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Updated: June 15, 2025
The next day at nine in the forenoon we saw the island of Tenerife bearing west-south-west half west about twelve leagues distant. It was covered with a thick haze except the north-westernmost part which is a remarkable headland, resembling a horse's head, the ears very distinct. To the eastward of this head* lie two round rocks, the northern boundary of Tenerife.
Meeting a French ship on the 18th and getting no intelligence of our admiral, we made sail for the Canaries, and fell in with the island of Tenerife on the 28th, where we came to anchor in a small bay, at which there were three or four small houses, about a league from the town of Santa Cruz.
Thursday 10. Having finished our business at Tenerife on Thursday the 10th we sailed with the wind at south-east, our ship's company all in good health and spirits. I now divided the people into three watches, and gave the charge of the third watch to Mr. Fletcher Christian, one of the mates.
In fact, the moderns have failed where their predecessors treated the stuff so well that Levantines imported silks to resell them in Italy. Formerly Tenerife contained a manufactory whose lasting and brilliant produce was highly appreciated in Spain as in Havana. At Palma crimson waist-sashes used to sell for an ounce of gold.
Their annual export of wine is twenty thousand pipes and of brandy half that quantity. Vessels are frequently here from St. Eustatia, and from thence a great quantity of Tenerife wine is carried to the different parts of the West Indies, under the name of Madeira.
We had brisk north-north-east and north-east winds from Tenerife, and saw flying-fish, and a great deal of sea-thistle weed floating. By the 9th of February at noon we were in the latitude of 15 degrees 4 minutes so we steered away west-north-west for the island of Mayo, being by judgment not far to the east of it, and at 8 o'clock in the evening lay by till day.
The people resisted the cactus-innovation as the English labourer did the introduction of machinery, and tore up the plants. Enough, however, remained in the south of Tenerife for the hour of need. Travellers in search of the picturesque still lament that the ugly stranger has ousted the trellised vine and the wild, free myrtles.
Beyond the mountains, on the south-west side, still further up, you may see from the town and plain a small peaked hill, overlooking the rest. This is that which is called the Pike of Tenerife, so much noted for its height: but we saw it here at so great a disadvantage, by reason of the nearness of the adjacent mountains to us, that it looked inconsiderable in respect to its fame.
Somewhere about the year 1912 there was established on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, a modest station for the study of the anthropoid apes. I have already referred to it briefly on page 1.
Brusque was the contrast between the vivid verdure of Sylvania, the Isle of Wood, and the grim nudity of north-eastern Tenerife; brusquer still the stationary condition of the former compared with the signs, of progress everywhere evident in the latter.
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