50 
CAMELS 01T TENERTEFE. 
We could not verify this estimate of the height, the surf not 
having permitted us to return on hoard during the night, to 
take our barometers ar.d dipping-needle. As we foresaw 
that our expedition to the peak would bo very precipitate, 
we consoled ourselves with the reflection that it was well 
not to expose instruments which were to serve us in coun- 
tries less known by Europeans. The road by which we 
ascended to Laguna is on the right of a torrent, or baranco, 
which in the rainy season forms line cascades ; it is narrow 
and tortuous. Near the town we met some white camels, 
which seemed to he very slightly laden. The chief employ- 
ment of these animals is to transport merchandise from the 
custom-house to the warehouses of the merchants. They 
are generally laden with two chests of Havannah sugar, 
which together weigh 900 pounds; hut this load may he 
augmented to thirteen lmndrcd-wcight, or 52 nrrobas of 
Castile. Camels are not numerous at Teneriffe, whilst they 
exist by thousands in the two islands of Lancerota and For- 
teventura ; the climate and vegetation of these islands, which 
are situated nearer Africa, are more analogous to those of 
that continent. It is very extraordinary, that this useful 
animal, which breeds in South America, should he seldom 
propagated at Teneriffe. In the fertile district of Adexe 
only, where the plantations of the sugar-cane are most con- 
siderable, camels have sometimes been known to breed. 
These beasts of burden, as well as horses, were brought 
into the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century by the 
Norman conquerors. The Guanehes were previously un- 
acquainted with them ; and this fact seems to be very well 
accounted for by the difficulty of transporting an animal of 
such hulk in frail canoes, without the necessity of consi- 
dering the Guanehes as a remnant of the people of Atlantis, 
or a different race from that of the western Africans. 
The hill, on which the town of San Christohal de la Laguna 
is built, belongs to the system of basaltic mountains, which, 
independent of the system of less ancient volcanic rocks, 
form a broad girdle around the peak of Teneriffe. The basalt 
on which we walked was darkish brown, compact, half-de- 
composed, and when breathed on, emitted a clayey smell. 
We discovered amphibole, olivine,* and translucid pyrov- 
* Peridot granuliforme. llauy. 
