the innumerable lichens common to the Canary Islands; it is used in the
manufacture of cudbear for the dyers. There is also a spurious kind,
with difficulty distinguished from the good.

Silk is chiefly produced at Palma. There is but little exported from
Teneriffe. It might, however, be produced in immense quantities, the
white and red mulberry tree being indigenous and luxuriant in the
middle region of the island, and the climate so mild, that the insect
could be hatched and reared under wooden sheds, without any difficulty.
The great defect in the Teneriffe silk is the coarseness of the fibre,
from want of dexterity in winding it off the cocoons, and in regulating
the heat to which it ought to be subjected during that separation.

A considerable emigration used to take place annually from the islands,
and particularly from Lancerota and Forteventura, to the Spanish Main,
and to Cuba, where those islanders were much in request, as labourers
and muleteers; and often prospered so well as to be enabled to return
home enriched: but the practice has been prohibited since the
declaration of independence of Spanish South America.

There is a considerable fishery carried on from the Canary Islands, on
the coast of Barbary, for a species of bream, which is salted in bulk,
and sold very cheap, and in great quantities. This trade is pursued in
decked schooners, or lugger-rigged vessels, of from 60 to 70 tons
burthen, which rum down before the trade wind to their station, where
they remain until they procure a cargo, when they beat up to the
island, take in a fresh cargo of Cadiz salt, and again return to their
station. They have very little intercourse with the Arab tribes of that
coast, but they sometimes bring back a few lion, tiger, and leopard
skins, and ostrich feathers. I am happy to learn that our knowledge of