LLANO DEL KETAMA. 43 



struck with its enormous magnitude. They were told 

 that the trunk of this tree, which is mentioned in several 

 very ancient documents, was as gigantic in the fifteenth 

 century as when they saw it. Its height appeared to 

 them to be about fifty or sixty feet ; its circumference 

 near the roots was forty- five feet. The trunk was divided 

 into a great number of branches, which rose in the form 

 of a candelabrum, and were terminated by tufts of leaves. 



On leaving Orotava, a narrow and stony pathway led 

 them through a beautiful forest of chestnut trees to a site 

 covered with brambles, some species of laurels, and ar- 

 borescent heaths. The trunks of the latter grew to an 

 extraordinary size, and were loaded with flowers. They 

 now stopped to take in their provision of water under a 

 solitary fir-tree. 



They continued to ascend, till they came to the rock 

 of La Gayta and to Portillo : traversing this narrow pass 

 between two basaltic hills, they entered the great plain 

 of Spartium. They spent two hours and a half in cross- 

 ing the Llano del Retama, which appeared like an im- 

 mense sea of sand. 



As far as the rock of Gayta, or the entrance of the 

 extensive Llano del Retama, the peak of TenerifFe was 

 covered with beautiful vegetation. There were no traces 

 of recent devastation. They might have imagined 

 themselves scaling the side of some volcano, the fire of 

 which had been extinguished for centuries ; but scarcely 

 had they reached the plain covered with pumice-stone, 

 when the landscape changed its aspect, and at every step 

 they met with large blocks of obsidian thrown out by the 

 volcano. Everything here spoke perfect solitude. A 

 few goats a-nd rabbits bounded across the plain. The 



