Tau 



3H VILLA DE LA LAGU.NA. 



I. The captain of tlie Pizarro having apprized them that, 

 on account of the blockade by the Eiiglisli, they ought 

 ^'■'--'^- not to reckon upon a longer stay than four or five days, 



tliey hastened to set out for the port of Orotava, where 

 tliey might find guides for the ascent of the Peak ; and 

 on tile 20th, before sunrise, the}' were on the way to 

 Villa de la Laguna, which is 1684 feet above the sea. 

 The road to this place is on the right of a torrent which 

 rsnii-i, and in the rainy season forms beautiful falls. Near the town 

 liursL-s. ^j^p^^^ j^^p^ with some white camels employed in trans- 



porting merchandise. These animals, as well as horses, 

 were introduced into the Canary Islands in the fifteenth 

 century by the Norman conr^uerors, and were unknown 

 to the Guanches. Camels are more abundant in Lan- 

 cerota and Forteventura, which are nearer the continent, 

 than at TenerifFe, where they very seldom propagate. 

 G>»f.io(rical The hill on which the Villa de la Laguna stands be- 



longs to the series of basaltic mountains, which forms a 

 girdle around the Peak, and is independent of the newer 

 volcanic rocks. The basalt on which the travellers 

 walked was blackish-brown, compact, and partially de- 

 composed. Tliey found in it hornblende, olivine, and 

 transparent pyroxene, with lamellar fracture, of an 

 olive-green tint, and often crystallized in six-sided 

 prisms. The rock of Laguna is not columnar, but 

 divided into thin beds, inclined at an angle of from 30'' 

 to 40°, and has no appearance of having been formed by 

 a current of lava from the Peak. Some arborescent 

 Kupliorbiip, Cacalia kleinia, and Cacti, were the only 

 jilants observed on these parched acclivities. The mules 

 blijtped at every step on the inclined surfaces of the rock, 

 althougli traces of an old road were observable, which, 

 with tlie numerous other indications that occur in these 

 colonies, afford evidence of the activity displayed by the 

 Spanish nation in the sixteenth century. 

 ii'.-it nf The heat of Siuita Cruz, which is suffocating, is in a 



«^ '"-"^ great niejisure to be attributed to the reverberation of 

 the rocks in its vicinity ; but as the travellers approached 

 Lagnim they became sensible of a very pleasant dimi- 



