CANARY ISLANDS. 129 



to carry on level ground. They had public houses or 

 rooms in which they assembled to dance and sing. Their 

 songs were either dirges or amorous sonnets, set to grave 

 and plaintive tunes. 



The houses of the Canarians were built of stone without 

 cement, but were regular, and had a neat appearance. At 

 the top, they had wooden beams or rafters very close to 

 each other, and were covered with earth. Their walls 

 were low, and their floors were sunk below the surface of 

 the earth. Their beds consisted of goat-skins dressed in 

 a curious manner with the hair on. Their other furniture 

 consisted of baskets and mats made of palm leaves and 

 rushes very ingeniously wrought. The women, in general, 

 were employed in painting and dyeing, the colors for which, 

 they extracted from flowers and shrubs. The thread 

 which they used for sewing and other purposes was made 

 from the elastic sinews of sheep, goats, or swine. These 

 they first anointed with butter, and after undergoing an 

 operation by fire, they were susceptible of being split into 

 fine threads at pleasure. Their needles were made of 

 bone, and their fish-hooks of horn. All their vessels used 

 in cooking were made of clay, hardened by the sun, in the 

 same manner as those of Lanzarote. Their wealth con- 

 sisted chiefly in cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs. 



Their common food consisted of goats' flesh, milk and 

 gofio. When they made a feast, they dressed their goats' 

 flesh in lard or butter. 



The costume of the Canarians was a tight coat with a 

 hood to it like that of a capuchin friar; it reached down 

 to the knees, and was girded about the waist with a leather 

 belt. This garment was made of a kind of rush, which 

 they beat till it was quite soft like flax, and then divided 

 the filaments and wove them together. Over this they 

 wore cloaks of goat-skins with the hair-side outwards, in 

 summer, and inwards, in winter. They also had caps 

 made of goat-skins taken off* almost entire, which they 

 placed on their heads in such a manner, that they had the 

 goats' beard hanging under each ear, which they some- 

 times tied under their chin. All these garments were 

 neatly sewed and painted, and in every respect were supe- 

 rior to those of the natives of the other islands. Some of 



