To the Gold Coast for Gold

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

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[Footnote: The patriarch was no 'giant of the forest.' Its stature did
not exceed 60 feet. Humboldt made it only 45 French feet(= 47 ft. ll
ins. English) round the base. Dr. Wilde (_Narrative_, p. 40) blames
the measurer and gives about the same measurement, Professor Piazzi
Smyth, who in 1856 reproduced it in an abominable photo-stenograph,
reckons 48.5 feet at the level of the southern foot, 35.6 feet at 6 feet
above the ground, and 28.8 feet at 14.5 feet, where branches spring from
the rapidly narrowing conical trunk. The same are said to have been its
proportions in the days of the conquest. In 1866 Mr. Addison made it 60
feet tall, 35.5 feet at 6 feet from the ground, and 49.5 in
circumference at the base which he cleared. Mr. Barker Webb's sketch in
1830 was the best; but the tree afterwards greatly changed.
Mr. J. J. Williams made a neat drawing in boarding-school
style, with a background apparently borrowed from Richmond Hill.]

The Jardin de Aclimatacion, or Botanical Garden, mentioned by Humboldt

[Footnote: Page 59. It is regretable that his forecasts have
failed. Neither of the ohinohonas (_C. tanoifolia_ and _C.
oblongifolia_) has been naturalised in Southern Europe. Nor has
the Hill of Duragno yet sent us the 'protea, the psidium, the jambos,
the chirimoya of Peru, the sensitive plant, the heliconia, and several
beautiful species of glyoine from New Holland.']

as far back as 1799, still flourishes. It was founded in 1788-95 by an
able _savan_, the Marquis de Villanueva del Pardo (D. Alonso de
Nava y Grimon), who to a Government grant of 1,000_l_. added
4,000_l_. of his own, besides 400_l_. a year for an average
generation. The place is well chosen, for the Happy Valley combines the
flora of the north and the south, with a Nivaria of snow-land above it
and a semi-tropical temperature on the shores of the 'Chronian Sea.'

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROUTINE ASCENT OF MOUNT ATLAS, THE 'PIKE' OF TENERIFE.

The trip was so far routine that we followed in the steps of all
previous travellers, and so far not routine that we made it in March,
when, according to all, the Mal Pais is impassable, and when furious
winds threaten to sweep away intruders like dry leaves.

[Footnote: The usual months are July and August. Captain Baudin, not
favourably mentioned by Humboldt, ascended in December 1797 with M. Le
Gros and the naturalists Advenier, Mauger, and Riedle. He rolled down
from half-way on the cone to the bottom of La Rambleta, and was stopped
only by a snow-covered lava-heap. Mr. Addison chose February, when he
'suffered more from enormous radiation than from cold.' He justifies his
choice (p. 22) by observing that 'the seasons above are much earlier
than they are below, consequently the latter part of the spring is the
best season to visit the Peak.' In October, at an elevation of 10,700
feet, he found the cold greater than it was in February. In July 1863 I
rode round the island, to the Cumbre pumice-plains, and by no means
enjoyed the southern ride. A place near Guimar showed me thirty-six
_barrancos_ (deep ravines) to be crossed within three leagues.]

The good folk of the Villa, indeed, declared that the Ingleza could
never reach even the Estancia de los Inglezes.

Our train was modest--a pair of nags with their attendants, and two
excellent sumpter-mules carrying provisions and blankets. The guide was
Manoel Reyes, who has already appeared in the 'Specialities of a
Residence Above the Clouds.' He is a small, wizen-faced man, quiet,
self-contained, and fond--exceedingly fond--of having his own way. By
dint of hard work we left the Fonda Gobea at 9 A.M. on March 23, with
loud cries of 'Mulo!' and 'Anda, caballo!' and 'So-o-o!' when the
bat-beasts indulged in a free fight.

Morning smiled upon our incept. Nothing could be lovelier than the
weather as we crossed the deluging Martinianez Fiumara; struck the
coast-road westward, and then, bending to the south-west, made for the
'Gate of Taoro,' a gap in the Canada-wall. From the higher level truly
charming was the aspect of Orotava: it was Funchal many times
improved. Beyond the terraced foreground of rich deep yellow clay,
growing potatoes, wheat, and the favourite _chochos_ (lupines),
with apple and chestnut trees, the latter of two kinds, and the lower
fields marked out by huge agaves, lay the Happy Valley. Its contrast of
vivid greens, of white _quintas_, of the two extinct volcanos
overlooking Orotava, and of the picturesque townlets facing the misty
blue sea, fringed with a ceaseless silvery surf by the _brisa_, or
north-east trade, the lord of these latitudes, had not a symptom of the
Madeiran monotony of verdure. Behind us towered high the snowy Pilon
(Sugar-loaf), whose every wave and fold were picked out by golden
sunlight, azure half-light, and purple shade.

As we advanced up the Camino de Chasna, a road only by name, the
_quintas_ were succeeded by brown-thatched huts, single or in
clumps. On the left, 3,400 feet above sea-level, stood the Pino del
Dornajito ('of the Little Trough'), one of the few survivors in this
once wealthy pine-ground. The magnificent old tree, which was full grown
in the days of the conquest, and which in the seventeenth century was a
favourite halting-point, suffered severely from the waterspout of
November 7, 1826; but still measured 130 feet long by 29 in girth. The
vegetation now changed. We began brushing through the arbutus
(_callicarpa_), the wild olive (_Olea excelsa_), the Canarian
oak, the daphne, the myrtle entwined with indigenous ivy (_Hedera
canariensis_); the cytisus, the bright green hypericum of three
species, thyme, gallworts, and arborescent and other ferns in numbers,
especially the hare's-foot and the peculiar _Asplenium canariense_,
the _Trichomanes canariensis_, and the _Davallia canariensis_;
the _brezo_ (_Erica aborea_ and _E. scoparia_), a heath
whose small white bells scented the air; and the luxuriant blackberry,
used to fortify the drystone walls. The dew-cloud now began to float
upwards from the sea in scarf-shape, only a few hundred feet thick; it
had hangings and fringes where it was caught by the rugged hill-flanks;
and above us globular masses, white as cotton bales, rolled over one
another. As in the drier regions of Africa the hardly risen sun made
itself felt.

At 10.20 A.M. we had passed out of the cultivated region to the Montijo,
or Monte Verde, the laurel-region. The 'wood' is the remains of a fine
forest accidentally fired by charcoal-burners; it is now a copse of
arborescent heath-worts, ilex (_I. Perado_), and _Faya_
(_Myrica Faya_), called the 'Portugal laurel,' some growing ten
feet high. We then entered upon rough ground, El Juradillo ('the
Hollow'); this small edition of the Mal Pais, leading to the Canadas, is
a mass of lava-beds and dry _barrancos_ (ravines) grooved and
sheeted by rushing torrents. The latter show the anatomy of the
land--tufas, lavas, conglomerates, trachytes, trachydolerites, and
basalts of various kinds. Most of the rocks are highly magnetic, and are
separated by thin layers of humus with carbonised plant-roots. Around
El Juradillo rises a scatter of _montanetas_, shaped like
half-buried eggs: originally parasitic cones, they evidently connect
with the main vent. About 1 P.M., after four hours' ride, we dismounted
at the Estancia de la Sierra (6,500 feet); it is a pumice-floor a few
feet broad, dotted with bush and almost surrounded by rocks that keep
off a wind now blowing cold and keen. Consequently, as broken pots and
bottles show, it is a favourite resting-place.

After halting an hour we rode up a slope whose obtuser talus showed that
we were reaching the far-famed platform, called Las Canadas del
Pico. The word, here meaning level ground, not, as usual, a canefield,
applies especially to the narrow outer rim of the hollow plain; a
bristling fortification of bluffs, pointing inwards, and often tilted to
quoins 300 feet high, with an extreme of 1,000. Trachyte and basalt,
with dykes like Cyclopean walls, are cut to jagged needles by the
furious north-easter. Around the foot, where it is not encumbered with
_debris_ like the base of an iceberg, a broad line of comminuted
pumice produces vegetation like a wady-growth in Somali Land. The
central bed allows no short cut across: it is a series of rubbish-heaps,
parasitic cones, walls, and lumps of red-black lavas, trachytes, and
phonolites reposing upon a deluge of frozen volcanic froth ejected by
early eruptions. The aspect was rejoicing as the Arabian desert: I would
willingly have spent six months in the purest of pure air.

These flats of pumice, 'stones of emptiness,' loose incoherent matter,
are the site of the first great crater. Tenerife is the type of a
three-storied volcano, as Stromboli is of one and Vesuvius of two
stages. The enormous diameter of this ancient feature is eight by seven
miles, with a circumference of twenty-three--greater even than
Hawaii--and here one feels that our earth was once a far sublimer
scene. Such forms belong to the earlier volcanic world, and astronomers
still suspect them in the moon. [Footnote: Las Canadas was shown to be a
volcanic crater in 1803 by Professor Cordier, the first scientific
visitor in modern days (_Lettre a Devilliers fils_), and in 1810 by
D. Francisco Escobar (_Estadistica_). They make the old vent ten
leagues round.] The altitude is 6,900 feet, nearly double the height of
Vesuvius (3,890 feet); and the lines sweep upwards towards the Pilon,
where they reach 8,950 feet.

The tints of Las Canadas, seen from above, are the tenderest yellow and
a brownish red, like the lightest coat of vegetation turning ruddy in
the sun. Where level, Las Canadas is a floor of rapilli and
pumice-fragments, none larger than a walnut, but growing bigger as they
approach the Pike. The colours are dun (_barriga de monja_),
golden-yellow, and brown burnt red like autumnal leaves. There is
marvellous colouring upon the bluffs and ridges of the rim--lamp-black
and brown-black, purple (light and dark), vermilion-red, and sombre hues
superficially stained ruddy by air-oxygen. The picture is made brighter
by the leek-green vegetation and by the overarching vault of glaring
blue. Nor are the forms less note-worthy. Long centuries of weathering
have worked the material into strange shapes--here a ruined wall, there
an old man with a Jesuit's cap; now a bear, then a giant python. It is
the oldest lava we have yet seen, except the bed of the Orotava
valley. The submarine origin is denoted by fossils found in the flank;
they are of Miocene age, like those common in Madeira, and they were
known as early as the days of Clavijo (1772).

Las Canadas is not wholly a 'dead creation;' the birds were more
numerous than on the plains. A powerful raptor, apparently an eagle with
black-barred wings, hung high in air amongst the swallows winging their
way northwards, and the Madeiran sparrow-hawk was never out of sight;
ravens, unscared by stone-throwing boys, flew over us unconcernedly,
while the bushes sheltered many blackbirds, the Canary-bird
(_Fringilla canaria_) showed its green belly and grey back and
wings, singing a note unknown to us; and an indigenous linnet
(_F. teydensis_), small and green-robed, hopped over the ground
tame as a wren. We saw nothing of the red-legged partridge or the
Tetraonidae, reported to be common.

The scattered growths were composed of the broomy _Codeso_ and
_Retama_. The former (_Adenocarpus frankenoides_), a leguminous
plant, showed only dense light-green leaves without flower,
and consequently without their heavy, cloying perfume. The woody stem
acts in these regions as the _doornboom_ of South Africa, the wild
sage of the western prairies, and the _shih_ (_absinthium_) of
the Arabian desert. The Arabic _Retama_, or Alpine broom
(_Cytisus fragrans_, Lam.; _Cyt. nubigenus_, Decan.; _Spartium
nubigenum_, Alton and Von Buch), is said to be peculiar
to Tenerife, where it is not found under one vertical mile of
height. Some travellers divide it into two species, _Spartium
monospermum_ and _S. nubigenum_. The bush, 9 to 10 feet tall by 7 to
15 inches diameter, is easily distinguished from the _Codeso_ by
its denser and deeper green. This pretty rounded growth, with its short
brown stem throwing out lateral branches which trail on the ground,
flavours meat, and might be naturalised in Europe. From June till August
it is covered with a profusion of white blossoms, making Las Canadas a
Hymettus, an apiarian heaven. It extends as far as the second cone, but
there it shrinks to a foot in height. We did not see the tree growing,
but we met a party of Chasna men, [Footnote: A romantic tale is told of
the origin of Chasna. In 1496, before the wars ended, one Pedro de
Bracamonte, a captain under De Lugo, captured a 'belle sauvage,' who
made her escape after a few days. He went about continually repeating,
'Vi la flor del valle' (I saw the valley flower), and died after three
months. His soldiers buried him and priests said masses for the soul of
this 'hot amorist.'] driving asses like onagers, laden with the gummy
wood of the _Tea_ or _Tiya_ pine (_P. canariensis_). The
valuable material, which resists damp and decay for centuries, and which
Decandolle declares would grow in Scotland, is rapidly disappearing from
the Pinals. The travellers carried cochineal-seed, for which their
village is famous, and a hive which might have been Abyssinian. It was a
hollow cylinder of palm-bole, closed with board at either end; in July
and August it is carried up the mountain, where the bees cannot destroy
the grapes. We searched in vain for M. Broussonet's white violet
(_V. teydensis_), [Footnote: Humboldt's five zones of vegetation on
the Pike are vines, laurels, pines, broom, and grasses (p. 116).
Mr. Addison modifies this scale to vines, laurels, pines and
junipers, mountain-brooms and pumice-plains, I should distribute the
heights as growing cochineal, potatoes, and cereals, chestnuts, pines,
heaths, grasses, and bare rock.] and for the lilac-coloured _Viola
cheiranthifolia_, akin to _V. decumbens_.

The average annual temperature of Las Canadas is that of N. latitude 53
degrees, Holland and Hanover; in fact, here it is the Pyrenees, and
below it Africa. The sun blazed from a desert of blue, and the waving
heat-reek rose trembling and quivering from the tawny sides of the
foregrounds. The clouds, whose volumes were disposed like the leaves of
a camellia, lay far down to the north-east, as if unable to face the
fires of day. And now the great trachytic dome, towering in the
translucent air, was the marking feature. Its angle, 35 to 42 degrees,
or double that of the lower levels, suggests distant doubts as to its
practicability, nor could we believe that it rises 3,243 feet above its
western base, Las Canadas. The summit, not including the terminal
Pilon--a comparatively dwarf cone [Footnote: There is a very bad sketch
of the Pike in Mr. Scrope's popular work on _Volcanoes_ (p. 5); the
eruptive chimney is far too regularly conical.]--is ribboned with
clinker, and streaked at this season with snow-lines radiating, like
wheel-spokes from a common centre. Here and there hang, at an impossible
angle, black lava-streams which were powerless to reach the plain: they
resembled nothing so much as the gutterings of a candle hardening on the
outside of its upright shaft. Evidently they had flowed down the slope
in a half fluid state, and had been broken by contraction when
cooling. In places, too, the surface was streaked with light yellow
patches, probably of sun-gilt _tosa_ or pumice.

On our right, or to the north-north-east of the Pike, rose La Fortaleza,
_alias_ the Golliada del Cedro. The abrupt wall had salient and
re-entering angles, not unlike the Palisades of the Hudson River, with
intercalated strata and a smooth glacis at the base, except between the
east and north-west, where the periphery has been destroyed. It is
apparently basalt, as we may expect in the lower levels before reaching
the trachytic region. The other notable features were Monte Tigayga,
with its vertical cliff, trending northwards to the sea; the gap through
which the Orotava lava-bed burst the crater-margin; the Llano de Maja
('Manja' in Berthelot), a strip of Las Canadas, and the horizontally
striated Peak of Guajara (8,903 feet).

Riding over the 'pumice-beach of a once fiery sea,' whose glare and
other accidents suggested the desert between Cairo and Suez, we made our
way towards the Rastrojito. This 'Little Stubble' is a rounded heap of
pumice, a southern offset of the main mountain. On the left rose the
Montana Negra (Black Mountain) and the Lomo de la Nieve ('Snow Ridge),'
a dark mass of ribbed and broken lavas (8,970 feet), in which
summer-snow is stored. A little black kid, half wild, was skipping over
the rocks. Our men pursued it with the _garrotes_ (alpenstocks),
loudly shouting,' Tio Jose!': 'Uncle Joseph,' however, escaped, running
like a Guanche. Here it is allowed to shoot the animals on condition of
leaving a shilling with the skin. The latter is used in preparing the
national _gofio,_ the Guanche _ahoren,_ the _kuskusu_ of
north-western Africa, the _polenta,_ or daily bread, of the
Neo-Latins.

Climbing the Rastrojito slopes, we sighted the Pedras Negras: these are
huge travelled rocks of basalt, jet-black, breaking with a conchoidal
fracture, and showing debris like onion-coats about their base. The
aspect was fantastic, resembling nothing so much as skulls 10 to 15 feet
high. They are doubtless the produce of the upper slopes, which by slow
degrees gravitated to the present pumice-beds.

The first step of the Pike is Las Canadas, whose glacis forms the
_Cumbre_, or pumice-plains (6,500 feet), the long dorsum, which
shows far out at sea. Bending abruptly to the east, we began to breast
the red pumice-bed leading to the Estancia de Abajo or de los
Inglezes. 'El es Inglez porque subio al Pico' ('he is English, because
he climbed the Pike'), say the people. This ramp, whose extreme angle is
26 degrees, bordered by thick bands of detached lava-rocks, is doubtless
the foundation-matter of the Pike. Hence the latter is picturesquely
termed 'Hijo de las Canadas.' [Footnote: Especially by D. Benigno
Carballo Wanguement in his work, _Las Afortunadas_ (Madrid, 1862),
a happy title borrowed from D. Francisco Escobar. Heyley
(_Cosmography_), quoted by Glas and Mrs. Murray, tells us of an
English ambassador who, deeming his own land the 'Fortunate Islands,'
protested against Pope Clement VI. so entitling the Canaries in a deed
of gift to D. Luis de la Cerda, the 'Disinherited' Conde de
Claramonte. The latter was deprived of the Crown of Castile by his
uncle, Sancho IV., and became the founder of the Medina Celi house.]

After a total climb and ride of six hours, we reached the 'English
station.' M. Eden (Aug. 13, 1715) [Footnote: Trans. Royal Soc. of
London, 1714-16.] calls it simply Stancha, and M. Borda 'Station des
Rochers.' Pere Feutree, a Frenchman who ascended in 1524, and wrote the
earliest scientific account, had baptised it Station de St. Francois de
Paul, and set up a cross. It is a shelf in the pumice-slope, 9,930 feet
high, and protected against the cold night-winds of the
north-north-east, the lower or polar current, by huge boulders of
obsidian, like gigantic sodawater-bottles. The routine traveller sleeps
upon this level a few hundred yards square, because the guides store
their fuel in an adjacent bed of black rocks. Humboldt miscalls the
station 'a kind of cavern;' and a little above it he nearly fell on the
slippery surface of the 'compact short-swarded turf' which he had left
4,000 feet below him.

The bat-mules were unpacked and fed; and a rough bed was made up under
the lea of the tallest rock, where a small _curral_ of dry stone
kept off the snow. This, as we noticed in Madeira, is not in flakes, nor
in hail-like globes: it consists of angular frozen lumps, and the
selvage becomes the hardest ice. Some have compared it with the Swiss
'firn,' snow stripped of fine crystals and granulated by time and
exposure. In March the greatest depth we saw in the gullies radiating
from the mountain-top was about three feet. But in the cold season all
must be white as a bride-cake; and fatal accidents occur in the Canada
drifts. Professor Piazzi Smyth characterises the elevated region as cold
enough at night, and stormy beyond measure in winter, when the
south-wester, or equatorial upper current, produces a fearful
climate. Yet the Pike summit lies some 300 feet below the snow-line
(12,500 feet).

The view was remarkable: we were in sight of eighty craters. At sunset
the haze cleared away from the horizon, which showed a straight
grey-blue line against a blushing sky of orange, carmine, pale pink, and
tender lilac, passing through faint green into the deep dark blue of the
zenith. In this _cumbre_, or upper region, the stars did not
surprise us by their brightness. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 32
degrees F.; the air was delightfully still and pure, [Footnote: We had
no opportunity of noticing what Mr. Addison remarks, the air becoming
sonorous and the sound of the sea changing from grave to acute after
sunset and during the night. He attributes this increased intensity to
additional moisture and an equability of temperature in the atmospheric
strata. Perhaps the silence of night may tend to exaggerate the
impression.] and Death mummifies, but does not decay.

A bright fire secured us against the piercing dry night-cold; and the
_arrieros_ began to sing like _capirotes_ [Footnote: The
_Capirote_ or _Tinto Negro_, a grey bird with black head
(_Sylvia atricapilla_), is also found in Madeira, and much
resembles the Eastern bulbul or Persian nightingale. It must be caged
when young, otherwise it refuses to sing, and fed upon potatos and bread
with milk, not grain. An enthusiast, following Humboldt (p. 87),
describes the 'joyous and melodious notes' of the bird as 'the purest
incense that can ascend to heaven.'] (bulbuls), sundry _seguidillas_,
and _El Tajaraste_. The music may be heard everywhere between Morocco
and Sind. It starts with the highest possible falsetto and gradually
falls like a wail, all in the minor _clef_.

We rose next morning with nipped feet and hands, which a cup of hot
coffee, 'with,' speedily corrected, and were _en route_ at 4.30
A.M. Formerly animals were left at the lower _estancia_; now they
are readily taken on to Alta Vista. My wife rode a sure-footed black
nag, I a mule which was perfect whilst the foot-long lever acting curb
lay loose on its neck. Returning, we were amazed at the places they had
passed during the moonless night.

Our path skirted the Estancia de los Alemanos, about 300 yards higher
than the English, and zig-zagged sharply up the pumice-slope. The talus
now narrowed; the side-walls of dark trachytic blocks pinching it in. At
this grisly hour they showed the quaintest figures--towers and
pinnacles, needles and tree-trunks, veiled nuns and monstrous
beasts. Amongst them were huge bombs of obsidian, and masses with
translucent, vitreous edges that cut like glass. Most of them contained
crystals of felspar and pyroxene.

After half an hour we reached the dwarf platform of Alta Vista, 700 feet
above the Estancia and 10,730, in round numbers, above sea-level. The
little shelf, measuring about 100 to 300 yards, at the head of the fork
where the north-eastern and the south-western lava-streams part, is
divided by a medial ledge. Here we saw the parent rock of the pumice
fragments, an outcrop of yellowish brown stone, like fractured and
hardened clay. The four-footed animals were sent back: one rides up but
not down such places.

Passing in the lower section the shell of a house where the Astronomer's

[Footnote: The author came out in 1856 to make experiments in
astronomical observations. Scientific men have usually a contempt for
language: we find the same in _Our Inheritanse_, &c. (Dalby & Co.,
London, 1877), where the poor modern hierogrammats are not highly
appreciated. But it is a serious blemish to find 'Montana Blanco,'
'Malpays,' 'Chahzorra' (for Chajorra), and 'Tiro del Guanches.' The
author also is wholly in error about Guanche mummification. He derides
(p. 329) the shivering and shaking of his Canarian guide under a cloudy
sky of 40 deg.F., when the sailor enjoyed it in their 'glorious strength of
Saxon (?) constitution.' But when the latter were oppressed and
discouraged by dry heat and vivid radiation, Manoel was active as a
chamois. Why should enduring cold and not heat be held as a test of
manliness?]

experiment had been tried, Guide Manoel pointed out the place where
stood the _tormentos_, as he called the instruments. Thence we
toiled afoot up the Mal Pais. This 'bad country' is contradictorily
described by travellers. Glas (A.D. 1761) makes it a sheet of rock
cracked cross-wise into cubes. Humboldt (1799) says, 'The lava, broken
into sharp pieces, leaves hollows in which we risked falling up to our
waists.' Von Buch (1815) mentions 'the sharp edges of glassy obsidian,
as dangerous as the blades of knives.' Wilde (1857) tamely paints the
scene as a 'magnified rough-cast.' Prof. Piazzi Smyth is, as usual,
exact, but he suggests more difficulty than the traveller finds. I saw
nothing beyond a succession of ridge-backs and shrinkage-crevasses,
disposed upon an acute angle. These ragged, angular, and mostly cuboidal
blocks, resembling the ice-pack of St. Lawrence River, have apparently
been borne down by subsequent lava-currents, which, however, lacked
impetus to reach the lower levels of Las Canadas.

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