CHAPTER XXXIII.

MONTE DE LOS LAURELES-BANDAMA—ATALAYA -LAS PALMAS MUSEUM—BARBERS.

Thus was this place

A happy rural seat of various view:

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm;
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,

Hung amiable-Hesperian fables true,

If true, here only-and of delicious taste.

MILTON.

THE day after our return to Las Palmas we were glad to rest, after our journey into the interior. Next day, however -Saturday, November 24th-we started shortly after nine o'clock on an expedition to the Bandama Caldera. About half-way between Tafira and Santa Brigida, leaving the carriage, we descended by a steep path to a small glen of laurels. This is a favourite picnic resort for the inhabitants of Las Palmas. The laurel trees-not bushes-about fifty or sixty feet high, shade us from the sun, beating down strong and hot. The bottom is perfectly flat and smooth, sparsely covered by grass and a few withered leaves. On one side a small streamlet curves round the foot of the hill on the opposite side of the glen, and a few butterflies wander hither and thither across its rippling waters. The bank at one side is also covered by laurel trees, from the bottom of each of which are suckers, straight enough to make walking-sticks for giants or Guanches. This glen, the Monte* de los Laureles, 1,150 feet above the sea, and a couple of hundred feet beneath the carretera, is famous, and deservedly so, for its laurels. One can scarcely believe, when looking at those immense trees, that it is the same laurel plant we are accustomed to in England.

· Monte means wood as well as mountain.

We reached the road again about eleven o'clock. The banks on either side are lined by aloes, which, although making good hedges, are not grown entirely for that purpose A strong, tough fibre can be extracted from the leaves. The so-called leaves are hard, thick, fibrous substances, long, narrow, and pointed, and frequently grow to three feet in length. When mature, the leaves are cut and threshed until soft enough for the fibre to be readily extracted. Whip-lashes, halters, and the breechbands used on mules and donkeys to keep on the pack-saddles are made of aloe thread. The fibre is tough and lasting, and the manufacture of these articles from it is rapidly becoming an industry. Everywhere one sees bare and useless patches of ground planted with aloes.

We now drove back a little on the road to Las Palmas, but soon turned off on the right, and followed a good path in a sort of lane for a little distance, until it became too steep and narrow for our carriage, when we dismounted and walked A few minutes brought us to a house built near Bandama, and. passing by it, we suddenly stood on the edge of the Caldera One's first feeling is intense surprise and admiration that Nature could have formed anything so faultless, that in such a mad freak as a volcanic eruption she should have taken care to make a circle perfect enough to be attributable to the hand of man. We stand on the edge of the crater at its least precipitous part, and that is so steep that the path beneath winds backwards and forwards in innumerable lashes The rim is tolerably level all round, rising here and sinking there more or less, but giving the idea from where we stand of a general similarity of height. The altitude here on the path is 1,200 feet above the sea, but the north-west side is 1,450 feet. The sides are perfectly perpendicular, descending into the Caldera some 600 or 700 feet. The bottom of the cauldron is entirely green. At the foot of the path is a solitary house, and in its vicinity we can distinguish cultivated ground To the right and near the bottom we can see a few orange trees, and the intense green of the herbage near them shows that the once boiling crater now contains a spring of water. Above us, to our left as we stand, is the Pico, a peaked hill or cone, which forms a part of the wall, so to speak, of the

crater.

THE BANDAMA CRATER.

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It is the only place where the uniform edge is altered. The side of the Pico next the Caldera is formed entirely of black cinders, and it is in these cinders that the vuelta, or winding path, to the bottom is made.

Ten minutes took us down the 690 feet, and it was a rapid but uncomfortable descent. Arrived at the bottom, we felt such thorough trespassers in the confined space that we at once made our way to the house to apologise to the owner. Here we were not only welcomed, but hospitably treated, for the good man brought out for our delectation some excellent almonds and dried figs, both grown in the crater.

We had expected to find the heat unbearable below, but there was instead a pleasant breeze, which our host says they always have surely a curious natural phenomenon. The whole bottom of the Caldera is one finca, or farm, containing one hundred and ninety-six fanegadas (about nine acres). The living souls buried in this cauldron are the medianeroa sort of tenant farmer-his wife, and six children. His farm is 760 feet above the sea-level. We noticed growing around rhamus, brambles, manzanilla (camomile), branching euphorbia, palms, maize, vines, olives, and orange trees. The pasturage is good; in fact, most of the farm is in grass, as was evidenced

by there being eight cows and nine goats. A yoke of oxen were ploughing in part of the bottom. A good many big boulders are scattered about. The farmer declared no boulders had fallen in his time, and he had been there five years.

We walked up to the spring, which is on the western side, on leaving the house. It is situated on higher ground, at the foot of a cliff 875 feet above the sea. The water comes from an inaccessible spot further up, and trickles down the rock. Three small cisterns have been made to catch the supply, for every drop is precious in a thirsty land. The polypodium fern grows luxuriantly on the rocks around, and near the cisterns there are several orange trees, off which our host broke whole branches laden with oranges, to present to us. On our way up, as we toiled slowly over the loose cinders, we saw, under a rock beside the path, a number of small circular pits an inch or three-quarters of an inch in diameter, like miniature craters, in some very fine earth. At the bottom of each of these is an insect * ready to devour other insects that may fall into the trap so neatly prepared. Aloes and vines are planted on the steep, cindery hillside, partly to keep the path up.

At the summit of the peak the height was found to be 1,800 feet, which makes the total depth to the bottom of the crater 1,040 feet-a considerable depth to look down into. From the top is a grand panoramic view. To the north lies the Isleta, looking like an island, for the exceedingly narrow isthmus dwindles to nothing at this distance, and a little in front Las Palmas glitters in the sun; north-west is Arucas, distinctly visible as a cluster of white houses nestling against its characteristic little mountain; while to the south Telde, of orange fame, seems quite near at hand. All round, the north and east coast-line and the sea beyond to the horizon were visible, while the centre of the island, just then slightly covered with clouds, was seen as a confused mass of compressed mountains.

Leaving Bandama, we started for Atalaya. A good path

Myrmeleon formicarius.

up one hill and down another brought into sight the cavevillage.

There are several cave-villages in Gran Canaria, but perhaps one may pick out three as the principal, each of which is perfectly distinct in character and in the manner of life of the inhabitants. Near the town of Las Palmas there are cave dwellings close to the carretera leading to San Mateo. The inhabitants of these consist of the very scum of the town, those who cannot or will not pay house-rent. Not only do the poorest live there, but also the worst characters. Next we may mention Artenara. The caves there are tenanted by respectable tillers of the soil, people quite as good socially and

The

morally as their neighbours. The third village of caves is Atalaya. Here lives a race of potters. All the earthenware pottery for the country is manufactured in these caves. people have lived here from generation to generation; they are very poor and ignorant, and perhaps a trifle rough. They have also one bad habit, of which we received timely warning, fortunately. They are given to thieving, and will steal almost under the eyes of the owner.

As we near the village, ragged, very ragged, boys pass us. The solitary white cotton garment they possess seems scarcely capable of holding together. What the vanguard was, so were the rest of the inhabitants, all in rags. The situation, however,