42 TENERIFFE. 
Our cavalcade consisted of nineteen mules and ponies, an equal 
number of drivers and two guides. Leaving the city of Oratava 
on the left, we began to ascend the mountains by a stoney path, 
winding along the upper edge of a deep ravine, ^vhich was 
choaked nearly with a forest of large chesnut trees. The moun- 
tains on each side were well clothed with underwood, w^hich in 
some parts had been cleared away for the sake of firewood, 
and in others for the purpose of cultivation. The little cot- 
tages, interspersed in the coppice, served materially to en- 
liven the scene. The summit of the first mountain was a 
plain of so considerable an extent that it took us an hour to 
cross, through an uninterrupted thicket, composed of tall and 
luxuriant evergreens, among which were a species of laurel, 
two of the Rhamnus or buck-thorn, a Cactus, Euphorbia, 
shrubby hi/pericum, two or three species of convolvulus, 
briony and other creeping plants ; but the most common was 
a species of heath aiul the vaccinium nigrum or black 
whortlcbeny. Tliis surface of perpetual verdure has obtained, 
not undeservedly, the name of the Green mountain. 
The next part of the road was up a steep ascent of a very 
different aspect, chiefly composed of scattered fragments of 
lava, among which M as little vegetation except the humble 
class of cryptogamous plants. Here we saw a number of wild 
goats, which we fired at without success. The shadow of the 
Peak, which threw a dark and lengthened gloom along the 
rugged ridge of hills stretching to the eastward, whilst the 
whole of the opposite coast from Oratava nearly to Santa 
Cruz, with its numerous villages, was strongly illumined by 
tlie rays of the Avestern sun, afiorded a landscape that Avas 
