38 ‘DR. CHARLES BOLLE’S JOURNEY 
_ Diana, if we may have faith in tradition, of the horns of wild goats. 
. With these grow an 4rtemisia, then flowerless, a little Galium, Noto- 
chlena vellea, and a Conyza. Around the few rare sources are pium 
graveolens, Maiden-hair, Gnaphalium luteo-album, Glaux maritima, wan- 
derers and cosmopolites. On the coast appear an Indigofera, Resedella 
subulata, Reseda crystallina, and a Lobularia. Adding to these the 
Messerschmidia, the Periploca levigata, Rubia fruticosa, and a sprinkling 
of very common plants, and I think I have given you a fair idea of, 
the Florula of the Handian peninsula. I must not forget however 
the Zuphorbia Canariensis, never seen by me elsewhere in the two 
. Purpurariz. I need not add, what Bourgeau told you, that Des- 
.. préaux's story of his having found here a Melianthus is false. 
And now we must cross the Hablé, that desert which, still more than 
. the Cyclopean wall built by the aborigines, separates Handia from the 
rest of Fuerteventura. In this Libyan solitude nothing is wanting to 
recall the pieture of the great Sahara, not even the bones of camels, 
half enveloped in the folds of the waves of sand. But we have no 
time to stop; aloft on our dromedary we will pass quickly throngh the 
Whole length of this, the longest of the Canaries, the hapless Fuerte- 
ventura, which years of drought and misery have depopulated and de- 
spoiled of cattle and forests. At length we reach the strait: of the 
- Bocayna, which, rolling on like a mighty river, separates us from Lobos. 
A light canoe lands us on a strand of the whitest and finest sand that 
ean be imagined. Your Canarian idyl, * A day passed at Graciosa,’ was 
renewed, but how recite it in this short letter? It requires an entire 
_ Miscellanée!”* More prudent than the Gascon knight, companion 
of the Norman Béthencourt, Gadifer de la Sallet, we had brought 
with us an ample store of eatables, of wine, and above all of water. 
_ This little islet is not, like Graciosa, given over to woody Chenopodee. 
The Euphorbia balsamifera is likewise abundant here, and attains truly 
astonishing dimensions. The flora of Lobos is characterized too by 
the exuberance of its Statices, which sometimes reign exclusively and 
without rivals. I observed three species, and amongst them S.papillata ; 
__* See Miscell. Canar. p. 191. 
, *,'" En lisle de Loupe, où il estoit allé pour avoir des peaux de loups marins pour 
la nécessité de chaussures, qu'il falloit aux compagnons, et y demeura tant que vivres 
lui faillirent, et il estendoit un drap toutes les nuits, qu'il tordoit tous les matins pour 
estancher sa soif, car la dite isle est déserte et sans eau douce, "— Relation des Chape- 
-lains de Béthencourt. ; 
