48 TENERIFFE. 
and the arbutus, with berries ; whilst the native fig tree and 
prickly pear supplied them with cooling and agreeable fruits. 
So innocent and so unsuspecting of wrong were those happy 
natives of the Fortunate Islands, that they assisted their plun- 
derers to land on their shores. And when the famous robber 
of those days, (for he deserves no better appellation,) Jean de 
Betancour, a Frenchman, formed the project, of subduing the 
Canaries, for the charitable purpose of converting the infidels 
to Christianity, they laboured at those very fortifications which 
were the means of reducing them and their offspring to slavery 
and wretchedness, and finally effected their complete exter- 
mination as a people. The descendants of the few who might 
have blended with the invaders have lost all distinctive fea- 
tures of their origin ; and it may be' doubted if their mixture 
with another nation has tended to improve the race. 
The condition of the great bulk of the islanders appears to 
be pretty much the same as those of the inhabitants of Ma- 
deira, which, notAvithstanding the little encouragement held 
out by the proprietors of estates and cultivators of the land, 
ought to be considerably better, were they less averse to 
labour. It is true, the mere necessaries of life are neither so 
numerous nor so urgent as in regions of a colder temperature, 
where clothing and fuel are so indispensable as to be ranked 
among the articles of the first necessity. Here, a jacket of 
coarse woollen cloth and draAvers of canvas, with a handker- 
chief bound round the head, or a coarse hat, constitute the 
usual dress of the ma-jority of the peasantry. The ambition 
of most of the petty dealers and mechanics prompts them to 
add skirts to their coats, by which they are entitled to the 
