136 



a fertile and well cultivated country. The his- 

 tory of the globe instructs us, that volcanoes de- 

 stroy what they have been a long series of ages 

 in creating. Islands, which the action of sub- 

 marine fires has raised above the waters, are 

 decked by degrees in rich and smiling verdure ; 

 but these new abodes are often laid waste by the 

 renewed action of the same pow T er, which caused 

 them to emerge from the bottom of the ocean. 

 Perhaps those islets, which are now but heaps of 

 scoriae and volcanic ashes, were once as fertile 

 as the hills of Tacoronte and Sauzal. Happy 

 the country, where man has no distrust of the 

 soil on which he lives ! 



Pursuing our course to the port of Orotava* 

 we passed the smiling hamlets of Matariza and 

 Vittoria. These names are mingled together in 

 all the Spanish colonies, and form a disagreeable 

 contrast with the feelings of peace and tranquil- 

 lity, which those countries inspire. Matanza 

 signifies butchery, or carnage ; and the word 

 alone recalls the price, at which victory has 

 been purchased. In the New World, it gene- 

 rally indicates the defeat of the natives ; at Te- 

 neriffe, the village of Matanza was built in a 

 place * where the Spaniards were conquered by 

 those same Guanches, who soon after were sold 

 as slaves in the markets of Europe. 



Before we reached Oiotava, we visited a bo~ 



* The ancient Acantejo. 



