SltfGULAB CUSTOM. 
for several years sfiocks equally violent were felt. This last 
phenomenon is so much che more singular, as it seldom 
happens after an eruption, when the elastic vapours 
have found vent by the crater, after the ejection of the 
melted matter. The summit of the great volcano is a 
rounded hill, but not entirely conic. From the angles of 
altitude which I took at different distances, its absolute 
elevation did not appear to exceed three hundred toises. 
The neighbouring hills, and those of Alegranza aud Isla 
Clara, were scarcely above one hundred or one hundred and 
twenty toises. We may he surprised at the small eleva- 
tion of these summits, which, viewed from the sea, wear so 
majestic a form; but nothing is more uncertain than our 
judgment on the greatness of angles, which are subtended 
by objects close to the horizon. From illusions of this sort 
it arose, that before the measures of Messrs, de Churruca 
and Galleano, at Cape Pilar, navigators considered the 
mountains of the straits of Magellan, and those of Terra del 
Fuego, to he extremely elevated. 
The island of Lancerota bore formerly the name of 
Titeroigotra. On the arrival of the Spaniards, its inha- 
bitants Avero distinguished from the other Canarians by 
marks of greater civilization. Their houses Avere built 
with freestone, while the Guanches of Teneriffe dwelt 
in caverns. At Lancerota, a very singular custom prevailed 
at that time, of which AA'e find no example except among the 
people of Thibet. A woman had se\ r eral husbands, who 
alternately enjoyed the prerogatives due to the head of a 
family. A husband was considered as such only during a 
lunar revolution, and Avhilst his rights were exercised by 
others, he remained classed among the household domestics. 
In the fifteenth century the island of Lancerota contained 
two small distinct states, divided by a Avail ; a kind of monu- 
ment which outlives national enmities, and which we find in 
Scotland, in China, and Peru. 
We were forced by the Avinds to pass betAveen the islands 
of Alegranza and Montana Clara, and as none on board the 
sloop had sailed through this passage, we were obliged to he 
continually sounding. We found from twenty-five to tbirty- 
tAvo fathoms. The lead brought up an organic substance "of 
