TROPICAL TIGETATIOIT. 
43 
five degrees. Those who have for a long time inhaled the 
air of the sea suffer every time they land ; not because this 
air contains more oxygen than the air on shore, as has been 
erroneously supposed, but because it is less charged with those 
gaseous combinations, which the animal and vegetable sub- 
stances, and the mud resulting from their decomposition, 
pour into the atmosphere. Miasms that escape chemical 
analysis have a powerful effect on our organs, especially 
when they have not for a long while been exposed to the 
same kind of irritation. 
Santa Cruz, the Anaza of the Guanches, is a neat town, 
with a population of 8000 souls. 1 was not struck with the 
vast number of monks and secular ecclesiastics, which tra- 
vellers have thought themselves bound to find in every coun- 
try under the Spanish government ; nor shall I stop to enter 
into the description of the churches; the library of the 
Dominicans, which contains scarcely a few hundred volumes ; 
the mole, where the inhabitants assemble to inhale the fresh- 
ness of the evening breeze ; or the famed monument of 
Carrara marble, thirty feet high, dedicated to Our Lady of 
Candelaria, in memory of the miraculous appearance of the 
Virgin, in 1392, at Chhnisay, near Guimnr. The port of 
Santa Cruz may be. considered as a great caravanserai, on 
the road to America and the Indies. Every traveller who 
writes tho narrative of his adventures, begins by a descrip- 
tion of Madeira and Teneriffe ; and if in the natural history 
of these islands there yet remains an immense field un- 
trodden, we must admit that the topography of the little 
towns of Eunchal, Santa Cruz, Laguna, and Orotava, leaves 
. scarcely anything untold. 
The recommendation of the court of Madrid procured for 
us, in the Canaries, as in all the other Spanish possessions, 
the most satisfactory reception. The captain-general gave us 
immediate permission to examine the island. Col. Armiaga, 
who commanded a regiment of infantry, received us into his 
house with kind hospitality. AVe could not cease admiring 
the banana, the papaw tree, the Poineiana puleherrima, and 
other plants, which we had hitherto seen only in hot-houses, 
cultivated in his garden in the open air. The climate of the 
Canaries however is not warm enough to ripen the real 
Platano Art on, with triangular fruit from seven to eight 
