By and by he put up his writing case and went off to get some stamps at a baker's shop. In Spanish countries one cannot, as a rule, buy stamps at a post office. Then he looked at his watch, and seeing it was two o'clock, walked across the town. Don Ramon had stated that he need not go on board before midnight. The streets were strangely quiet and for the most part nobody was about; Kit understood the citizens went to sleep in the afternoon. He saw nothing romantic. Las Palmas rather looked business-like and modern than picturesque. The houses had straight, square fronts and the roofs were flat. Only the white belt of surf and background of broken volcanic mountains relieved the utilitarian ugliness.
The wine shops had no call for Kit, but he noted the splashed floors, pungent smells, and swarms of flies. A girl on a balcony near the cathedral dropped a red oleander and another smiled, but Kit did not turn his head. He sprang from sober, puritanical stock, and his code was austere; one earned one's pay and studied in order to earn more; one shunned indulgence and trained one's body. Kit had trained his at the gymnasium and a cheap swimming club. In summer he sailed races on board cheap little boats. Although his horizon was not wide, his health and nerve were good.
He followed the _carretera_ that runs south from the town. In Spain, a road is often a bridle-track a mule can hardly climb, but the government _carretera_ is wide and level. In the distance was Telde, where oranges grow, and Kit set off in the dust and scorching heat. The Trade-breeze blew behind him; on his left hand the Atlantic broke in shining foam against black lava reefs; on his right, across the thin belt of cultivation, dark rocks, melted by volcanic fire, rose like a giant wall.
A few palms and fields of feathery sugar cane bordered the road. Then Kit saw vines, tied to sticks and growing in hot dust, and by and by a thread of water in a deep _barranco_. Washerwomen knelt by the channel, beating wet clothes with stones, and Kit understood afterwards why his shirts wore out. Some of the women were young, but when he stopped for a moment at the bridge they did not look up. To beat the clothes was their job, and maize flour and goat's milk cheese are dear. Farther on, Kit saw others, carrying big earthen jars on their heads. They looked like Moorish women, for their feet and arms were very brown, and long black shawls half hid their faces. In the fields, barefooted men laboured among the tomatoes and vines. It was obvious the _peons_ did not sleep in the afternoon; but for the most part their white clothes were good and they looked happy.