some to have been the veritable "sack" that so continually moistened the
throat of Falstaff. The very name of Canary is a cheerful one, associated
as it is with the idea of bounteous vineyards, and of those little golden
birds that make music all over the world.

The high hills that surround the city of Las Palmas are composed of soft
stone, the yielding quality of which has caused these cliffs to be
converted to a very singular purpose. The poorer people, who can find no
shelter above ground, burrow into the sides of the hill, and thus form
caves for permanent habitation, where they dwell like swallows in a
sand-bank. Judging from the number of these excavations, the mouths of
which appear on the hill-sides, there cannot be less than a thousand
persons living in the manner here described. Not only the destitute
inhabitants of Grand Canary, but vagabonds from Teneriffe and the other
islands, creep thus into the heart of the rock; and children play about
the entrances of the caverns as merrily as at a cottage-door: while, in
the gloom of the interior, you catch a glimpse of household furniture, and
women engaged in domestic avocations. It is like discovering a world
within the world.




CHAPTER II.

Nelson's defeat at Santa Cruz--The Mantilla--Arrival at Porto
Grande--Poverty of the inhabitants--Portuguese Exiles at the Cape de
Verds--City of Porto Prayo--Author's submersion--Green Turtle--Rainy
Season--Anchor at Cape Mesurado.