44 GUANCHES. ‘ . 
inhabitants of the New World, wh® previous to 
the arrival of the Europeans among hem, hod ne 
knowledge of grain, milk, or cheese. _ 
The Canary Islands were originally iihabited by 
a people famed for their tall stature, and known 
by the name of Guanches. They have now en- 
tirely disappeared under the oppression ©° a more - 
powerful and more enlightened race, which, assum- 
ing the superiority supposed to be sanctioned by 
civilisation and the profession of the Christian faith, 
disposed of the natives in a manner little accordant 
with the character of a true follower of the cross. 
The archipelago of the Canaries was divided into 
small states hostile to each other ; and in the fifteenth 
century, the Spaniards and Portuguese made voy- 
ages to these islands for slaves, as the Europeans 
have latterly been accustomed to do to the coast of 
Guinea. One Guanche then became the property of 
another, who sold him to the dealers; while many, 
rather than become slaves, killed their children and 
themselves. The natives had been greatly reduced 
in this manner, when Alonzo de Lugo completed 
their subjugation. The residue of that unhappy 
people perished by a terrible pestilence, which was 
supposed to have originated from the bodies left ex- 
posed by the Spaniards after the battle of Laguna. 
At the present day, no individual of pure blood 
exists in these islands, where all that remains of 
the aborigines are certain mummies, reduced to an 
extraordinary degree of desiccation, and found in the 
sepulchral caverns which are cut in the rock on the 
eastern slope of the Peak. These skeletons contain 
remains of aromatic plants, especially the Chenopo- 
dium ambrosioides, and are often decorated with 
