Descending a rough, steep slope, I entered the upper tier of the settlement, where the boxes were built up with whitewashed fronts. The caves are mostly divided by matting into 'buts' and 'bens.' Heaps of pots, antiquated in shape and somewhat like the Etruscan, showed the trade of the place, and hillocks of potatoes the staff of life. The side-walls were hollowed for shelves, and a few prints of the Virgin and other sacred subjects formed the decoration. Settles and rude tables completed the list of movables; and many had the huge bed affected by the Canarian cottager, which must be ascended with a run and a jump. The predatory birds, gypsies and others, flocked down from their nests, clamouring for cuartitos and taking no refusal.
It occupies a week to ride round the island, whose circumference measures about 120 miles. I contented myself with a last excursion to Doramas, which then supplied meat, cheese, and grain to Tenerife. My guide was old Antonio Martinez, who assured me that he was the 'most classical man' in the island; and with two decent hill-ponies we struck to the north-west. There is little to describe in the tour. The Cuesta Blanca showed us the regular cones of Arúcas. Beyond Tenoya town I inspected a crateriform ravine, and Monte Cardones boasted a honeycomb of caves like the Atalaya. The fine rich vega of Arúcas, a long white settlement before whose doors rose drying heaps of maize and black cochineal, was a pleasant, smiling scene. All the country settlements are built pretty much upon the same plan: each has its Campo Santo with white walls and high grey gate, through which the coffin is escorted by Gaucho-like riders, who dismount to enter. Doramas proved to be a fine monte, with tree-stumps, especially chestnuts, somewhat surprising in a region of ferns and furze. Near the little village of Friga I tasted an agua agria, a natural sodawater, which the people hold to be of sovereign value for beast as well as man. It increases digestion and makes happy mothers, like the fountain of Villaflor on the Tenerifan 'Pike '-slope. I found it resembling an eau gazeuse left in the open all night. We then pushed on to Teror, famous for turkeys, traversed the high and forested northern plateau, visited Galdar and Guia of the cheeses, and rode back by Bañaderos Bay and the Cuesta da Silva, renowned in olden island story.
These three days gave me a fair general view of Grand Canary. The Cumbre, or central plateau, whose apex is Los Pexos (6,400 feet), well wooded with pines and Alpines, collects moisture in abundance. From this plateau barrancos, or ravine-valleys, said to number 103, radiate quaquaversally. Their bottoms, becoming more and more level as they near the sea, are enriched by gushing founts, and are unrivalled for fertility, while the high and stony intervening ridges are barren as Arabia Deserta. Even sun and rain cannot fertilise the dividing walls of the rich and riant vegas. Here, as at Madeira, and showing even a better likeness, the tierra caliente is Egypt, the mediania (middle-heights) are Italy, and the upper mesetas, the cloud-compelling table-lands, are the bleak north of Europe plus a quasi-tropical sun.
CHAPTER IX. — THE COCHINEAL—THE 'GALLO'—CANARY 'SACK'—ADIEU TO THE CANARIES.
I must not leave the Jezirát el-Bard (of Gold), or Jezirát el-Khálidát (Happy Islands), without some notice of their peculiar institutions, the cochineal, the gallo, and Canary 'sack.'
The nopal or tunal plant (Opuntia Tuna or Cactus cochinellifera) is indigenous on these islands as well as on the mainland of Africa. But the native growth is woody and lean-leaved; and its cooling fruit, which we clumsily term a 'prickly pear' or 'fig,' is everywhere a favourite in hot climates. There are now sundry claimants to the honour of having here fathered the modern industry. Some say that in 1823 a retired intendant introduced from Mexico the true terciopelo, or velvet-leaf, together with the Mexican cochineal, the coccus cacti hemipter, [Footnote: The male insect is winged for flight. The female never stirs from the spot where she begins to feed: she lays her eggs, which are innumerable and microscopic, and she leaves them in the membrane or hardened envelope which she has secreted.] so called from the old Greek KÓKKOS, a berry, or the neo-Greek KOKKIVOS, red, scarlet. It is certain that Don Santiago de la Cruz brought both plant and 'bug' from Guatemala or Honduras in 1835; and that an Englishman, who has advanced a right even in writing, labours under a not uncommon hallucination.
But the early half of the present century was the palmy day of the vine. The people resisted the cactus-innovation as the English labourer did the introduction of machinery, and tore up the plants. Enough, however, remained in the south of Tenerife for the hour of need. Travellers in search of the picturesque still lament that the ugly stranger has ousted the trellised vine and the wild, free myrtles. But public opinion changed when fortunes were made by selling the insect. Greedy as the agriculturist in general, the people would refuse the value of a full crop of potatoes or maize if they suspected that the offerer intended to grow cochineal. No dye was prepared on the islands, and the peasants looked upon it as a manner of mystery.
The best tuneras (cochineal-plantations) lay in Grand Canary, where they could be most watered. Wherever maize thrives, producing a good dark leaf and grain in plenty, there cochineal also succeeds. The soil is technically called mina de tosca, a whitish, pumice-like stone, often forming a gravel conglomerate under a rocky stratum: hardening by exposure, it is good for building. Immense labour is required to prepare such ground for the cactus. The earth must be taken from below the surface-rock, as at Malta; spread in terraced beds, and cleared of loose stones, which are built up in walls or in molleras, cubes or pyramids. Such ground sold for $150 per acre; $600 were paid for mètre-deep soil unencumbered by stone. Where the chalk predominates, it must be mixed with the volcanic sand locally called zahorra. In all cases the nopals are set at distances of half a yard, in trenches at least three feet deep. The 'streets,' or intervals, must measure nearly two yards, so that water may flow freely and sunshine may not be arrested. Good ground, if irrigated in winter and kept clear of weeds by the haçada (hoe), produces a cactus capable of being 'seeded' after the second year; if poor, a third is required. The plant lasts, with manure to defend it from exhaustion, a full decade. [Footnote: The compost was formerly natural, dry or liquid as in Switzerland; but for some years the costly guano and chemicals have been introduced. Formerly also potatoes were set between the stems; and well-watered lands gave an annual grain-crop as well as a green crop.]
I now translate the memoir sent in MS. to me by my kind friend Dundas. It is the work of Don Abel de Aguilar, Consul Impérial de Russie, a considerable producer of the 'bug.'