friendships. People are thrown together, and as they are isolated in a circumscribed locality by nationality and customs, a community of feeling is engendered frequently productive of warm and lasting friendships.

The cockfighting most unhappily always takes place on Sunday, and John, to see how this barbarous amusement was conducted, was therefore obliged to go then or not at all. He gave me the following account :

"Cockfighting as a legitimate pastime is unknown in England, but in the Canaries it is almost the only amusement which arouses the enthusiasm and kindles the fire of the mixed Spanish and Guanche blood of the natives. The regular season for the sport commences on Carnival Sunday, and continues on successive Sundays. The training and preparations for the many tournaments involve the expenditure of much money, and give occupation to many people. The town of Las Palmas has two cock-training establishments, for the development of the warlike instincts and powers of the cock is a most elaborate and carefully-thought-out art. Turning down the Calle Puertas I rapped at the door of an ordinary dwelling-house, and readily obtained admittance. Before my eyes could become accustomed to the comparative coolness and darkness of the interior after the heat and glare of the street, my ears were assailed with the unmistakable sound of spasmodic cock-crowings. The rooms of the house had been converted into dwellings for innumerable cocks. The walls were lined with boxes about the size of tea-chests, placed one above another, for some four or five tiers. Each tier had wooden bars in front, and nearly all contained cocks. Perches, I found, are only put in at night for roosting upon. On the day of my visit one hundred and sixteen birds were undergoing the course of training, though the manager informed me that before Easter he would have to provide one hundred and fifty in order to match a similar number now being trained at the rival establishment. Fifty prime cocks were to be selected from this house to meet in mortal combat fifty from the other house in the town, to fight in matched pairs. The fighting weight is from three pounds twelve ounces to four pounds two ounces, and the object of the training is to

bring each bird within those limits, and at the same time to keep their health and physique good and robust. Feedingtime is two in the afternoon, when each bird is served with a carefully-weighed-out quantity of grain, water, etc., in accordance with the desire of the trainer to increase or reduce a particular bird's weight. Our English expression of 'living like a fighting-cock' would seem to be inapplicable here, for, so far as I observed, no bird was allowed to gorge to his heart's content. The system of feeding the fighting-cocks in England would appear to have been different, or the proverbial saying could scarcely have arisen. Once a day the birds are taken singly from their cages and sunned for a short time on the azotea, or flat roof, this exposure to sunlight being essential to the maintenance of a healthy condition. From the azotea the bird is taken downstairs to a yard at the back, where he is allowed to scratch and pick about in a cinder-heap provided for the purpose.

The main consideration in the breeding of gamecocks in the Canaries is good game parentage, colour being of no account. I saw cocks black, brown, speckled, white, and others of almost every variety of mixed hue and shade.

The training bin was in the centre of an upper room, solely devoted to its use. This is a round railed enclosure on the floor, eight feet in diameter, surrounded by tightly stretched canvas eighteen inches high. This miniature circus is where the cocks are made to exercise for the reduction of weight, and where sham fights occur in the course of training. The bird whose weight has to be reduced is placed on the sanded floor of the enclosure. The trainer, taking another cock under his arms, which he first allows the cock on the ground to see and become excited over, walks round and round the circle, where he is followed closely by his adipose confrère. This wholesome discipline soon reduces weight, and also improves the stamina of the leg muscles. Sham fights, to teach the birds the use of their spurs, take place in the same bin, each spur being encased in a little padded bag, the botona, a device exactly corresponding in use to boxinggloves. When a specially game bird's education is desired to be pushed forward and perfected, it is considered worth

TRAINING AND TOURNAMENT.

373

while to let him taste blood, for which purpose he is matched in the bin on several occasions with inferior cocks. The weaker birds of the establishment are thus one by one sacrificed for the benefit of the most promising.

When a good gamecock loses a spur by accident or in a fight, a not unfrequent occurrence, it is replaced before a tournament by a spur taken from the leg of a dead cock. The new spur is tightly strapped on. I saw a table-drawer full of fine spurs preserved for this purpose, a regular Cockspur Street, for in the Canaries the keen steel spurs so common in Mexico and Peru are never used. There can be no question that the use of artificial spurs is a more merciful method of cockfighting, for when the birds use their natural weapons, the combats are much more protracted, and therefore more cruel.

The cock-pit, adjoining the training establishment, is a circular building, with tier upon tier of benches, capable of accommodating about four hundred persons. The actual pit is a circular enclosed space, eighteen feet in diameter, elevated two feet above the floor, in the centre of the building. It is surrounded by wooden railings, with two doors opposite to each other for the introduction of the rival birds. Suspended by a string from the lofty ceiling above this circular pit is a pair of scales, ready for weighing the cocks at the last moment before the combat, for the birds pitted against one another must be of equal weight.

Seven duels take place in a tournament, and the two establishments in turn inform one another of the respective weights of the seven birds which will be produced. Three onzas (ten pounds) is staked on each duel by each establishment, so that the stakes for a tournament amount to one hundred and forty pounds. The gate money, one peseta a person (about tenpence), is divided into three parts, one part going to the owner of the cock-pit, the other two parts between the two cock-training establishments of the town. Betting goes on freely during the fights, but there is very little shouting or uproar. The Spaniards are too dignified and sedate to allow free vent to their feelings.

As with most other sports where betting contributes to the

excitement and popularity of the amusement, cheating is not unknown in cockfighting. Two modes of obtaining unfair advantage in the sport are especially odious in the eyes of the spectators: one consists in putting grease upon the feathers, the slightest amount preventing the opposing bird getting a good grip with his beak. The other and even more. heinous crime is putting poison on the spurs. For instance, if the spurs be run into a garlic bulb before the fight, they will instantly cause swellings on the antagonist's body from a mere scratch.

The tournaments take place at noon on Sundays, and women are never present. A bird is brought down into the arena by the representative of each of the training establishments. A piece of string is passed under the body and tied over the back; the scales are lowered and the birds weighed in the presence of the spectators. Both sides being satisfied that the weights of the two combatants are the same, a man advances into the pit and carefully wipes each bird's spurs with a sponge dipped in vinegar, or runs them into a lemon. Then the strings are untied, and the birds, still grasped firmly, are held near to each other. They at once become excited, when, the cock-pit being cleared and the doors shut, they are placed on the ground opposite one another, in the centre of the enclosure.

One can never be 'cock-sure' as to what the birds will do, or which will be the winner. Sometimes, directly they touch the ground, they rush together with a mad impetus, meet, cannon, rise in the air with wings partly extended, and rebound to the ground on their feet. Sometimes, when liberated, they at first stretch out their necks to the fullest extent, and for a second or two remain thus motionless, as if in a mesImeric trance. Then commences a stern fight, generally to the death. The policy of each bird is to get above the other in order to get a downward thrust with his spurs into the antagonist's head. To do this, they try their utmost to seize one another by the nape of the neck, and in their furious peckings drive their bills deep down into the flesh, which soon becomes swollen and bloody. I need not say that the combats are brutal and unpleasant, and that we lose nothing by forbidding them in England."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CAVE DWELLINGS—WALKS ABOUT LAS

PALMAS-TELDE.

The seashore always presents a great attraction for naturalists. The sea is a wonderful nursery of nature.-SMILES.

THERE was a fearful storm last night (January 6th), the rain fell in torrents, while the wind was from the south-east, from which quarter it rarely blows. No French steamer had put in its appearance yet, and the English mail-boat had not arrived. When we strolled down to the Puerto de la Luz the next afternoon it was still blowing half a gale, and the sand was being whirled in every direction. Most of the ships and steamers were in Confital Bay; two schooners were ashore, and a lighter, filled with coals, sunk. The sand lay in drifts, like snow, and the entire contour of the ground was altered almost beyond recognition. On the 6th and 7th the thermometer had registered 64'4° F. (18° C.) regularly at 9 A.M., but on the 9th it fell to 626° F. (17° C.), rising again on the 10th to 64° F. (17·8° C.), where it remained steadily until the 16th.

We now proceeded to fulfil a determination formed when driving to Arucas-viz. to explore the cave dwellings burrowed in the cliffs beneath the fortress, and rejoicing-why, we have been unable to ascertain-in the name of "Caves of Profit" (Cuevas del Provecho).

The mountain side is mainly composed of a loose kind of conglomerate, in which large boulders are here and there embedded. In this dangerous stratum many caves have been hollowed out, and here live a number of men, women, and children. The caves are of a much lower order than those of