A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

To the Gold Coast for Gold

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




And a parting word of praise for Madeira. Whatever the traveller from
Europe may think of this quasi-tropical Tyrol, those homeward-bound from
Asia and Africa will pronounce her a Paradise. They will enjoy good
hotels, comfortable _tables d'hôte_, and beef that does not
resemble horseflesh or unsalted junk. Nor is there any better place
wherein to rest and recruit after hard service in the tropics. Moreover,
at the end of a month spent in perfect repose the visitor will look
forward with a manner of dismay to the plunge into excited civilised
life.

But Madeira is not 'played out;' _au contraire_, she is one of
those 'obligatory points' for commerce which cannot but prosper as the
world progresses. The increasing traffic of the West African coast will
make men resort to her for comforts and luxuries, for climate and
repose. And when the Gold Mines shall be worked as they should be this
island may fairly look forward to catch many a drop of the golden
shower.

The following interesting table, given to me by M. d'Oliveira, clerk of
the English Rooms, shows what movement is already the rule of Funchal.

SUMMARY OF VESSELS ENTERED IN THE PORT FROM JANUARY 1 TO DECEMBER 31.

Vessels of War

Nationality Sailing/Steamers
Frigates Corvettes Schooners/Transports -/Gunboats
American -/1 1/1 -/- -/-
Argentine -/- -/- -/- -/-
Austrian -/- -/- -/- -/-
Belgian -/- -/- -/- -/-
Brazilian -/- -/- -/- -/-
British -/6 -/3 1/10 -/7
Danish -/- -/1 -/- -/-
Dutch -/- -/2 -/- -/1
French 2/2 -/- -/1 -/1
German -/3 -/3 -/- -/-
Italian -/- -/1 -/- -/-
Norwegian -/- -/1 -/- -/-
Portuguese -/- -/- -/- -/2
Russian -/- -/- -/- -/-
Spanish -/- -/- -/- -/-
Swedish -/- -/1 -/- -/-
Totals: 2/12 1/13 1/11 -/11


Pleasure Vessels

Nationality Steam Yachts
Yachts
American - -
Argentine - -
Austrian - -
Belgian - -
Brazilian - -
British 2 4
Danish - -
Dutch - -
French - -
German - -
Italian - -
Norwegian - -
Portuguese - -
Russian - -
Spanish - -
Swedish - -

Totals: 2 4


Merchant Vessels

Nationality Steamers Ships Barques Barquantines Brigs

American - - 3 - -
Argentine 1 - - - -
Austrian - 1 2 - -
Belgian 26 - - - -
Brazilian 3 - - - -
British 439 1 9 20 9
Danish - - - - 1
Dutch 1 - - - -
French - - 3 - -
German 8 - 16 - 2
Italian - - - - -
Norwegian - - 5 1 1
Portuguese 48 - 3 - -
Russian - - 2 - -
Spanish - - 2 - -
Swedish - - 2 - -

Totals: 526 2 43 21 13



CHAPTER V.

TO TENERIFE, LA LAGUNA, AND OROTAVA.

When I left, in 1865, the western coast of the Dark Continent, its
transit and traffic were monopolised by the A(frican) S(team) S(hip)
Company, a monthly line established in 1852, mainly by the late
Macgregor Laird. In 1869 Messieurs Elder, Dempster, and Co., of Glasgow,
started the B(ritish) and A(frican) to divide the spoils. The junior
numbers nineteen keel, including two being built. It could easily 'eat
up' the decrepit senior, which is now known as the A(frican)
S(tarvation) S(teamers); but this process would produce serious
competition. Both lines sail from Liverpool on alternate Saturdays, and
make Funchal, with their normal unpunctuality, between Fridays and
Sundays. This is dreary slow compared with the four days' fast running
of the 'Union S. S. C.' and the comfortable 'Castle Line,' alias the
Cape steamers.

The B. and A. s.s. _Senegal_ is a fair specimen of the modern West
African trader 'improved:' unfortunately the improvements affect the
shareholders' pockets rather than the passengers' persons. The
sleeping-berths are better, but the roomy, well-lighted, comfortable old
saloon, sadly shorn of its fair proportions, has become the upper story
of a store-room. The unfortunate stewards must catch fever by frequent
diving into the close and sultry mine of solids and fluids under
floor. There being no baggage-compartment, boxes and bags are stowed
away in the after part, unduly curtailing light and air; the stern
lockers, once such pleasant sleeping-sofas, and their fixed tables are
of no use to anything besides baskets and barrels. Here the surgeon,
who, if anyone, should have a cabin by way of dispensary, must lodge his
medicine-chest. Amongst minor grievances the main cabin is washed every
night, breeding a manner of malaria. The ice intended for passengers is
either sold or preserved for those who ship most cargo. Per contra, the
cook is good, the table is plentiful, the wines not over bad, the
stewards civil, and the officers companionable.

Both lines, however, are distinctly traders. They bind themselves to no
time; they are often a week late, and they touch wherever demand calls
them. The freight-charges are exorbitant, three pounds for fine goods
and a minimum of thirty-six shillings, when fifteen per ton would
pay. The White Star Line, therefore, threatens _concurrence_. Let
us also hope that when the Gold Mines prosper we shall have our special
steamers, where the passenger will be more prized than the puncheon of
palm-oil. But future rivals must have a care; they will encounter a
somewhat unscrupulous opposition; and they had better ship American
crews, at any rate not Liverpudlians.

The night and the next day were spent at sea in a truly delicious
climate, which seemed to wax softer and serener as we advanced. Here the
moon, whose hue is golden, not silvern, has a regular dawn before
rising, and an afterglow to her setting; and Venus casts a broad cestus
of glimmering light upon the purple sea. Mount Atlas, alias the Pike of
Teyde, gradually upreared his giant statue, two and a half miles high:
travellers speak of seeing him from Madeira, a distance of some 260
(dir. geog.) miles; but this would be possible only were both termini
15,000 feet in altitude. The limit of sight for terrestrial objects
under the most favourable conditions does not exceed 210 miles. Yet here
it is not difficult to explain the impossible distances, 200 miles
instead of 120, at which, they say, the cone has been sighted: mirage or
refraction accounts for what the earth's convexity disallows.

We first see a low and regular wall of cloud-bank whose coping bears
here and there bulges of white, cottony cloud. Then a regular pyramid,
at this season white as snow, shows its gnomon-like point, impaling the
cumuli. Hour by hour the outlines grow clearer, till at last the
terminal cone looks somewhat like a thimble upon a pillow--the
_cumbre_, or lofty foundation of pumice-plains. But the aspect
everywhere varies according as you approach the island from north,
south, east, or west.

The evening of January 9 showed us right abeam a splendid display of the
Zodiacal Light, whose pyramid suggested the glow of a hemisphere on
fire. The triangle, slightly spherical, measured at its base 22 degrees
to 24 degrees and rose to within 6" of Jupiter. The reflection in the
water was perfect and lit up with startling distinctness the whole
eastern horizon.

At 7 A.M. next morning, after running past the Anaga knuckle-bone--and
very bony it is--of the Tenerife _gigot_, we cast anchor in the Bay
of Santa Cruz, took boat, and hurried ashore. In the early times of the
A.S.S. halts at the several stations often lasted three days. Business
is now done in the same number of hours; and the captain informs you
that 'up goes the anchor' the moment his last bale or bag comes on
board. This trading economy of time, again, is an improvement more
satisfactory to the passenger than to the traveller and sightseer who
may wish to see the world.

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. Spain, under the influence of
anticlerical laws and a spell of republicanism, has awoke from her sleep
of ages, and we note the effects of her revival even in these
colonies. A brand-new red fort has been added to La Ciudadela at the
northern suburb, whence a mole is proposed to meet the southern branch
and form a basin. Then comes the triangular city whose hypothenuse,
fronting east, is on the sea; its chief fault is having been laid out on
too small a scale. At the still-building pier, which projects some 500
yards from the central mass of fort and _cuadras_ (insulae or
house-blocks), I noticed a considerable growth of buildings, especially
the Marineria and other offices connected with the free port. The old
pink 'castle' San Cristobal (Christopher), still cumbers the jetty-root;
but the least sentimental can hardly expect the lieges to level so
historic a building: it is the site of Alonso Fernandez de Lugo's first
tower, and where his disembarkation on May 3, 1493, gave its Christian
name 'Holy Cross' to the Guanche 'Añasa.' Meanwhile the Rambleta de
Ravenal, dated 1861, a garden, formerly dusty, glary, and dreary as the
old Florian of Malta, now bears lovers' seats, a goodly growth of planes
and tamarinds, a statue, a fountain, and generally a gypsy-like
family. By its side runs a tramway for transporting the huge blocks of
concrete intended to prolong the pier. The inner town also shows a new
palace, a new hospital, and a host of improvements.

Landing at Santa Cruz, a long dull line of glaring masonry, smokeless
and shadeless, was to me intensely saddening. A score of years had
carried off all my friends. Kindly Mrs. Nugent, called 'the Admiral,'
and her amiable daughter are in the English burial-ground; the
hospitable Mr. Consul Grattan had also faded from the land of the
living. The French Consul, M. Berthelot, who published [Footnote:
_Histoire naturelle des Iles Canaries_, par MM. P. Barker Webb et
Sabin Berthelot, ouvrage publié sous les auspices de M. Guizot, Ministre
de l'Instruction Publique, Paris, 1839. Seven folio vols., with maps,
plans, and sketches, all regardless of expense.] by favour of the late
Mr. Webb, went to the many in 1880. One of the brothers Richardson had
died; the other had subsided into a clerk, and the Fonda Ingleza had
become the British Consulate. The new hotel kept by Señor Camacho and
his English wife appeared comfortable enough, but it had none of those
associations which make the old familiar inn a kind of home. _En
revanche_, however, I met Mr. Consul Dundas, my successor at the port
of Santos, whence so few have escaped with life; and his wife, the
daughter of an Anglo-Brazilian friend.

Between 1860 and 1865 I spent many a week in Tenerife, and here I am
tempted to transcribe a few extracts from my voluminous notes upon
various subjects, especially the Guanche population and the ascent of
the Pike. A brief history of the unhappy Berber-speaking goatherds who,
after being butchered to make sport for certain unoccupied gentlemen,
have been raised by their assailants to kings and heroes rivalling the
demi-gods of Greece and Rome, and the melancholy destruction of the
race, have been noticed in a previous volume. [Footnote: Yol. i. chap,
ii., _Wanderings in West Africa_. The _modorra_, lethargy or
melancholia, which killed so many of those Numidian islanders suggests
the pining of a wild bird prisoned in a cage.] I here confine myself to
the contents of my note-book upon the Guanche collections in the island.

One fine morning my wife and I set out in a venerable carriage for San
Cristobal de la Laguna. The Camiño de los Coches, a fine modern highway
in corkscrew fashion from Santa Cruz to Orotava, was begun, by the grace
of General Ortega, who died smoking in the face of the firing party, and
ended between 1862 and 1868. This section, eight kilomètres long,
occupies at least one hour and a half, zigzagging some 2,000 feet up a
steep slope which its predecessor uncompromisingly breasted. Here stood
the villa of Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcott), who hymned the fleas of
Tenerife: I would back those of Tiberias. The land is arid, being
exposed to the full force of the torrid northeast trade. Its principal
produce is the cactus (_coccinellifera_), a fantastic monster with
fat oval leaves and apparently destitute of aught beyond thorns and
prickles. Here and there a string of small and rather mangy camels, each
carrying some 500 lbs., paced _par monts et par vaux_, and gave a
Bedawi touch to the scene: they were introduced from Africa by De
Béthencourt, surnamed the Great. We remarked the barrenness of the
bronze-coloured Banda del Sur, whose wealth is in cochineal and
'dripstones,' or filters of porous lava. Here few save the hardiest
plants can live, the spiny, gummy, and succulent cactus and thistles,
aloes and figs. The arborescent tabayba (_Euphorbia canariensis_),
locally called 'cardon,' is compared by some with the 'chandelier' of
the Cape, bristling with wax tapers: the Guanches used it extensively
for narcotising fish. This 'milk plant,' with its acrid, viscid, and
virulent juice, and a small remedial shrub growing by its side, probably
gave rise to the island fable of the twin fountains; one killed the
traveller by a kind of _risus Sardonicus_, unless he used the other
by way of cure. A scatter of crosses, which are impaled against every
wall and which rise from every eminence; a ruined fort here and there; a
long zigzag for wheels, not over-macadamised, with an older short cut
for hoofs, and the Puente de Zurita over the Barranco Santo, an old
bridge made new, led to the _cuesta_, or crest, which looks down
upon the Vega de la Laguna, the native Aguere.

The 'noble and ancient city' San Cristobal de la Laguna was founded on
June 26, 1495, St. Christopher's Day, by De Lugo, who lies buried in the
San Miguel side-chapel of La Concepcion de la Victorias. The site is an
ancient lava-current, the successor of a far older crater, originally
submarine. The latest sub-aerial fire-stream, a broad band flowing from
north to south--we have ascended it by the coach-road--and garnished
with small parasitic craters, affords a bed and basis to the
capital-port, Santa Cruz. After rains the lake reappears in mud and
mire; and upon the lip where the town is built the north-east and the
south-west winds contend for mastery, shedding abundant tears. Yet the
old French chronicler says of the site, 'Je ne croy pas qu'il y eu ait
en tout le monde aucune autre de plus plaisante.' The mean annual
temperature is 62° 51' (F.), and the sensation is of cold: the altitude
being 1,740 feet. Hence, like Orotava, it escaped the yellow fever which
in October 1862 had slain its 616 victims.

[Footnote: The list of epidemics at Santa Cruz is rather formidable,
_e.g._ 1621 and 1628, _peste_ (plague); 1810 and 1862, yellow
Jack; 1814, whooping cough, scarlatina, and measles; 1816-16, small-pox
(2,000 victims); 1826, cough and scarlet ferer; 1847, fatal dysentery;
and 1861-62, cholera (7,000 to 12,000 deaths).]

La Laguna offers an extensive study of medieval baronial houses, of
colonial churches, of _ermitas_, or chapels, of altars, and of
convents now deserted, but once swarming with Franciscans and Augustines
and Dominicans and Jesuits. These establishments must have been very
rich, for, here as elsewhere,

Dieu prodigue ses biens
À ceux qui font voeu d'être siens.

St. Augustine, with its short black belfry, shows a Christus Vinctus of
the Seville school, and the institute or college in the ex-monastery
contains a library of valuable old books. The Concepcion boasts a
picture of St. John which in 1648 sweated for forty days. [Footnote:
Evidently a survival of the classic _aera sudantia_. Mrs. Murray
notices the 'miracle' at full length (ii. 76).] The black and white
cathedral, bristling with cannon-like gargoyles, a common architectural
feature in these regions, still owns the fine pulpit of Carrara marble
sent from Genoa in 1767. The _chef d'oeuvre_ then cost 200_l._;
now it would be cheap at five times that price. In the sacristy
are the usual rich vestments and other clerical curios. The
Ermita de San Cristobal, built upon an historic site, is denoted as
usual by a giant Charon bearing a small infant. There is a Carriera or
Corso (High Street) mostly empty, also the great deserted Plaza del
Adelantado, of the conqueror Lugo. The arms of the latter, with his
lance and banner, are shown at the Ayuntamiento, or town-house; I do not
admire his commercial motto--

Quien lanza sabe tener,
Ella le da de comer.

[Footnote:
Whose lance can wield
Daily bread 'twill yield.]

Conquering must not be named in the same breath as 'bread-winning.'
There, too, is the scutheon of Tenerife, given to it in 1510; Michael
the Archangel, a favourite with the invader, stands unroasted upon the
fire-vomiting Nivarian peak, and this grand vision of the guarded mount
gave rise to satiric lines by Vieira:--

Miguel, Angel Miguel, sobre esta altura
Te puso el Rey Fernando y Tenerife;
Para ser del asufre y nieve fria
Guardia, administrador y almoxarife.

[Footnote:
Michael, archangel Michael, on this brow
Throned thee King Ferdinand and Tenerife;
To be of sulphur grough and frigid snow
Administrator, guard, and reeve-in-chief.]

The deserted streets were long lines with an unclean central
gutter. Some of the stone houses were tall, grand, solid, and stately;
such are the pavilion of the Counts of Salazar, the huge, heavy abode of
the Marquesses de Nava, and the mansions of the Villanuevas del
Pardo. But yellow fever had driven away half of the population--10,000
souls, who could easily be 20,000--and had barricaded the houses to the
curious stranger. Most of them, faced and porticoed with florid pillars,
were mere dickies opening upon nothing, and only the huge armorial
bearings showed that they had ever been owned. Mixed with these
'palaces.' were 'cat-faced cottages' and pauper, mildewed tenements,
whose rusty iron-work, tattered planks, and broken windows gave them a
truly dreary and dismal appearance. The sole noticeable movement was a
tendency to gravitate in the roofs. The principal growth, favoured by
the vapour-laden air, was of grass in the thoroughfares, of moss on the
walls, and of the 'fat weed' upon the tiles. The horse-leek
(_sempervivum urbium_), brought from Madeira, was first described
by the 'gifted Swede' Professor Smith, who died on the Congo
River. Finally, though the streets are wide and regular, and the large
town is well aired by four squares, the whole aspect was strongly
suggestive of the _cocineros_ (cooks), as the citizens of the
capital are called by the sons of the capital-port. They retort by
terming their rival brethren _chicharreros_, or fishers of the
_chicharro_ (horse-mackerel, _Caranx Cuvieri_.)

From La Laguna we passed forward to Tacoronte, the 'Garden of the
Guanches,' and inspected the little museum of the late D. Sebastian
Casilda, collected by his father, a merchant-captain de long
_cours_. It was a chaos of curiosities ranging from China to
Peru. Amongst them, however, were four entire mummies, including one
from Grand Canary. Thus we can correct M. Berthelot, who follows others
in asserting that only the Guanches of Tenerife mummified their
dead. The oldest description of this embalming is by a 'judicious and
ingenious man who had lived twenty years in the island as a physitian
and merchant.' It was inserted by Dr. Thomas Sprat in the 'Transactions
of the Royal Society,' London, and was republished in John Ogilby's
enormous folio [Footnote: The 'physitian' was Dr. Eden, an Englishman
who visited Tenerife in 1662.--Bohn's _Humboldtr_, i. 66] yclept
'Africa.' The merchant 'set out from Guimar, a Town for the most part
inhabited by such as derive themselves from the Antient
_Guanchios_, in the company of some of them, to view their Caves
and the corps buried in them (a favour they seldom or never permit to
any, having the Corps of their Ancestors in great veneration, and
likewise being extremely against any molestation of the Dead); but he
had done many Eleemosynary Cures amongst them, for they are very poor
(yet the poorest think themselves too good to Marry with the best
_Spaniard_), which endeared him to them exceedingly. Otherwise it
is death for any Stranger to visit these Caves and Bodies. The Corps are
sew'd up in Goatskins with Thongs of the same, with very great
curiosity, particularly in the incomparable exactness and evenness of
the Seams; and the skins are made close and fit to the Corps, which for
the most part are entire, the Eyes clos'd, Hair on their heads, Ears,
Nose, Teeth, Lips, and Beards, all perfect, onely discolour'd and a
little shrivell'd. He saw about three or four hundred in several Caves,
some of them standing, others lying upon Beds of Wood, so hardened by an
art they had (which the Spaniards call _curay_, to cure a piece of
Wood) that no iron can pierce or hurt it.[Footnote: The same writer
tells that they had earthen pots so hard that they could not be
broken. I have heard of similar articles amongst the barbarous races
east of Dalmatia.] These Bodies are very light, as if made of straw; and
in some broken Bodies he observ'd the Nerves and Tendons, and also the
String of the Veins and Arteries very distinctly. By the relation of one
of the most antient of this island, they had a particular Tribe that had
this art onely among themselves, and kept it as a thing sacred and not
to be communicated to the Vulgar. These mixt not themselves with the
rest of the Inhabitants, nor marry'd out of their own Tribe, and were
also their Priests and Ministers of Religion. But when the
_Spaniards_ conquer'd the place, most of them were destroy'd and
the art perisht with them, onely they held some Traditions yet of a few
Ingredients that were us'd in this business; they took Butter (some say
they mixed Bear's-grease with it) which they kept for that purpose in
the Skins; wherein they boyl'd certain Herbs, first a kind of wild
Lavender, which grows there in great quantities upon the Rocks;
secondly, an Herb call'd _Lara_, of a very gummy and glutinous
consistence, which now grows there under the tops of the Mountains;
thirdly, a kind of _cyclamen_, or sow-bread; fourthly, wild Sage,
which grows plentifully upon this island. These with others, bruised and
boyl'd up into Butter, rendered it a perfect Balsom. This prepar'd, they
first unbowel the Corps (and in the poorer sort, to save Charges, took
out the Brain behind): after the Body was thus order'd, they had in
readiness a _lixivium_ made of the Bark of Pine-Trees, wherewith
they washt the Body, drying it in the Sun in Summer and in the Winter in
a Stove, repeating this very often: Afterward they began their unction
both without and within, drying it as before; this they continu'd till
the Balsom had penetrated into the whole Habit, and the Muscle in all
parts appear'd through the contracted Skin, and the Body became
exceeding light: then they sew'd them up in Goat-skins. The Antients
say, that they have above twenty Caves of their Kings and great
Personages with their whole Families, yet unknown to any but themselves,
and which they will never discover.' Lastly, the 'physitian' declares
that 'bodies are found in the caves of the _Grand Canaries_, in
Sacks, quite consumed, and not as these in Teneriff.'

This assertion is somewhat doubtful; apparently the practice was common
to the archipelago. It at once suggests Egypt; and, possibly, at one
time, extended clean across the Dark Continent. So Dr. Barth [Footnote:
_Travels_, &c., vol. iv. pp. 426-7.] tells us that when the chief
Sonni Ali died in Grurma, 'his sons, who accompanied him on the
expedition, took out his entrails and filled his inside with honey, in
order that it might be preserved from putrefaction.' Many tribes in
South America and New Zealand, as well as in Africa, preserved the
corpse or portions of it by baking, and similar rude devices. According
to some authorities, the Gruanche _menceys_ (kinglets or chiefs)
were boxed, Egyptian fashion, in coffins; but few are found, because the
superstitious Christian islanders destroy the contents of every
catacomb.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.