We Seem Then To Be Drawing Near The Mouth Of A Furnace.

The same impression is felt, when, on the coast of Caracas, we descend from the mountain of Avila to the port of La Guayra.

According to the law of the decrement of heat, three hundred and fifty toises in height produce in this latitude only three or four degrees difference in temperature. The heat which overpowers the traveller on his entrance into Santa Cruz, or La Guayra, must consequently be attributed to the reverberation from the rocks, against which these towns are built.

The perpetual coolness which prevails at Laguna causes it to be considered in the Canaries a delightful abode. Situated in a small plain, surrounded by gardens, protected by a hill which is crowned by a wood of laurels, myrtle, and arbutus, the capital of Teneriffe is very beautifully placed. We should be mistaken if, relying on the account of some travellers, we believed it seated on the border of a lake. The rain sometimes forms a sheet of water of considerable extent; and the geologist, who beholds in everything the past rather than the present state of nature, can have no doubt but that the whole plain is a great basin dried up. Laguna has fallen from its opulence, since the lateral eruptions of the volcano have destroyed the port of Garachico, and since Santa Cruz has become the central point of the commerce of the island. It contains only 9000 inhabitants, of whom nearly 400 are monks, distributed in six convents. The town is surrounded with a great number of windmills, which indicate the cultivation of wheat in these high countries. I shall observe on this occasion, that different kinds of grain were known to the Guanches. They called wheat at Teneriffe tano, at Lancerota triffa; barley, in the grand Canary, bore the name of aramotanoque, and at Lancerota it was called tamosen. The flour of roasted barley (gofio) and goat's-milk constituted the principal food of the people, on the origin of which so many systematic fables have been current. These aliments sufficiently prove that the race of the Guanches belonged to the nations of the old continent, perhaps to those of Caucasus, and not like the rest of the Atlantides,* to the inhabitants of the New World (* Without entering here into any discussion respecting the existence of the Atlantis, I may cite the opinion of Diodorus Siculus, according to whom the Atlantides were ignorant of the use of corn, because they were separated from the rest of mankind before these gramina were cultivated.); these, before the arrival of the Europeans, were unacquainted with corn, milk, and cheese.

A great number of chapels, which the Spaniards call ermitas, encircle the town of Laguna. Shaded by trees of perpetual verdure, and erected on small eminences, these chapels add to the picturesque effect of the landscape. The interior of the town is not equal to its external appearance. The houses are solidly built, but very antique, and the streets seem deserted.

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