première Découverte
e Conquête 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 fortunées_. 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 nègres de la Sénégambie dénotent la réunion 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. José 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 délicieux 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'
(_puláos_) 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 1,000_l_. added
4,000_l_. of his own, besides 400_l_. 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.'