30 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



first very largely, especially in names of places, and in valuable notes, 

 historical and documentary. The third is virtually a supplement to a 

 manuscript entitled, " Inscripciones de la isla de Hierro," sent to the 

 writer by Dr. Bethencourt in 1898, for translation. A French version 

 of the translation, made by M. O'Shea, appeared more than a year 

 ago in the transactions of the Biarritz Association ; and the English 

 version is now in press for the transactions of the Royal Society of 

 Canada. The most important inscription in the present document 

 is that on the statue called " La Virgen de Candelaria," from Tenerife, 

 in apparently Roman letters ; others in ruder script are from rock faces 

 in Canaria, Gomera and Hierro. Such then is the material on which 

 the writer is called upon to express a scientific opinion, as a student 

 of language and of ancient Turanian and other inscriptions. The 

 threefold relations of the Canary Islands to Africa, Europe and 

 America, invest the study with special interest. 



In allowing Dr. Bethencourt to speak for himself, the writer must 

 crave his and the Institute's indulgence, inasmuch as he has dabbled 

 but little in the Spanish tongue since college days, which lie thirty- 

 five years in the past ; and he finds some of the Doctor's rhetorical 

 forms and quaint expressions to transcend the range of the ordinary 

 grammar and dictionary. Unconsciousl}^, at times, he interlards a 

 Guanche term, perfectly significant to the dwellers on the islands, but 

 ignored by the Castilian lexicographer. The first document has no 

 text, being pure vocabulary. The second, or folio manuscript, contains 

 six pages of introduction, which are as follows : " I send as much as is 

 known of the Guanche language and of those spoken in the other 

 islands. The printed document comprises all the words and phrases 

 published up to this date, during four or five centuries, by authors 

 native and foreign ; and the manuscript contains what I have been able 

 to bring together in a period of thirty years. 



" Either list is replete with errors, not only of orthography and 

 pronunciation, since each collector has gone on accommodating 

 speeches and words to his own age, but also we have arrived at taking 

 as Guanche what is the purest and noblest Castilian. Moreover, there 

 is such a tendency among our people to contraction or apocope, that 

 even speeches reduce themselves to a single common word, as, for 

 example, the word Lerines, of the isle of Hierro, which I am sure, 

 through thorough investigation, arose out of La era de Inez. If, to 

 this ignorance, under the disadvantage of which labour the majority 

 of the words which we have collected, be added the fact that almost all 

 refer to localities and personal proper names, and that there have lived 



