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Updated: June 1, 2025
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.
M. de Borda, whose death we deplored, was its inmate during his last visit to the Canary Islands. It was in a neighbouring plain that he measured the base, by which he determined the height of the Peak. In this geometrical operation the great dracaena of Orotava served as a mark.
We dropped anchor under its shadow in the harbour of Orotava in preference to the capital, Santa Cruz, both on account of its being a healthier place, and also in order to be nearer to the Peak, which we wished to ascend. The heat having made the rest of our party rather lazy, Captain Lecky and I volunteered to go on shore to see the Vice-Consul, Mr.
I cannot compare this prospect with any, except the views of the bays of Genoa and Naples; but Orotava is greatly superior to both in the magnitude of the masses and in the richness of vegetation. In the beginning of the evening the slope of the volcano exhibited on a sudden a most extraordinary spectacle.
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.
Islets, which are now but heaps of scoriae and volcanic ashes, were once perhaps as fertile as the hills of Tacoronte and Sauzal. Happy the country, where man has no distrust of the soil on which he lives! Pursuing our course to the port of Orotava, we passed the smiling hamlets of Matanza and Victoria.
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 lead finds no bottom at a little distance from the ports of Santa Cruz, Orotava, and Garachico: in this respect it is like St. Helena. The ocean, as well as the continents, has its mountains and its plains; and, if we except the Andes, volcanic cones are formed everywhere in the lower regions of the globe.
Among organic creations, this tree is undoubtedly, together with the Adansonia or baobab of Senegal, one of the oldest inhabitants of our globe. The baobabs are of still greater dimensions than the dragon-tree of Orotava. There are some which near the root measure 34 feet in diameter, though their total height is only from 50 to 60 feet.
The port of Orotava, its vessels at anchor, the gardens and the vineyards encircling the town, shewed themselves through an opening which seemed to enlarge every instant.
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