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The word Teyde is supposed to be a corruption of Echeyde, meaning Hades: hence the title Isla Infierno, found in a map of A.D. 1367. The Guanches also called it Ayadyrma, and here placed their pandemonium, under Guayota, the head-fiend. Seen by moonlight, or on a star-lit night, the scenery would be weird and ghostly enough to suggest such fancies, which remind us of Etna and Lipari.
The naturalist vainly seeks in history for documents of the first eruptions of the Peak; he nowhere finds any but in the language of the Guanches, in which the word Echeyde denotes, at the same time, hell and the volcano of Teneriffe. Of all the written testimonies, the oldest I have found in relation to the activity of this volcano dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century.
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