Cock-fighting takes place once a year, when the birds are in fittest feather; it begins on Easter Sunday and ends with the following Wednesday.
The bird that warned Peter of his fall
has then, if victorious, a pleasant, easy twelve months of life before him. He has won many a gold ounce for his owner: I have heard of a man pouching 400l. in a contest between Orotava and La Laguna, which has a well-merited celebrity for these exhibitions. The Canarians ignore all such refinements as rounds or Welsh mains; the birds are fairly matched in pairs. Navajas, or spurs, either of silver or steel, are unused, if not unknown. The natural weapon is sharpened to a needle-like point, and then blood and condition win. The cock-pit, somewhat larger than the training-pit, is in the Casa de la Galera; there is a ring for betters, and the spectators are ranged on upper seats.
Lastly of the wine Canary, now unknown to the English market, where it had a local habitation and a name as early as madeira and sherry, all claiming 'Shakespearean recognition.' The Elizabethans constantly allude to cups of cool Canary, and Mr. Vizetelly quotes Howell's 'Familiar Letters,' wherein he applies to this far-famed sack the dictum 'Good wine sendeth a man to heaven.' But I cannot agree with the learned oenologist, or with the 'tradition of Tenerife,' when told that 'the original canary was a sweet and not a dry wine, as those who derive "sack" from the French word "sec" would have us believe.' 'Sherris sack' (jerez seco) was a harsh, dry wine, which was sugared as we sweeten tea. Hence Poins addresses Falstaff as 'Sir John Sack and Sugar;' and the latter remarks, 'If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!' And the island probably had two growths—the saccharine Malvasia, [Footnote: As we find in Leake (p. 197 Researches in Greece) and Henderson (History of Wines) 'Malvasia' is an Italian corruption of 'Monemvasia' ([Greek: monae embasia]—a single entrance), the neo-Greek name for the Minoa promontory or island connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (loc. cit.) opines that the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that 'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.'] whose black grape was almost a raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern Gual, with great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to make it palatable.
The Canaries mostly grew white wines; that is, the liquors were fermented without skins and stalks. Thus they did not contain all the constituents of the fruit, and they were inferior in remedial and restorative virtues to red wines. Indeed, a modern authority tells us that none but the latter deserve the name, and that white wines are rather grape-ciders than real wines.
The best Tenerife brands were produced on the northern slopes from Sauzal and La Victoria to Garachico and Ycod de los Vinos. The latter, famed for its malmsey, has lost its vines and kept its name. The cultivation extended some 1,500 feet above the sea, and the plant was treated after the fashion of Madeira and Carniola (S. Austria). The latadas, or trellises, varied in height, some being so low that the peasant had to creep under them. All, however, had the same defect: the fruit got the shade and the leaves the sun, unless trimmed away by the cultivator, who was unwilling to remove these lungs in too great quantities. The French style, the pruned plant supported by a stake, was used only for the old and worn-out, and none dreamt of the galvanised wires along which Mr. Leacock, of Funchal, trains his vines. In Grand Canary I have seen the grape-plant thrown over swathes of black stone, like those which, bare of fruit, stretch for miles across the fertile wastes of the Syrian Haurán. By heat and evaporation the grapes become raisins; and, as in Dalmatia, one pipe required as much fruit as sufficed for three or four of ordinary.
The favourite of the Canaries is, or was, the vidonia, a juicy berry, mostly white, seldom black: the same is the case with the muscadels. The Malvasia is rarely cultivated, as it suffered inordinately from the vine-disease. The valuable Verdelho, preferred at Madeira, is, or was, a favourite; and there are, or were, half a dozen others. The vendange usually began in the lowlands about the end of August, and in the uplands a fortnight or three weeks later. The grape was carried in large baskets by men, women, and children, to the lagar, or wooden press, and was there trodden down, as in Madeira, Austria, and Italy. The Canarians, like other neo-Latins an unmechanical race, care little for economising labour. The vinification resembled that of the Isle of Wood, with one important exception—the stove. This artificial heating to hasten maturity seems to have been soon abandoned.
Mr. Vizetelly is of opinion that the pure juice was apt to grow harsh, or become ropy, with age. They remedied the former defect by adding a little gloria, a thin, sweet wine kept in store from the preceding vendange; this was done in April or in May, when the vintage was received at headquarters. Ropiness was cured by repeated rackings and by brandying, eight gallons per pipe being the normal ratio. That distinguished connoisseur found in an old malmsey of 1859 all the aroma and lusciousness of a good liqueur; the 'London particular' of 1865 tasted remarkably soft, with a superior nose; an 1871-72, made for the Russian market, had an oily richness with a considerable aroma; an 1872 was mellow and aromatic, and an 1875 had a good vinous flavour.
'Canary' possessed its own especial charác-ter, as Jonathan says. If it developed none of the highest qualities of its successful rivals, it became, after eight to twelve years' keeping, a tolerable wine, which many in England have drunk, paying for good madeira. The shorter period sufficed to mature it, and it was usually shipped when three to four years old. It kept to advantage in wood for a quarter of a century, and in bottle it improved faster. My belief is that the properest use of Tenerife was to 'lengthen out' the finer growths. I found Canary bearing the same relation to madeira as marsala bears to sherry: the best specimens almost equalled the second- or third-rate madeiras. Moreover, these wines are even more heady and spirituous than those of the northern island; and there will be greater difficulty in converting them to the category vino de pasto, a light dinner-wine.
Before 1810 Tenerife exported her wines not from Santa Cruz, but from Orotava, the centre of commerce. Here, since the days of Charles II., there was an English Factory with thirty to forty British subjects, Protestants, under the protection of the Captain-General; and their cemetery lay at the west end of El Puerto, whose palmy days were in 1812-15. The trade was then transferred to the modern capital, where there are, and have been for years, only two English wine-shipping firms, Messieurs Hamilton and Messieurs Davidson. The seniors of both families have all passed away; but their sons and grandsons still inhabit the picturesque old houses on the 'Marina.' In 1812-15 the annual export of wine was 8,000 to 11,000 pipes. The Peace of 1815 was a severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since the days of the oïdium. In 1852 Admiral Robinson reduced the number of pipes to 20,000, worth 200,000l. In 1860-65 I saw the grape in a piteous plight: the huge bunches were composed of dwarfed and wilted berries, furred and cobwebbed with the foul mycelium. The produce fell to 100-150 pipes, and at present only some 200 to 300 are exported. The Peninsula and the West African coast take the bulk; England and Germany ranking next, and lastly Spain, which used the import largely in making-up wines. The islanders now mostly drink the harsh, coarse Catalonians; they still, however, make for home consumption a cheap white wine, which improves with age. It is regretable that fears of the oïdium and the phylloxera prevent the revival of the industry, for which the Islands are admirably fitted. Potatoes and other produce have also suffered; but that is no obstacle to their being replanted.