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-leek, 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 t>f 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 the equinoc- 

 tial regions. Vegetation here displays some of 



