CANARYISLANDS. 7 



ble. They issue in clouds so dense that they darken the 

 air. In vain do the forlorn inhabitants ring their bells, 

 throw water, and devise other means to obstruct their 

 course ; but the irresistible mass moves forward, and eludes 

 every attempt to check their depredations. Whole fields 

 and vineyards enlivened with verdure, or laden with har- 

 vest, are ravaged by them without suffering to remain a 

 leaf or even a blade of grass. Sometimes in attempting to 

 cross the ocean, they are driven upon its surface by tem- 

 pestuous winds, and inconceivable numbers are driven 

 upon the shores dead, and the putrid exhalations arising 

 from them, have been regarded as noxious to health. 



In conclusion, we come to man as he existed here at 

 the time of the arrival of the Spaniards at these islands. 

 At that period, the people here were known by the nam.e 

 of Guanches. In general, they inhabited natural caverns 

 and caves or huts, built of gross and unhewn materials, 

 constructed without the aid of mortar. They led, in many 

 respects, a truly savage life, and hardly possessed a knowl- 

 edge of the earliest rudiments of art. Although the cereal 

 grasses were known to them, agriculture was in its rudest 

 and most uncultivated state, and they subsisted chiefly on 

 parched barley flour and goats' milk, and fed in common 

 with dogs. They deposited their dead in caverns for the 

 purpose of inhumation, and even possessed the art of em- 

 balming, which tend to prove that they descended, or had 

 some knowledge of the Caucasian tribes. But a profound 

 silence reigns with regard to their origin, in which the 

 world probably must remain forever in darkness. 



D. J. B. 



Boston, May, 1634. 



