'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 Canária.
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.]