There is also sufficient graine and fruit for the maintenance of themselues.
There is one Ingenio or Sugar-house, with great plenty of wine and other sorts of fruits, as Canaria and Tenerif hath.
This Iland yeeldeth no other commodity but onely orchell; it standeth in 27 degrees distant from the Equator toward the pole Arcticke.
The Ile of Palma.
The Ile of Palma standeth twelue leagues distant from the Ile of Gomera Northwestward. This Iland is fruitfull of wine and sugar: it hath a proper city called the city of Palma, where is great contraction for vines, which are laden for the West India and other places. This city hath one faire church, and a gouernour, and aldermen to maintaine and execute iustice. It hath also another prety towne, called S. Andrewes. It hath also foure Ingenios which make excellent sugar, two of the which are called Zauzes, and the other two, Tassacort.
This Iland yeeldeth but little bread-corne; but rather is thereof prouided from Tenerif and other places.
Their best wines grow in a soile called the Brenia, where yeerely is gathered twelue thousand buts of wine like vnto Malmsies. This Iland standeth round, and containeth in circuit neere fiue and twenty leagues. It hath plenty of all sorts of fruits, as Canaria and Tenerif haue, it standeth in twenty seuen degrees and a halfe.
The Iland of Yron, called Hierro.
This Iland standeth ten leagues distant from the Iland of Palma Westward: it is but a little Iland, which containeth sixe leagues in circuit, and hath but small extension. It appertaineth to the earle of Gomera. The chiefest commodity of this Iland is goats flesh and orchell. [Sidenote: The onely vineyard in Hierro planted by Ioh. Hill of Taunton.] There is no wine in all that Iland, but onely one vineyard that an English man of Taunton in the West countrey planted among rocks, his name was Iohn Hill.
This Iland hath no kind of fresh water, but onely in the middle of the Iland groweth a great tree with leaues like an Oliue tree which hath a great cisterne at the foot of the sayd tree. This tree continually is couered with clouds, and by meanes thereof the leaues of the said tree continually drop water, very sweet, into the sayd cisterne, which commeth to the sayd tree from the clouds by attraction. And this water sufficeth the Iland for all necessities, as well for the cattell, as for the inhabitants. [Footnote: In connection with this fable, it is interesting to see what is said by Le Maire, who visited these Islands in 1682. "As I had been told of a wonderful tree in Ferro, whose long and narrow leaves were always green, and furnished all the inhabitants with water, I wished to find out if it were true. I asked if, as I had heard, such a heavy dew fell on this tree that it dropped clear water into stone basins placed expressly to receive it. There was enough of it for the islanders and their cattle, Nature repairing by this miracle the defect of not providing pure water for this isle. The inhabitants confirmed my belief that this was a pure fable. There were some, however, who said that there might have been such a tree, but it could never have furnished the quantity attributed to it." [See VOYAGE TO THE CANARIES, etc, page 21, reprinted In Bibliotheca Curiosa.] It standeth in 27 degrees.