279 



had considerably suffered by the slave trade, by 

 the depredations of pirates, and especially by a 

 long period of carnage, when Alonzo de Lugo 

 completed their conquest. What remained of 

 the Guanches perished mostly in 1494, in the 

 terrible pestilence called the modorra, which was 

 attributed to the quantity of dead bodies left ex- 

 posed to the air by the Spaniards after the battle 

 of la Laguna. When a semibarbarous nation, 

 robbed of it's property, is compelled to live in 

 the same country with a polished people, it seeks 

 a retreat on the mountains and in the forests* 

 This is the only refuge left to the choice of an 

 islander. The nation of the Guanches was there- 

 fore extinct at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century ; a few old men only were found at Can- 

 delaria and Guimar. 



It is however consoling to find, that the whites 

 have not always disdained to intermarry with 

 the natives ; but the Canarians of the present 

 day, whom the Spaniards denote by the familiar 

 title of Islennos, have very powerful motives for 

 denying this mixture. In a long series ot gene- 

 rations time effaces the characteristic marks of 

 a race ; and as the dependants of the Anda- 

 lusians settled at Teneriffe are themselves of a 

 dark complexion, we may conceive, that the in- 

 termarriages cannot have produced a perceptible 

 change in the color of the skins of the whites. 

 It is very certain, that no native of pure race 



