150 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CUAP. Vi 



the coiirse of the day. He notes finding the char- 

 acteristic Euphorbia and Heaths of the Canaries ; 

 notes, too, one or two visitations of dyspepsia from 

 indigestible food. He writes from Laguna : — 



From all that people with whom we meet tell me, I 

 gather that the usual massive lies about health resorts 

 pervade the accounts of Teneriffe. Santa Cruz would 

 reduce me to jelly in a week, and I hear that Orotava is 

 worse — stifling. Guimar, whither we go to-morrow, is 

 warranted to be dry and everlasting sunshine. "We shall 

 see. One of the people staying in the house said they 

 had rain there for a fortnight together. ... I am all 

 right now, and walked some 15 miles up hill and down 

 dale to-day, and I am not more than comfortably tired. 

 However, I am not going to try the peak. I find it can- 

 not be done without a night out at a considerable height 

 when the thermometer commonly goes down below freez- 

 ing, and I am not going to run that risk for the chance 

 of seeing even the famous shadows. 



By some mischance, no letters from home reached 

 him till the 26th, and he writes from Guimar on the 

 23rd :— 



A lady who lives here told me yesterday that a post- 

 mistress at one place was in the habit of taking off the 

 stamps and turning the letters on one side ! But that 

 luckily is not a particular dodge with ours. 



We drove over here on the 17 th. It is a very 

 picturesque place 1000 feet up in the midst of a great 

 amphitheatre of high hills, facing north, orange -trees 

 laden with fruit, date palms and bananas are in the 

 garden, and there is lovely sunshine all day long. 

 Altogether the climate is far the best I have found any- 

 where here, and the house, which is that of a Spanish 



