My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Come along, then, and tell me all about it,” said he. “I have an uncle settled here, and I have been sent out to learn business with him. Come and stay with us while your ship remains here. He’ll get you leave from the captain. You can spare him us?” he added, addressing Mr Henley, who laughed, and said that he hoped I should always find friends wherever I went.

Lumsden at once got his uncle to send off a note to the captain, who replied in the most courteous way that I was welcome to remain as long as the ship was there.

“Capital!” exclaimed Lumsden. “We were on the point of starting up the peak just for a pic-nic of three or four days. The ship won’t sail before that time. You shall go with us.”

Of course I was delighted. We were to start after an early dinner, and in the interval Lumsden took me round the place to show me its lions. I can only venture to give a rapid and brief summary of what I saw and heard. The Canaries were known to the ancients, and were called the fortunate or happy isles. Their present name is derived from Canis—dogs of a peculiar breed having been found in them. The inhabitants were a fine and brave race, of whom little is known except that they had the custom of embalming their dead. The Spaniards made several attempts to take possession of the islands, but did not succeed in overcoming their aboriginal inhabitants till about 1493, since which time the latter have become completely amalgamated with the conquerors.

The group consists of seven islands of volcanic origin. The principal islands are Teneriffe and Grand-Canaria. Teneriffe is sixty miles long and thirty broad. The peak, called also the Peak of Teyde, is about the centre of a dormant volcano nearly 12,000 feet high. Connected with it are numerous mountain-ridges, out of which sulphuric vapours constantly ascend, and another crater called Chahorra, close upon 10,000 feet high, and to the west of it are several cones which were in a state of eruption in 1798. Surrounding the peak is a plain bordered by mountain-ridges and covered with pumice stones, the only vegetable which grows on it being the retama. Indeed, only one-seventh of the whole island is fit for cultivation, the rest being composed of lava and ashes, or rocky heights and precipitous cliffs. Still, many of the portions which can be cultivated are of extraordinary fertility; and the contrast is very great between the richly-cultivated plains and valleys, and the leafy forests, with the barren, scorched, and burnt sides of the peak and its surrounding heights. I ought to have said that the houses of Santa Cruz are of several stories, with the verandahs one above another, looking into the interior courts, in which grow not only bananas, but all sorts of tropical shrubs, and fruit, and flower-bearing plants, in the most luxurious manner.

In speaking of Santa Cruz, I must not forget that it was here one of the greatest of England’s admirals, Nelson, lost his arm; and here alone he failed of success among the numerous expeditions in which he was engaged. He commanded a squadron under Lord Saint Vincent, who despatched him to take Santa Cruz, and to cut out a valuable Spanish ship, El Princesse d’Asturias, from Manilla, bound to Cadiz, which it was reported had put in there. The first attempt to effect a landing having failed, Nelson took command of the expedition. The directions were that all the boats should land at the mole, but the night was very dark, and the greater number having missed it, were driven on shore through the surf I have described, and stove, while the admiral, with only four or five boats, found the mole. This they stormed, though a terrific fire was opened upon them; and Nelson, who was about to draw his sword as he was stepping on shore, was struck by a musket-ball on the right arm. Had not his step-son, Lieutenant Nisbet, and one of his bargemen, John Lovel, bound up his arm, he would in all probability have bled to death. Captain Troubridge having, in the meantime, succeeded in collecting two or three hundred men on the beach, all who had escaped being shot or drowned, marched to the square, and took possession of the town. He, of course, had to abandon all hopes of taking the citadel; but, though eventually hemmed in by eight thousand Spaniards, he was able, by threatening to burn the town, to make terms, and to retire with his little band from the place. In this disastrous affair, the English lost, killed and wounded, two hundred and fifty men, and several captains and other officers. Blake, it may be remembered, in the time of the Commonwealth had cut out from this same bay some rich Spanish galleons, and it was hoped that Nelson would have been equally successful in a like attempt. The islanders do not bear us any ill will in consequence, and I found a good many Englishmen living in the place. Many of them are engaged in exporting Teneriffe wine, in days of yore well known as Canary wine.

Talking of wine, the disease which has destroyed the vines of Madeira has also committed great havoc here, but the people have been saved from ruin by the discovery of a new article of export. The cactus, that thick-leaved, spiny plant used often in the south to form hedges, which look as if the ground was growing a crop of double-edged saws, flourishes in the most arid soil in Teneriffe. The cactus had some time before been introduced from Honduras with the cochineal insect, which feeds on it, by a native gentleman; but his fellow-islanders turned up their noses at the nasty little creature, and said that they would rather produce wine as had been done for the last three hundred years or more. When, however, their vines sickened and died, too glad were they, one and all, to have such for their support, and everybody, high and low, took to planting cactus and breeding the cochineal. The female insect is in form like a bug, but white; the male turns into something like a gnat, and soon dies. The insects are shut up in boxes to lay their eggs on bits of linen, which are pinned to the cactus plants by one of their own thorns. In six months after planting the cactus, the harvest begins. The insect, which has secreted a purple fluid, is swept off the plant on to a board, and then baked to death in an oven. This constitutes the cochineal as imported. A single acre of land planted with cactus will produce from three hundred pounds to five hundred pounds of cochineal, worth 75 pounds to the grower.

Teneriffe produces the dragon-tree—Dracena draco—which gives forth in the form of gum a splendid scarlet, known of old as dragon’s blood; but as they take a century or more to grow into trees, and several centuries before they attain any size, he would be a daring man who would attempt their cultivation for the sake of profit.

In strong contrast to the luxurious habitations of the upper classes were the abodes of many of the poorer orders. When the now silent peak sent forth streams of lava, it flowed down towards the sea, covering the sandy shore, where, cooled by the water, it stopped short. In many places, in process of time, the sand has been washed away, leaving rows of caverns, with flat lava roofs. Numbers of poor people have taken up their abode in these nature-formed recesses; and if they have no windows, they have plenty of sea air, and pay no taxes.

I had an opportunity of seeing something of the fish of these regions. A net, as we passed near the beach, was being drawn on to it. There was a shout, and a rush towards it. A huge monster of a ray, with the sharpest of stings, was seen floundering amid a number of other creatures, the most numerous being hammer-headed dog-fish, which were quickly knocked on the head to be turned into oil, while the ray (Pteroplatea Canariensis) was set on by a host of enemies, and speedily despatched.