NEW QUARTERS 47 



how he liked the island, to which he replied, " Biiena 



gente, Senor, buena gente, pero le pais " and he 



shrugged his shoulders and spat on the ground. 



Don Ramon and Lorenzo would often take a stroll 

 round the village of an evening, and sometimes I went 

 with them, during which times I think I learned more 

 Spanish than in any other way. While on these walks 

 Lorenzo would pat the children on the head in a fatherly 

 way, using some term of endearment to them, such as 

 chiquillo ; the termination illo is often tacked on to the 

 end of a child's name, and implies smallness, as Antonillo, 

 the little Antonio. It seems to render the name of a 

 small child less ponderous ; many of the commoner 

 names are exceedingly pretty, such as Celestina, Cipriano. 

 \Ve found the children in Fuerteventura always cour- 

 teous and well-behaved, in striking contrast to those 

 about the larger towns in Grand Canary and Tenerife, 

 where, unfortunately, they have learned the commercial 

 value of being impertinent. 



Strolling along on one of these evenings past a row 

 of houses, I heard Lorenzo give a low growl, somewhat 

 similar to that given by a large dog when it passes any 

 one to whom it owes a grudge ; I asked him what was 

 the matter, when it transpired that he had taken a pair 

 of shoes which I had given him a few days previously 

 to a shoemaker to be re-soled. This man had reduced 

 them so much in size by the process that it was an 

 impossibility for Lorenzo to wear them without extreme 

 pain. Accordingly he shook his fist at the dwelling of 

 the shoemaker, telling- me that he was a bad man. 

 When we returned to Orotava he took the shoes to his 

 own shoemaker to be re-topped, but he still referred to 

 them as zapatos del Caballero. 



