On arriving in port after a long voyage, work is generally needed on the vessel or her engines: if so, the name of the right firm has to be obtained, the firm found, an estimate obtained and bargain made. Then the work has to be done and frequently redone, all of which causes delay it seems impossible to avoid; a fortnight may thus easily be spent in getting a two days’ job accomplished. In Las Palmas we were fortunate in finding a capable firm, who took in hand such alterations as our experience in the Bay had shown to be necessary. The offending skylights were fastened down, and ventilating shafts substituted, with the result that we had no more trouble. We had a good deal of extra work on board to do ourselves from a tiresome mishap. In inspecting the stove connected with the heating apparatus, it was noticed that there was water under the grating; this was at first thought to be due to skylight drip, but on lifting the grating there was seen to be quite deep water in the hold almost up to the outside sea-level. The pumps were at once rigged to get it down, but it was found still to be filling; and it was then discovered that there was a serious leakage, due to the fact that the pipe through which the water came to cool the engine had been defectively jointed. It meant days of work to go through the stores affected. Happily nothing was lost except about twenty pounds of tea, and some sweets intended for gifts; but if the accident, which was entirely due to careless workmanship, had happened at sea the results might have been disastrous.
We were glad when we were at last able to see something of the country. If the harbour of Luz is not beautiful, the road from it into Las Palmas is still less so. It runs between the sea and arid sandhills, and abounds in ruts and dust; as there is also no street lighting, “the rates,” as S. remarked, “can hardly be high.” Half-way along this road there stand, for no very obvious reason, the English Church and Club, also a good hotel, the Santa Catalina, belonging to a steamship company; otherwise it is bordered by poor and unattractive houses of stucco, the inhabitants of which seem permanently seated at the windows to watch the passers-by. Happily the distance is traversed by means of trams, owned by a company with English capital, which run frequently between the port and the city and do the journey in twenty minutes.
Las Palmas itself is not unpicturesque. Its main feature is a stony river-bed, which runs down the centre of the city and is spanned by various bridges; it was empty when we saw it, but is no doubt at times, even in this waterless land, filled with a raging, boiling current from the mountains. In the principal square, opposite the cathedral, is the museum, which contains an admirable anthropological collection, concerned mostly with relics of the Guanches. When we were there the city was gay with bunting and grand stands for a fiesta, in celebration of the anniversary of the union of the islands with the crown of Castile; a flying man, a carnival, and an outdoor cinema entertainment were among the chief excitements. At one of the hotels we discussed politics with the waiter, who was a native of the island. He had been in England, but never in Spain; nevertheless, he seemed in touch with the situation in the ruling country. There would, he declared, be great changes in Spain in the next fifteen years. The King did his best in difficult circumstances, but anti-clerical feeling was too strong to allow of the continuation of the present state of things. In Grand Canary there was, he said, the same feeling as in Spain against the constant exactions of the Church. The women were still devout, but you might go into any village and talk against the Church and meet with sympathy from the men. He himself was a socialist, and as such “had no country; countries were for rich people who had something belonging to them, something to lose; for those who had to work all countries were the same.” He only lived in Canary, he said, because his people were there. We pointed out that the bond with one’s own people was precisely what made one country home and not another, but the argument fell flat.
FIG. 3.
From a photo.
LAS PALMAS, GRAND CANARY.
The great charm of the island lies in the mountainous character of the interior region. Three roads radiate from the capital, one along the coast to the north, another to the south, and the third inland. Along all these it is necessary to travel some distance before points of interest are reached, and we were at the disadvantage of never being able to be more than a night or two away from the ship without returning to see how the work on board was progressing. On all the main routes are run motor-buses, which are chiefly characterised by indications of impending dissolution, and inspire awe by the rapidity with which they turn corners without any preliminary easing down. The natives, however, appeared to think that the accidents were not unreasonably numerous.
In addition to motors there are local “coaches” drawn by horses, after the manner of covered wagonettes; they will no doubt be gradually superseded by the motors, but still command considerable custom. Both types of vehicles are delightfully vague in the hours which they keep, being just as likely to start too soon as too late, thus presupposing an indefinite amount of time for the passengers to spend at the starting-place.
Our first expedition was by the inland or middle road, which winds up by the bleak hillside till it reaches a beautiful and attractive country. To those unaccustomed to such latitudes, it comes as a surprise to see fertility increasing instead of diminishing with elevation, due to the more constant rain among the hills. Monte and Santa Brigida may be said to be residential neighbourhoods and have comfortable hotels and boarding-houses. There are two principal sights to be visited from there. One is the village of Atalaya, which consists of a zone of cave dwellings, almost encircling the summit of a dome-shaped hill. The eminence falls away on two sides to a deep ravine, over which it commands magnificent views, and is connected with the adjacent hills by a narrow coll. The rock is of consolidated volcanic tuff, in which the dwellings are excavated. The fronts of the houses abut on the pathway, which is about four feet wide, and are unequally placed, following the contour of the ground. Each dwelling consists of two apartments, both about twelve feet square, with rounded angles and a domed roof, the surface of the walls shows the chisel marks. The front apartment is used as a bed-sittingroom, the back one as a store; and in some cases a lean-to outhouse has been built of blocks of the same material, in which cooking is done and the goats kept. Doors and window-sashes are inserted into the solid stone. Both dwellings and surroundings are beautifully clean and neat; the first one exhibited we imagined to be a “show” apartment, till others proved equally neat and orderly. Flowers were planted in crannies of the rock and around the doors and windows, being carefully tended and watered. The industry of the village is making pots by hand without a wheel, the sand being obtained in one direction and the clay in another: the shapes coincide in several instances with those taken from native burial-grounds and now to be seen in the museum at Las Palmas. The occasion of our visit was unfortunately a fiesta, and regular work was not going on: an old lady, however, made us a model pot in a few minutes; it was fashioned out of one piece of clay, with the addition of a little extra material if necessary: the pottery is unglazed. Various specimens of the art were obtained by the Expedition and are now in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford.
About half a mile from these troglodyte abodes, and adjoining the coll, is an extraordinarily fine specimen of an extinct crater or caldero. Its walls are almost vertical and unclad by vegetation: about two-thirds of the circumference is igneous rock, and the rest black volcanic ash, which exhibits the stratification in the most marked manner. The crater is about 1,000 feet deep, the floor is flat and dry, and the visitor looks down on a house at the bottom and cultivated fields.
We returned to Mana for a night or two, and then made an expedition by motor along the north road, sleeping at the picturesque village of Fergas, and from thence by mule over the beautiful mountain-track to Santa Brigida. We changed animals en route, and the price asked for a fresh beast was outrageous. We were prepared under the circumstances to pay it, when the portly lady of the inn, who was obviously “a character,” beckoned us mysteriously round a corner, and, though we had scarcely two words of any language in common, gave us emphatically to understand that we were on no account to be so swindled, she would see we got another. This, however, was not accomplished for another hour, with the result that the last part of the journey was traversed in total darkness, and the lights of the hotel were very welcome.