128 



side of the town is not equal to it's external ap- 

 pearance. The houses are solidly built, but very 

 antique, and the streets seem deserted. A bo- 

 tanist ought not to complain of the antiquity of 

 the edifices. The roofs and walls are covered 

 with Canary house-teek, and those elegant tri- 

 chomanes, mentioned by every traveller. These 

 plants are nourished by the frequent fogs. 



Mr. Anderson, the naturalist in the third voy- 

 age of Captain Cook, advises the European phy- 

 sicians to send their sick to Teneriffe, undoubt- 

 edly not from those motives, which induce some 

 practitioners to prefer the mineral waters that are 

 at the greatest distance, but on account of the 

 mildness of the temperature and equal climate of 

 the Canaries. The ground on these islands rises 

 in an amphitheatre, and presents simultaneous- 

 ly, as in Peru and Mexico, the temperature of 

 every climate, from the heats of Africa to the 

 cold of the higher Alps. Santa Cruz, the port 

 of Orotava, the town of the same name, and that 

 of Laguna, are four places, the mean tempera- 

 tures of which form a descending series. In the 

 south of Europe, the change of the seasons is 

 still too perceptible, to offer the same advan- 

 tages. Teneriffe on the contrary, situate as it 

 were on the threshold of the tropics, though but 

 a few days' sail from Spain, shares in the beau- 

 ties, which nature has lavished on th£ equinoc- 

 tial regions. Vegetation here displays some of 



