Visit to the Island of Teneriffe, fyc. 344 1 



Visit to Teneriffe, and Ascent of the Peak of Teyde. 

 By John MacGillivray, Esq. 



On approaching the island of Teneriffe, the famous Peak of Teyde, 

 once adopted by geographers as their primary meridian (as we now 

 use Greenwich), was in our instance the all-absorbing object of attrac- 

 tion, in connexion with a meditated ascent. The view from the road- 

 stead of Santa Cruz, especially to one coming from Madeira, is any- 

 thing but inviting ; it presents a series of burnt-up hills of a reddish 

 colour, at the foot of which the town is built. On the left some small 

 craters, of remarkable regularity of form, attract the eye. 



The town of Santa Cruz, virtually the capital of the Canary Islands, 

 extends along the shore — protected by several batteries and detached 

 forts — and exhibits a series of low, white-washed, red-tiled houses, 

 with here and there a projecting tower or steeple. Landing at the 

 mole (where Nelson lost his arm in 1797), our attention was first at- 

 tracted by a string of two-humped camels or dromedaries, carrying 

 burthens. This animal was introduced from the neighbouring coast 

 of Africa in the beginning of the fifteenth century, after the partial 

 conquest of the Canary Islands by the Spaniards under Jean de Be- 

 tancour. The better class of houses are all built on a similar plan ; a 

 large gate-w r ay, above which are displayed the family arms, opens into 

 a court surrounded by a gallery, and a wide staircase on each side near 

 the entrance leads to the various apartments, large, lofty, thinly furnish- 

 ed, and uncarpeted. In the neighbourhood of the town the crops of 

 maize, four-rowed barley, potatoes, and flax, were more promising 

 than might have been anticipated from the aridity of the soil. On the 

 parched hills above the vegetation consists almost entirely of the large 

 succulent Euphorbia Canariensis, and a scarlet -flowered Cactus or 

 Indian fig (of American origin), the latter harbouring colonies of the 

 valuable cochineal insect, introduced from Mexico in 1828. In one 

 of the fields of barley I found great numbers of a locust very similar 

 to Acrydium migratonum, very noisy and difficult to catch, taking 

 flights of twenty yards at a time, and rising again on being approach- 

 ed. In a ravine paved with rugged blocks of stone — the dried-up bed 

 of an occasional torrent — I obtained specimens of a lizard (Lacerta 

 Galloti), and a gecko (Platydactylus Delalandii): also two land 

 shells, one {Helix plicata) was rather plentiful under stones, the other 

 (H. lactea) seemed to be rare. The first of these lizards is very com- 

 mon in Teneriffe (where it supplies the place of the Madeiran Lacerta 

 X. s 



