OUR LAST WEEK IN FUERTEVENTURA 55 



very glad that we had taken a fair stock of provisions, 

 as meat, excepting now and then a small chicken, 

 bread, vegetables, in fact all the commonplace articles 

 of consumption, were rarely seen wherever we went. 

 Gofio, dried fish, and very indifferent water seemed to 

 be the diet of nearly all the islanders. Lorenzo came 

 to the door of my room one evening looking very 

 mysterious, and poked his head inside, being evidently 

 the possessor of some secret intelligence not lightly to 

 be parted with. Pointing over his shoulder to the 

 shed where the cooking was done he nodded his head 

 several times, to an accompaniment of sniffs. Carne 

 de earner o, Seiior, he said. I understood him quite 

 well, but this was not enough. Dropping on all fours 

 he gave a loud baa, at which I could not help being 

 amused. This pleased him, for he thought the sweets 

 of anticipation were aroused in my breast as they were 

 in his, so with his well-known salute he left me. A 

 special effort had seemingly been made to give me 

 a treat, and if the brindled watch-dog evinced that 

 evening a somewhat suspicious desire for my company 

 that he had not shown before, who was to know that 

 he, and not I, was the consumer of that mutton ? In a 

 word, the brindled watch-dog helped me over a diffi- 

 culty, and although it was not exactly an animal one 

 would care to be under an obligation to, the arrange- 

 ment happened in this case to suit both parties. 



The people were greatly interested in my cameras, 

 which I think they regarded with some amount of 

 superstition, even Lorenzo appearing relieved when 

 the shutter had gone down and the photograph was 

 taken. Sometimes four or five of them would stand 



