22 



CHAPTER II. 

 La Oliva. 



T A OLIVA probably stands at an elevation of not 

 *-** less than seven or eight hundred feet above the 

 sea, and for this reason it is cooler than many other 

 villages in Fuerteventura. We were not prepared, 

 however, to find it really cold at breakfast time on the 

 morning after our arrival ; there was a keen wind 

 blowing, and instead of the fierce sun that I had been 

 led to prepare for, the day was dull and cloudy. 



After breakfast I put my things together, and taking 

 some lunch with us we started out, past the few houses 

 which constituted the street in which our host's dwell- 

 ing was situated. We took with us two Spanish boys 

 to show us the country and assist us in looking for the 

 nests that I was anxious to find ; fortunately I knew the 

 local names of all the birds, otherwise we should have 

 been very much at sea. 



All the towns and villages in Fuerteventura are 

 surrounded by an open, desert-like plain, so that a 

 very short space of time suffices to take one clear of 

 the houses and out into the country. It was not until 

 we were on the exposed ground that we realised the 

 full force of the wind ; we could hardly walk against 

 it, and to make matters worse a heavy storm of rain 

 came on before we had gone more than a mile from 



