METEORIC RIVERS OR WATERFALLS. 411 



At | to eight, A. M., we crossed the ravine, named Fuer- 

 rael Monte, and entered the Llanos de Gaspar (the plains 

 of Gaspar). Here, vegetation became very scanty, and al- 

 most the only plant was Canarian thyme. But this spot is 

 particularly interesting, from its being evident, that a con- 

 siderable part of the water-spouts which deluged the island 

 in November, 1826, had burst here, cutting the surface into 

 a vast number of ravines, some of them of great depth. 

 From the appearance of the surface, the columns of water 

 which fell must have been very numerous ; as in ten or 

 twelve different places, the lava is cut into deep trenches, 

 some of them fifteen and twenty feet deep, with the soil 

 which was between them completely washed away by the 

 spray or overflowing of the water. Many of these deep 

 channels frequently converge into one, forming a destructive 

 and overwhelming ravine. 



Considerable bodies of water have frequently fallen upon 

 the Canaries, and done some mischief by washing into the 

 sea, the vegetable mould which so thinly covers the lavas. 

 But the visitation of the 6th and 7th of November, 1826, 

 was the most awful and destructive, both to life and prop- 

 erty, of any of which the inhabitants have any tradition. 

 My friend. Mr. Auber, of Orotava, has furnished rne with 

 the interesting details of the phenomena attending this wa- 

 ter-spout, which I shall here subjoin. On the afternoon of 

 the 6th of November, the wind, which was blowing strongly 

 from the northeast, veered round to every point of the com- 

 pass, and ultimately established itself from the north ; but 

 at sea, a few miles from land, it was blowing a hurricane 

 from the north east, and, in a moment, without any inter- 

 mediate change, it blew as strongly from the southwest. 

 The sky became obscured all at once, by enormous masses 

 of black clouds, which hastened the night sometime before 

 sunset ; but neither thunder nor lightning was observed. 

 The rain commenced to fall in torrents towards ten o'clock 



