igoo-i.] Spanish Documents Relative to the Canary Islands. 55 



their way to Cuzco, and Lake Titicaca. There they soon forgot the 

 stirring events of former national history in the task of founding a new 

 empire. Four centuries and a-half of Peru followed the three hundred 

 and fifty years of Mexico, as these had succeeded seven hundred and 

 more of Canary Island life ; and then the Spaniard came to conquer 

 these brave wrestlers against adverse fate, who had never really been 

 conquered before, and to abase their pride in the degradation of hope- 

 less servitude. It is a pathetic story, made tenfold more so by the 

 knowledge that they were, and are to-day, more than half of them, our 

 kindred Celts, who, under better conditions might have emulated the 

 best achievements and lives of Wales and Brittany. 



THE CANARY ISLAND INSCRIPTIONS. 



Of these Dr. Bethencourt writes as follows : " As far as my inform- 

 ation goes, there are no other inscriptions than those already sent, and 

 those which I now send. As regards those of the island of Hierro, 

 it may be that some are here repeated, but I prefer this tiresome 

 redundancy to the fear that there should be any incompleteness of 

 material for elucidating the subject. If I do not remember amiss, M. 

 Berthelot generalized the idea that the written characters of Hierro 

 were Libyan, founded on the opinion of General Faidherbe. Later, 

 some have begun to doubt the truth of this assertion, but nobody has 

 interpreted them. The studies of Mr. Campbell not only confirm the 

 conclusions of anthropologists, but also open up unsuspected horizons, 

 and point out new departures in the history of the Guanche population, 

 along highways almost closed for about four centuries. May it please 

 God to deign to direct him in fixing his attention upon so interesting 

 a problem. 



Prehistoric Inscriptions of the Canary Islands. 

 Island of Te^ierife. 



" In reality none are known here, unless we count among them the 

 Roman letters on the image of the Virgin of Candelaria, probably of 

 scant historical interest, and the inscription of Anaga of our illustrious 

 friend, Dr. Manuel Osuna, to my mind of doubtful existence as an 

 inscription. 



The Virgin of Candelaria. 



" According to our chronicles, this image suddenly appeared on the 

 shore of the little kingdom of Guimar, about the year 1390, over a 



