At noon (January 10) the British and African s.s. Senegal weighed
for Grand Canary, which stood in unusually distinct relief to the east, and which, this time, was not moated by a tumbling sea. Usually it is; moreover, it lies hidden by a bank of French-grey clouds, here and there sun-gilt and wind-bleached. We saw the 'Pike' bury itself under the blue horizon, at first cloaked in its wintry ermines and then capped with fleecy white nimbus, which confused itself with the snows.
I had now a good opportunity of observing my fellow-passengers bound
down south. They consisted of the usual four classes--naval, military, colonial officials, and commercials. The latter I noted narrowly as the quondam good Shepherd of the so-called 'Palm-oil Lambs.' All were young fellows without a sign of the old trader, and well-mannered enough. When returning homewards, however, their society was by no means so pleasant; it was noisy, and 'larky,' besides being addicted to the dullest practical jokes, such as peppering beds. On board Senegal each sat at meat with his glass of Adam's ale by his plate-side, looking prim, and grave, and precise as persons at a christening who are not in the habit of frequenting christenings. Captain Keene took the earliest opportunity of assuring me that since my time--indeed, since the last ten years--the Bights and the Bightsmen had greatly changed; that spirit-drinking was utterly unknown, and that ten-o'clock-go-to-bed life was the general rule. But this unnatural state of things did not last long. Wine, beer, and even Martell (three stars) presently reappeared; and I noted that the evening-chorus had preserved all its peculiar verve. The fact is that West Africa has been subjected to the hateful espionage, that prying into private affairs, which dates in Western India from the days of a certain nameless governor. Every attempt at jollification was reported to the houses at home, and often an evil rumour against a man went to Liverpool and returned to 'the Coast' before it was known to himself and his friends in the same river. May all such dismal attempts to make Jack and Jill dull boys and girls fail as utterly!
Early in the afternoon we steamed past Galdar and La Guia, rival
villages famed for cheeses on the north-western coast of lumpy Grand
Canary, sheets of habitation gleaming white at the feet of their
respective brown montañetas. The former was celebrated in local story; its Guanche guanarteme, or great chief, as opposed to the subordinate mencey, being one of the two potentates in 'Tameran,' the self-styled 'Island of Braves.' This, too, was the site of the Tahoro, or Tagoror, temple and senate-house of the ancients. The principal interest of these wild people is the mysterious foreknowledge of their fate that seems to have come to them by a manner of intuition, of uninspired prophecy.
In the clear winter-air we could distinctly trace the bold contour of
the upper heights tipped by the central haystack, El Nublo, a giant
trachytic monolith. We passed Confital Bay, whose 'comfits' are galettes
of stone, and gave a wide berth to the Isleta and its Sphinx's
head. This rocky peninsula, projecting sharply from the north-eastern
chord of the circle, is outlined by a dangerous reef, and drops suddenly
into 130 fathoms. Supported on the north by great columns of basalt, it
is the terminus of a secondary chain, trending north-east--south-west, and meeting the Cumbre, or highest ground, whose strike is north-west--south-east. Like the knuckle-bone of the Tenerife ham it is a contorted mass of red and black lavas and scoriae, with sharp slides and stone-floods still distinctly traceable. Of its five eruptive cones the highest, which supports the Atalaya Vieja, or old look-out, now the signal-station, rises to 1,200 feet. A fine lighthouse, with detached quarters for the men, crowns another crater-top to the north. The grim block wants water at this season, when the thinnest coat of green clothes its black-red forms. La Isleta appears to have been a burial-ground of the indigenes, who, instead of stowing away their mummies in caves, built detached sepulchres and raised tumuli of scoriae over their embalmed dead. As at Peruvian Arica, many remains have been exposed by modern earthquakes and landslips.