127 



that half the population wore the ecclesiastic 

 dress. The town is surrounded with a great 

 number of windmills, which indicate the culti- 

 vation of wheat in these high countries. I shall 

 observe on this occasion, that different kinds of 

 grain were known to the Guanches. They called 

 wheat at TenerifFe tano, at Lanzerota triffa ; 

 barley, in the grand Canary, bore the name of 

 aramotanoque, and at Lanzerota that of tamosen. 

 The flower of roasted barley (gofio) and goat's 

 milk constituted the principal food of this nation, 

 on the origin of which so many systematic fables 

 have been built. These aliments are sufficient 

 proofs, that the race of the Guanches belonged 

 to the nations of the old continent, perhaps to 

 those of Caucasus, and not like the rest of the 

 Atlantides*, to the inhabitants of the New World; 

 these, before the arrival of the Europeans, were 

 unacquainted with corn, and milk, and cheese. 



A great number of chapels, which the Spani- 

 ards call ermitas, encircle the town of Laguna. 

 Shaded by trees of perpetual verdure, and placed 

 on small eminences, these chapels add to the 

 picturesque effect of the landscape. The interior 



* Without entering here into any discussion respecting the 

 existence of the Atlantis, I shall cite the opinion of Diodorus 

 Siculus, according to whom the Atlantides were ignorant of 

 the use of corn, because they were separated from the rest of 

 mankind before these grarnina were cultivated. Diod. Sicul. 

 t. iii, p. 130, Wesseh 



