TENERIFFE. 57 
Leaving the city behind us, we entered up-on an extensive 
and fertile plain, whose surface was intersected by several rills 
of limpid water which, being collected in wooden troughs, 
was conveyed to the town and discharged in jets from obelisks 
of stone placed in all the principal streets. Tlie har\ est was 
already gathered in, but we could plainly j)erceive that a 
considerable portion of the land had been under tillage, of 
which, as we understood from the peasantry, the chief pro- 
duce was wheat, holcus, maize or Indian corn, sweet pota- 
toes, and calavances. On our right, towards the sea-coast, 
appeared a succession of pleasant villas and considerable 
hamlets, situated in the midst of orchards and vineyards ; 
and on our left were ridges of hills well covered with coppice 
wood, and their summits crowned with pines. The middle 
part, over which we had to travel, was an qpen tract of 
arable land, without any kind of fences or other apparent 
divisions to mark the boundaries of propert}'' ; but the great 
Agave Americana was plentifully planted by the sides of the 
road for several miles. Our botanists collected, on the brow 
of the hills, specimens of a great number of plants, among 
which were a species of Sempervivum, a quadrangular leaved 
Euphorbia, the Hhamnus creimlatus, Cacalia clinea. Cactus 
opuntia, Datura, Convolvulus, Brionea, Hypericum, fox 
gloves, trefoil, grasses of diiferent kinds and various other 
plants, few, however, of which were considered as rare or 
curious ; and these are here mentioned with the view only to 
mark some of the general productions of the country. 
We had descended nearly to the skirts of the fertile and 
extensive vale on which are situated the city and the sea-port 
