280 



exists in the whole island ; and some travellers^ 

 who may be otherwise relied on, are mistaken, 

 when they assert, that their guides to the Peak 

 were some of those slender and nimble footed 

 Guanches. It is true, that a few Canarian fa- 

 milies boast of their relationship to the last shep- 

 herd king of Guimar ; but these pretensions do 

 not rest on very solid foundations ; and are re- 

 newed from time to time, when some Canarian, 

 of a more dusky hue than his countrymen, is 

 prompted to solicit a commission in the service 

 of the king of Spain. 



A short time after the discovery of America, 

 when Spain was at the highest degree of it s 

 splendor, the gentle character of the Guanches 

 was the fashionable topic, as we chaunt in our 

 times the Arcadian innocence of the inhabitants 

 of Otaheite. In both these pictures, the color- 

 ing is more gaudy than appropriate. When 

 nations, wearied with mental enjoyments, be- 

 hold nothing in the refinement of manners but 

 the germe of depravity, they are flattered with 

 the idea, that in some distant region, in the first 

 dawn of civilization, infant societies enjoy pure 

 and perpetual felicity. To this sentiment Ta- 

 citus owed a part of his success, when he sketch- 

 ed for the Romans, subjects of the Caesars, the 

 picture of the manners of the inhabitants of 

 Germany. The same sentiment gives an inef- 

 fable charm to the narrative of those travellers, 



