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Hierro, according to Webb ami Berthelot*, is derived from hero. 

 which signified fountain or spring in the language of the Bini- 

 baches, the original inhabitants now long disappeared. These 

 authors state, on the authority of Viana, that the primitive people 

 of Hierro called the wells or cisterns, which they used for con- 

 serving rainwater, In res, and that this designation was still in use 

 (i.e., in 1839), This explanation of the origin of the name 

 Hierro seems to discredit sufficiently the views taken by some 

 writers on the Canaries that Hierro must mean the same as 

 the French rendering of the wind as Fer, which, however, has 

 nothing to do with fer (ironj. 



In his excellent guide-book to Madeira, Canary Islands and 

 \zores (1910), Samier Brown says of Jlierro: * 4 The coast is 



steep and uninviting, all the anchorages being mere open road- 

 steads. The cliffs rise so suddenly from the sea that there is no 

 room for houses on the coast and consequently no seaport town 

 to find a means of building a mole .... The interior is a sort 

 of tableland along which most of the paths are conducted, and 

 where most of the inhabitants own patches of land, on which 

 they grow cereals, pasture their cattle, and where they live 

 during the harvesting season .... The mountains, of which 

 the Alto del Malpasa (4990 ft.) is the highest, are only partially 

 wooded, and there is far less sylvan scenery than is to be found 

 in the other islands of the western group, although in some 

 places, and more particularly in the neighbourhood of El Golfo, 

 there are a fair number of trees. There are practically no 

 springs and the people depend for water on the rain, which is 

 preserved in tanks. The air which passes, however, is sufficiently 

 laden with moisture. Were the question properly studied and 

 plantations made in judicious positions, it is probable that an 

 increased supply could be obtained. On the arrival of the 

 Spaniards there appears to have been a tree near Valverde 

 called El Garoe, which, according to legend, distilled enough 

 water from its leaves to supply all the people with what they 

 required." 



This tree, or perhaps more likely several trees, is supposed 

 to have been Oreodaphne foetens, Nees (Ocotea foetens, Webb & 

 Berthel.),t a species of laurel not now recorded from the island 

 of Hierro. It is, however, still fairly common in the islands 

 of Tenerife, Grand Canary and Palnm, and in Madeira, where 

 it occurs amongst other evergreens of the " laurel forest " or 

 r< Monte Verde/' so characteristic of the cloud region of the 

 Canaries. The date-palm mentioned by Pliny was no doubt the 

 distinct endemic species Phoenix canariensis, Hort., considered 

 by some authors to be a variety (var. Jubae) of the common 

 <late-palm, P. daetylifera, Linn. The pine-kernels were those 

 of the endemic Pinus canariensis, CSin., which in former days 

 must have occupied a much greater area of the islands than at 

 the present time (see Keir Bull . 1018, 1-3). 



In the narrative of Sir Eichard Hawking on his voyage to 



* Webb and Berthelot, Hist. Nat. Isles Canar. ii. pt. i. 151. 



f See Buck, Allgem. Ubers. der Fl. Canar. InsL 341. 



% See Haklutus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, vol. xvii. 64. 





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