To the Gold Coast for Gold

R >> Richard F. Burton >> To the Gold Coast for Gold

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In the Casilda collection I observed the hard features, broad brows,
square faces, and _flavos crines_ described by old writers. Two
showed traces of tongue and eyes (which often were blue), proving that
the softer and more perishable parts were not removed. There were
specimens of the dry and liquid balsam. Of the twenty-six skulls six
were from Grand Canary. All were markedly of the type called Caucasian,
and some belonged to exceptionally tall men. The shape was
dolichocephalic, with sides rather flat than rounded; the perceptive
region was well developed, and the reflective, as usual amongst savages
and barbarians, was comparatively poor. The facial region appeared
unusually large.

The industrial implements were coarse needles and fish-hooks of
sheep-bone. The domestic _supellex_ consisted of wooden ladles
coarsely cut, and of rude pottery, red and yellow, generally without
handles, round-shaped and adorned with scratches. None of these
_ganigos_, or crocks, were painted like those of Grand Canary. They
used also small basaltic querns of two pieces to grind the _gofio_,
[Footnote: The _gofio_ was composed of ripe barley, toasted,
pounded, and kneaded to a kind of porridge in leathern bags like Turkish
tobacco-pouches. The object was to save the teeth, of which the Guanches
were particularly careful.] or parched grain. The articles of dress were
grass-cloth, thick as matting, and _tamarcos_, or smock-frocks, of
poorly tanned goatskins. They had also rough cords of palm-fibre, and
they seem to have preferred plaiting to weaving; yet New Zealand flax
and aloes grow abundantly. Their _mahones_ correspond with Indian
moccasins, and they made sugar-loaf caps of skins. The bases of shells,
ground down to the thickness of a crown-piece, and showing spiral
depressions, were probably the _viongwa_, necklaces still worn in
the Lake Regions of Central Africa. The beads were of many kinds; some
horn cylinders bulging in the centre, and measuring 1.25 inch long;
others of flattened clay like the American wampum or the ornaments of
the Fernando Po tribes; and others flattened discs, also baked, almost
identical with those found upon African mummies--in Peru they were used
to record dates and events. A few were of reddish agate, a material not
found in the island; these resembled bits of thick pipe-stem, varying
from half an inch to an inch in length. Perhaps they were copies of the
mysterious Popo-bead found upon the Slave Coast and in inner Africa.

The Gruanches were doomed never to reach the age of metal. Their
civilisation corresponded with that of the Chinese in the days of
Fo-hi. [Footnote: Abel Remusat tells us that of the two hundred
primitive Chinese 'hieroglyphs' none showed a knowledge of metal.] The
chief weapons were small triangles of close-grained basalt and
_iztli_ (obsidian flakes) for _tabonas,_ or knives, both being
without handles. They carried rude clubs and _banot,_ or barbed
spears of pine-wood with fire-charred points. The _garrotes_
(pikes) had heads like two flattened semicircles, a shape preserved
amongst negroes to the present day. Our old author tells us that the
people would 'leap from rock to rock, sometimes making ten Fathoms deep
at one Leap, in this manner: First they _tertiate_ their Lances,
which are about the bigness of a Half-Pike, and aim with the Point at
any piece of a Rock upon which they intend to light, sometimes not half
a Foot broad; in leaping off they clap their Feet close to the Lance,
and so carry their bodies in the Air: the Point of the Lance comes first
to the place, which breaks the force of their fall; then they slide
gently down by the Staff and pitch with their Feet on the very place
they first design'd; and so from Rock to Rock till they come to the
bottom: but their Novices sometimes break their necks in the learning.'

I observed more civilisation in articles from the other islands,
especially from the eastern, nearer the African continent. In 1834
Fuerteventura yielded, from a depth of six feet, a dwarfish image of a
woman with prominent bosom and dressed in the native way: it appeared
almost Chinese. A pot of black clay from Palmas showed superior
construction. Here, too, in 1762 a cavern produced a basalt plate, upon
which are circular scrawls, which support the assertions of old writers
as regards the islanders not being wholly ignorant of letters. I could
trace no similarity to the peculiar Berber characters, and held them to
be mere ornamentation. The so-called 'Seals of the Kings' were dark
stones, probably used for painting the skin; they bore parallelograms
enclosed within one another, diaper-work and gridirons of raised
lines. In fact, the Guanches of Tenerife were unalphabetic.

Hierro (Ferro), the Barranco de los Balos (Grand Canary), Fuerteventura,
and other items of the Fortunates have produced some undoubted
inscriptions. They are compared by M. Berthelot with the signs engraved
upon the cave-entrance of La Piedra Escrita in the Sierra Morena of
Andalusia; with those printed by General Faidherbe in his work on the
Numidic or Lybian epigraphs; with the 'Thugga inscription,' Tunis; and
with the rock-gravings of the Sahara, attributed to the ancient Tawarik
or Tifinegs. Dr. Gran-Bassas (El Museo Canario), who finds a notable
likeness between them and the 'Egyptian characters (cursive or demotic),
Phenician and Hebrew,' notes that they are engraved in vertical series.
Dr. Verneau, of the Academy, Paris, suggests that some of these epigraphs
are alphabetic, while others are hieroglyphic. [Footnote: _El Museo
Canario_, No. 40, Oct. 22, 1881.] Colonel H. W. Keays-Young kindly copied
for me, with great care, a painting in the Tacoronte museum. It
represents a couple of Guanche inscriptions, apparently hieroglyphic,
found (1762) in the cave of Belmaco, Isle of Palma, by the ancients called
Benahoave. They are inscribed upon two basaltic stones.

[Illustration: THE NOMIDIO INSCRIPTIONS OF HIEBRO.]

[Illustration]

I also inspected the collection of a well-known lawyer, Dr. Francisco
Maria de Leon. Of the three Guanche skulls one was of African solidity,
with the sutures almost obliterated: it was the model of a soldier's
head, thick and heavy. The mass of mummy-balsam had been tested, without
other result than finding a large proportion of dragon's blood. In the
fourteenth century Grand Canary sent to Europe at one venture two
hundred doubloons' worth of this drug.

By the kindness of the Governor I was permitted to inspect four Guanche
mummies, discovered (June 1862) in the jurisdiction of Candelaria.
Awaiting exportation to Spain, they had been temporarily
coffined upon a damp ground-floor, where the cockroaches respected
nothing, not even a Guanehe. I was accompanied by Dr. Angel
M. Yzquierdo, of Cadiz, physician to the hospital, and we jotted down as
follows:--

No. 1, a male of moderate size, wanted the head and upper limbs, while
the trunk was reduced to a skeleton. The characteristic signs were
Caucasian and not negro; nor was there any appearance of the Jewish
rite. The lower right leg, foot, and toe-nails were well preserved; the
left was a mere bone, wanting tarsus and metatarsus. The stomach was
full of dried fragments of herbs (_Ohenopodium_, &c.), and the
epidermis was easily reduced to powder. In this case, as in the other
three, the mortuary skins were coarsely sewn with the hair inside: it is
a mistake to say that the work was 'like that of a glove.'

No. 2 was large-statured and complete; the framework and the form of the
pelvis were masculine. The skin adhered to the cranium except behind,
where the bone protruded, probably the effect of long resting upon the
ground. Near the right temporal was another break in the skin, which
here appeared much decayed. All the teeth were present, but they were
not particularly white nor good. The left forearm and hand were wanting,
and the right was imperfect; the lower limbs were well preserved even to
the toe-nails.

No. 3, also of large size, resembled No. 2; the upper limbs were
complete, and the lower wanted only the toes of the left foot. The lower
jaw was absent, and the upper had no teeth. An oval depression, about an
inch in its greater diameter, lay above the right orbit. If this be a
bullet-mark, the mummy may date from before the final conquest and
submission in A.D. 1496. But it may also have resulted from some
accident, like a fall, or from the blow of a stone, a weapon which the
Guanches used most skilfully. Mr. Sprat, confirmed by Glas, affirms that
they 'throw Stones with a force almost as great as that of a Bullet, and
now use Stones in all their fights as they did antiently.'

No. 4, much smaller than the two former, was the best preserved. The
shape of the skull and pelvis suggested a female; the arms also were
crossed in front over the body, whereas in the male mummy they were laid
straight. The legs were covered with skin; the hands were remarkably
well preserved, and the nails were darker than other parts. The tongue,
in all four, was absent, having probably decayed.

These crania were distinctly oval. The facial angle, well opened, and
ranging from 80 deg. to 85 deg., counterbalanced the great development of the
face, which showed an animal type. A little hair remained, coloured
ruddy-chestnut and straight, not woolly. The entrails had disappeared,
and the abdominal walls not existing, it was impossible to detect the
incisions by which the tanno-balsamic substances, noted by Bory de
Saint-Vincent and many others, were introduced. The method appears
uncertain. It is generally believed that after removing the entrails
through an irregular cut made with the _tabona_, or obsidian
(knife), the operators, who, as in Egypt, were of the lowest caste,
injected a corrosive fluid. They then filled the cavities with the
balsam described above; dried the corpse; and, after, fifteen to twenty
days, sewed it up in tanned goatskins. Such appears to have been the
case with the mummies under consideration.

The catacombs, inviolable except to the sacrilegious, were numerous in
the rockiest and least accessible parts of the island. Mr. Addison found
them in the Canadas del Pico, 7,700 feet above sea-level. [Footnote:
Tenerife: 'An Ascent of the Peak and Sketch of the Island,' by Robert
Edward Alison. _Quarterly Journal of Science_, Jan. 1806.] Hence it
has been remarked of the Guanches that, after a century of fighting,
nothing remained of them but their mummies. The sharp saying is rather
terse than true.

The Guanches were barbarians, not savages. De Bethencourt's two
chaplains, speaking in their chronicle of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura,
tell us 'there are many villages and houses, with numerous inhabitants.'
The ruins still found in the Isles are called 'casas hondas' ("deep
houses"); because a central excavation was surrounded by a low wall. The
castle of Zonzamas was built of large stones without lime. In Port
Arguineguin (Grand Canary) the explorers sent by Alfonso IV. (1341) came
upon 300 to 400 tenements roofed with valuable wood, and so clean inside
that they seemed stuccoed. They encircled a larger building, probably
the residence of the chief. But the Tenerifans used only caves.

The want of canoes and other navigating appliances in Guanche-land by no
means proves that the emigration took place when the Canaries formed
part of the Continent. The same was the case with the Australians, the
Tasmanians, and the New Zealanders. The Guanches, at the same time, were
admirable swimmers, easily able to cross the strait, nine miles wide,
separating Lanzarote from La Graciosa. They could even kill fish with
sticks when in the water. The fattening of girls before marriage was,
and is still, a Moroccan, not an Arab custom. The rude feudalism much
resembled that of the Bedawi chiefs. George Glas, [Footnote: _The
History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands_,
&c. 4to. London, 1764. I have given some notices of the unfortunate
'master mariner' in _Wanderings in West Africa_, vol. i. p. 79] or
rather Abreu Galindo, his author, says of their marriages, 'None of the
Canarians had more than one wife, and the wife one husband, contrary to
what misinformed authors affirm.' The general belief is that at the time
of the conquest polyandry prevailed amongst the tribes. It may have
originated from their rude community of goods, and probably it became a
local practice in order to limit population. Possibly, too, it was
confined to the noble and the priestly orders.

Humboldt remarks, [Footnote: _Personal Narrative_, chap, i. p. 32,
Bohn's ed. London, 1852.] 'We find no example of this polyandry except
amongst the people of Thibet.' Yet he must have heard of the Nayr of
Malabar, if not of the Todas on the Nilagiri Hills. D. Agustin Millares
[Footnote: _Historia de la Gran Canaria_. Published at Las Palmas.]
explains the custom by 'men and women being born in almost equal
proportions,' the reverse being the fact. Equal proportions induce the
monogamic relation.

Learned M. d'Avezac derives 'Guanche' from Guansheri or Guanseri, a
Berber tribe described by El-Idrisi and Leo Africanus. This is better
than finding it in the Keltic _gwuwrn, gwen_, white. Older
authorities hold it a corruption of 'Vinchune,' the indigenous name of
the Nivarian race. Again, 'the inhabitants of Tenerife called themselves
Guan (the Berber Wan), one person, Chinet or Chinerf, Tenerife; so that
_Guanchinet_ meant a man of Tenerife, and was easily corrupted to
Guanche. Thus, too, Glas's 'Captain Artemis' was Guan-arteme, the one or
chief ruler. Vieira derives 'Tenerf' or'Chenerf' from the last king; and
old MSS. have 'Chenerife.' The popular voice says it is composed of
'Tener,' mountain or snow, and of 'ryfe,' snow or mountain. Pritchard
[Footnote: _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_, book
iii. chap. ii.] applied the term Guanche to all the Canarian races, and
he is reproached for error by M. de Macedo, [Footnote: 'Ethnological
Remarks,' &c., by J. J. de Costa de Macedo, of Lisbon, _Royal
Geographical Society's Journal_, vol. ii. p. 172. _Wanderings in
West Africa_, i. 116, contains my objections to his theory.] who
would limit it to the Tenerifans. The same occurs in the Eev. Mr. Delany
[Footnote: _Notes of a Residence in the Canary Islands_,
&c. London, 1861.] and in Professor Piazzi Smyth, [Footnote: _An
Astronomer's Experiment_, p. 190. L. Reeve, London, 1868.] who speaks
of the 'Guanches of Grand Canary and Teneriffe.' According to popular
usage all were right, 'Guanche' being the local and general term for the
aborigines of the whole archipelago. But the scientific object that it
includes under the same name several different races.

The language is also a point of dispute: some opine that all the
islanders had one tongue, others that they were mutually unintelligible;
many that it was Berber (Numidian, Getulian, and Garamantan), a few that
it was less distinctly Semitic. The two chaplains of De Bethencourt
[Footnote: Bontier and Le Verrier, _Histoire de la premiere Decouverte
e Conquete des Canaries_. Bergeron, Paris, 1630.] noted its
resemblance with that of the 'Moors' of Barbary. Glas, who knew
something of Shilha, or Western Berber, made the same observation. But
the Genoese pilot Niccoloso di Recco during the expedition of A.D. 1344
collected the numerals, and two of these, _satti_ (7) and
_tamatti_ (8), are less near the original than the Berberan
_set_ and _tem_.

The catalogue of Abreu Galindo, who lived here in 1591 and printed his
history in 1632, preserves 122 words; Vieira only 107, and Bory de
Saint-Vincent [Footnote: _Essai sur les Iles fortunees_. Humboldt
has only five.] 148. Webb and Berthelot give 909. Of these 200 are
nouns, including 22 names of plants; 467 are placenames, and 242 are
proper names. Many are questionable. For instance, _sabor_
(council-place) is derived from _cabocer_, 'expression par laquelle
les negres de la Senegambie denotent la reunion de leurs chefs.'
[Footnote: Vol. i. part i. p. 223.] As all know, it is the corrupted
Portuguese _caboceiro_, a headman.

Continuing our way from Tacoronte we reached Sauzal, beyond which the
coach did not then run; the old road was out of condition, and the new
not in working order. We offered a dollar each for carrying our light
gear to sturdy men who were loitering and lying about the premises. They
shook their heads, wrapped their old blanket-cloaks around them, and
stretched themselves in the sun like dogs after a cold walk. I could
hardly wonder. What wants have they? A covering for warmth, porridge for
food, and, above all, the bright sun and pure air, higher luxuries and
better eudaemonics than purple and fine linen. At last some passing
muleteers relieved us of the difficulty.

The way was crowded with Laguneros, conspicuous in straw-hats; cloth
jackets, red waistcoats embroidered at the back; bright crimson sashes;
white knickerbockers, with black velveteen overalls, looking as if
'pointed' before and behind; brown hose or long leather gaiters
ornamented with colours, and untanned shoes. Despite the heat many wore
the Guanche cloak, a blanket (English) with a running string round the
neck. The women covered their graceful heads with a half-square of white
stuff, and deformed the coiffure by a hideous black billycock, an
unpleasant memory of Wales. Some hundreds of men, women, and children
were working on the road, and we were surprised by the beauty of the
race, its classical outlines, oval contours, straight profiles,
magnificent hair, and blue-grey eyes with black lashes. This is not the
result of Guanche blood, as a town on the south-western part of the
island presently showed me. Also an orderly of Guanche breed from the
parts about Arico, who had served for years at the palace, was pointed
out as a type. He stood six feet four, with proportional breadth; his
face was somewhat lozenge-shaped, his hair straight, black like a
Hindu's, and his tawny skin looked only a little darker than that of
Portuguese Algarves. The beauty of the islanders results from a mixture
of Irish blood. During the Catholic persecution before 1823 many fled
the Emerald Isle to Tenerife, and especially to Orotava. The women's
figures in youth are charming, tall, straight, and pliant as their own
pine-trees. All remark their graceful gait.

We passed through places famed in the days of the conquest--La Matanza,
the native Orantapata, where De Lugo's force was nearly annihilated. Now
it is the half-way station to Orotava; and here the _coche_ stops
for dinner, prices being regulated by Government. The single inn shows
the Pike, but not the subjacent valley. Then to Acentejo, the local
Roncesvalles, where the invaders were saved only by St. Michael; and
next to La Vitoria, where they avenged themselves. At Santa Ursula we
first saw the slopes of Orotava, the Guanche Tavro or Atanpalata; and on
the Cuesta de la Villa we were shown near its mark, a date-palm, the
cave that sheltered the patriot chief, unfortunate Bencomo. As the
fashionables came forth to walk and drive we passed the _calvario_
and the _place_ leading to the Villa Orotava, and found quarters in
the _fonda_ of D. Jose Gobea. The _sala_, or chief room, some
30 feet long, wanted only an Eastern divan round the walls; it was
easily converted into a tolerable place of bivouac, and here we resolved
to try country life for a while.

The first aspect of the Orotava Tempe was disappointing after Humboldt's
dictum, 'Voici ce qu'il y a de plus delicieux au monde.' But our
disappointment was the natural reaction of judgment from fancy to
reality, which often leads to a higher appreciation. At last we learned
why the Elysian [Footnote: In Arabic El-Lizzat, the Delight, or from the
old Egyptian _Aahlu_,] Fields, the Fortunate Islands, the Garden of
the Hesperides--where the sea is no longer navigable, and where Atlas
supports the firmament on a mountain conical as a cylinder; the land of
evening, of sunset, where Helios sinks into the sea, and where Night
bore the guardians of the golden apples--were such favourites with the
poets. And we came to love every feature of the place, from the snowy
Pike of Teyde flushing pink in the morning sun behind his lofty rampart,
to the Puerto, or lower town, whose three several reef-gates are outlaid
by creamy surf, and whose every shift of form and hue stands distinct in
the transparent and perfumed air. The intermediate slopes are clothed
with a vegetation partly African, partly European; and here Humboldt, at
the end of the last century, proposed to naturalise the chinchona.

La Villa lies some two miles and a half from and about 1,140 feet above
the Puerto; and the streets are paved and precipitous as any part of
Funchal. The population varied from 7,000 to 8,000 souls, whereas the
lower town had only 3,500. It contains a few fine houses with huge
hanging balconies and interior _patios_ (courts) which would
accommodate a regiment. They date from the 'gente muy caballerosa'
(knightly folk) of three centuries ago. The feminine population appeared
excessive, the reason being that some five per cent. of the youths go to
Havannah and after a few years return 'Indianos,' or 'Indios,' our old
'nabobs.'

At the Puerto we were most kindly received by the late British
Vice-Consul, Mr. Goodall, who died about the normal age, seventy-seven:
if this be safely passed man in Tenerife becomes a macrobian. All was
done for our comfort by the late Mr. Carpenter, who figures in the
'Astronomer's Experiment' as 'the interpreter.' Amongst the scanty
public diversions was the Opera. The Villa theatre occupied an ancient
church: the length of the building formed pit, boxes, and gallery; and
'La Sonnambula' descended exactly where the high altar had been. At the
Puerto an old monastery was chosen for 'La Traviata:' the latter was
realistic as Crabbe's poetry; even in bed the unfortunate 'Misled' one
could not do without a certain truncated cylinder of acajou. I sighed
for the Iberian 'Zarzuela,' that most charming _opera buffa_ which
takes its name from a 'pleasaunce' in the Pardo Palace near Madrid.

The hotel diet was peculiarly Spanish; already the stews and 'pilaffs'
(_pulaos_) of the East begin in embryo. The staple dish was the
_puchero_, or _cocido_, which antiquated travellers still call
'olla podrida' (pot-pourri). This _lesso_ or _bouilli_ consists
of soup, beef, bacon, and _garbanzos_ (chick-peas, or _Cicer
arietinium_) in one plate, and boiled potatoes and small gourds
(_bubangos_) in another. The condiments are mostly garlic
and saffron, preferred to mustard and chillies. The pastry, they tell
me, is excellent.

In those days the Great Dragon Tree had not yet lost its upper cone by
the dreadful storm of January 3, 1868; thus it had survived by two
centuries and a half the Garoe Laurel, or Arbol Santo, the miraculous
tree of Hierro (Ferro). It stood in the garden of the Marquez de Sauzal,
who would willingly have preserved it. But every traveller had his own
infallible recipe, and the proprietor contented himself with propping up
the lower limbs by poles. It stood upon a raised bank of masonry-work,
and the north-east side showed a huge cavity which had been stopped with
stone and lime. About half a century ago one-third came down, and in
1819 an arm was torn off and sent, I believe, to Kew. When we saw the
fragment it looked mostly like tinder, or touchwood, 'eld-gamall,'
stone-old, as the Icelanders say. Near it stood a pair of tall
cypresses, and at some distance a venerable palm-tree, which 'relates to
it,' according to Count Gabriel de Belcastel,

[Footnote: I quote from the Spanish translation, _Las Islas Canarias y
el Valle Orotava,_ a highly popular work contrasting wonderfully with
some of ours. The courteous Frenchman even promised that Morocco would
be the Algeria of the Canaries. His observations for temperature,
pressure, variation, hygrometry, and psychrometry of the Orotavan
climate, which he chose for health, are valuable. He starts with a
theory of the three conditions of salubrity--heat-and-cold, humidity,
and atmospheric change. The average annual mean of Orotava is 66.34
degrees (F.), that of Southern France in September; it never falls below
54.5 degrees nor rises above 73.88 degrees, nor exceeds 13.88 degrees in
variation.]

'in the murmurs of the breeze the legends of races long disappeared.'

Naturalists modestly assigned to the old Dragon 5,000 to 10,000 years,
thus giving birth to fine reflections about its witnessing revolutions
which our planet underwent prior to the advent of man. So Adamson made
his calabash a contemporary of the Noachian Deluge, if that partial
cataclysm [Footnote: The ancient Egyptians, who ignored the Babylonian
Deluge, well knew that all cataclysms are local, not general,
catastrophes.] ever reached Africa. The Orotava relic certainly was an
old tree, prophetic withal, [Footnote: It was supposed infallibly to
predict weather and to regulate sowing-time. Thus if the southern side
flowered first drought was to be expected, and vice versa. Now the
peasant refers to San Isidro, patron of Orotava: he has only changed the
form of his superstition.] when De Lugo and the _conquistadores_
entered the valley in 1493 and said mass in its hollow. But that event
was only four centuries ago, and dates are ticklish things when derived
from the rings and wrinkles of little-studied vegetation. Already
Mr. Diston, in a letter to Professor Piazzi Smyth, [Footnote:
'Astronomical Experiment on the Peak of Tenerife,' _Philosoph.
Trans._, part ii. for 1858.] declared that a young 'dragon,'
which he had planted in 1818, became in 38 years so tall that
a ladder was required to reach the head. And let us observe that Nature,
though forbidden such style of progression by her _savans_,
sometimes does make a local _saltus_, especially in the change of
climates. Centuries ago, when the fires about Teyde were still alight,
and the lava-fields about Orotava were still burning, the rate of
draconian increase, under the influence of heat and moisture, might have
been treble or quadruple what it would now be.

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