86 SOME BIRDS OF THE CANARY ISLANDS 



into requisition, the gradations in colour being quite 

 remarkable when it is considered that the designs are 

 all laid in the natural colour of the flowers, except 

 where black is required, when it is obtained by rilling 

 in pieces of the broom which have been previously- 

 burnt for the purpose. In the large squares of the 

 town pictures are worked out, introducing various 

 figures, and in one of these pictures a very effective 

 texture was obtained by utilising the long fibres which 

 hang from the Indian corn when ripe, as a representa- 

 tion of an old man's beard. 



All traffic is suspended in the town on this day, 

 and when the brilliant procession, headed by the eccle- 

 siastics, emerges from the church, it passes along the 

 chief streets in turn, reducing what was, but half-an- 

 hour since, a blaze of colour, to a dingy mass of nothing- 

 ness. Some of the special pictures into which figures 

 are introduced are executed by members of the old 

 Spanish families who have been represented in the 

 Villa of Orotava for many generations. 



Some of the old gardens in the Villa are very 

 charming, as are those also down at the Port, notably 

 the Hotel garden, which has been transformed from a 

 rugged crust of lava into a garden of flowers. The 

 soil, buried for centuries beneath this crust of lava, 

 is most prolific, roses and innumerable other flowers 

 blooming with a total disregard of time or season. 



There are few seasonal sounds in Tenerife, and the 

 passage of time is not marked, as in England, by the 

 whirr of the machine or the sharpening of the scythe. 

 One of the few sounds of nature's almanack during the 

 spring in the Hotel gardens at Orotava is the musical 



