TENERIFFE. 47 
valuable gift they had to bestoAv, the milk of tlieir sheep and 
of their goats. Tliey registered events by the changes of the 
moon. They were entirely ignorant of the use of iron, and 
had no other hostile weapons to oppose to the arms of their 
invaders than sticks and stones, whicli, however, they are 
said to have hurled with great force and dexterit3\ They 
lived in stone houses, neatly built without the assistance of lime, 
clay, or any other substitute for mortar. They had a systematic 
government and a gradation of rank in society ; established 
laws and a regular administration of justice. They led a 
pastoral life, but were not vv liohy unacquainted with agricul- 
ture. Their flocks were composed of sheep and goats and 
they had also plenty of hogs. Their clothing consisted of 
the. skins of goats, sown together with the tendons of the same 
animal, divided into threads. The women wore caps njade of 
these skins, ornamented with small imivalve shells, and shoes 
of the same material. Like the KafFers and the Hottentots 
they found great amusement in dancing in a ring on moon- 
light nights, singing and beating time by clapping their 
hands and stamping with their feet. Like these people, too, 
they kindled fire by twirling the point of a small stick upon 
another with great velocity. They had vessels of clay to con- 
tain their milk, in which also they roasted their grain, pro- 
bably the maize or Guinea corn, though in most of the early 
voyages it is called barley. The roots -of the polypody, dried 
in the sun and bruised between two stones, were made use of 
to thicken their milk ; and they had plenty of honey, sweet 
potatoes and vetches. The stone pine on the brow of the 
hills, and the chesnut in the deep glens, furnished them with 
nuts ; the wild olive, the buck-thorn, the whortleberry shrubj 
