WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY MARCUS WARD & CO., LIMITED ORIEL HOUSE, FARRINGDON STREET, E. C. 1889 [All rights reserved} PREFACE. WHEN we went to the Canary Islands in 1883-4, they W were practically unknown to the English: no other English people had then travelled through the archipelago. We had to endure labours and discomforts of which the following pages can give only a faint idea; but we have had the satisfaction of knowing that, through the publication of the first edition of this book, the Fortunate Isles were, for the first time, prominently brought to the notice of the English public. To the novelty, perhaps, as much as to the interest of the subject, the success of the previous edition, and the general favour with which it was received, may be attributed. When we first travelled in the Islands there were not more than a dozen visitors to be found in the archipelago, and that handful only in the three chief towns. Since the publication of Tenerife and its Six Satellites, visitors have poured into the Islands, and their number is constantly on the increase. Some of these, though only personally. acquainted with one spot in one island, have ventured to write generally and dogmatically of the whole group. The result has been that much misleading and even erroneous information concerning the Islands has appeared in several prominent journals and magazines. It is an object of this edition to correct some of these misstatements, while presenting the story of our original travel in a more compact and practical form. The information has been thoroughly revised and brought down to date; the maps have been corrected, and many new illustrations added. The chief and radical alteration in the Islands is to be found in the increased and improved accommodation for visitors, particularly for invalids and health-seekers. In the principal towns first-class hotels and sanatoriums have been built, and more are in course of construction. Banks, unknown in the days of our first visit, are established, and the luxuriously lazy methods of Madeira travelling have been introduced. An English chaplain is now living at Orotava, and a church is projected. The great steamship companies, at last awakening to the importance of the islands, have, by considerably reducing their rates of passage money, proportionately increased the number of their passengers, and the steamers calling for coaling purposes have multiplied enormously. Hotels have sprung up, and the few large seaport towns have somewhat changed their character as they have improved their accommodation. But the Islands themselves are less changed than might have been expected; their interiors are-happily-just as rugged, and very nearly as difficult of access as in the days of our first explorations. The new interinsular steamers, however, now render the outlying islands accessible in a way which is absolute luxury compared to that in which we had to travel. Yet, with all these changes and improvements, my heart goes back with feelings almost of regret to those days when, to visit the Isles of the Blest, required work, forethought, and determination, and when the traveller, to see them, had really to travel to go through a considerable amount of exercise and life in the open air. O. M. S. LONDON, November, 1889. CONTENTS. · 95 102 XIV. GOMERA-SAN SEBASTIAN-HERMIGUA XV. HERMIGUA-AGULO-VALLE HERMOSO XVIII. PICO DE LOS MUCHACHOS-SAN BORONDON-LOS SAUCES 159 XXVI. GRAN CANARIA-LAS PALMAS-HISTORY OF THE ISLAND 251 XXVII. LAW COURTS—ARUCAS-COCHINEAL-GUIA |