igoo-i.] Spanish Documents Relative to the Canary Islands. 33 



this age confused their minds with the ideas of the French Encyclo- 

 pedists, from whose influence escaped no one of the most illustrious 

 historians of the Canaries, not even the most notable, the erudite Viera 

 y Clavijo. This man of positive merit, without knowing how or why, 

 without any foundation, alienating a truth which he ought to have 

 known, first launched his specious falsehood with all the authority with 

 which his reputation invested it. The rest belonged to the romantic 

 school, a couple of generations of satyr-poets, who corrupted our history. 

 The first to protest against these falsities was M. Berthelot in his 

 notable work, and he was followed by others in his laudable purpose. 

 But neither the serious labours of these men, which most people do not 

 read, even including the literati ; nor the testimony of the archives, in 

 which appear wills, and contracts of purchase and sale of the aborigines 

 as well as marriage contracts and judicial procedures ; nor the teaching 

 surrendered by the very opened tombs, has sufficed to retard the 

 velocity acquired by the ball, launched forth to roll in time by the 

 unforgotten Viera, meanwhile gliding over the area of superficial 

 ignorance in which we live. 



" On the other hand, as before the conquest, so after the fourteenth 

 century, adventurers and pirates came from Europe to capture Guanches 

 and sell them for slaves. From the sixteenth century onwards the 

 natives must of necessity have taken knowledge of the Spanish nobility, 

 not descended from Moor, Jew or Guanche ; and from this and a world- 

 wide anxiety after pride of birth, have forgotten their affiliation, of 

 which at the time they had ability to obtain proof Who knows 

 whether the disappearance and frequent burning of archives and other 

 documents was part and parcel of this foolish pride? As the erudite 

 historian Millares tells us, the inquisitors, certainly without any fraudu- 

 lent design, made. very full lists of Guanche descents. 



" I proceed to add the tedious illustrations. I have deemed it 

 suitable to prefix these preparatory considerations for those who are 

 little versed in the internal history of the Canary Island people, a people 

 little known even to those who study uninteresting tribes leading 

 distant and secluded lives. I trust these data will not be lost on him 

 who undertakes the serious but glorious task of making the study of the 

 Guanche tongue. I know of no other materials than those I send ; and 

 I do not know if there is sufficient for such an enterprise, in order to 

 re-construct or even make known the affiliation of a language which has 

 entirely disappeared. It is a miracle of mercy to have the subject 

 investigated by a genuine philologist, who alone knows how to exercise 

 a wise discrimination and a useful sifting among the farrago of errors 

 3 



