ICOD DE LOS VINOS.

mere cottage, consisting of a couple of rooms.

45

San Juan is

the usual stopping-place and half-way house to Icod.

These islands, but notably Tenerife, have been wineproducing countries for three hundred years. It was on the slopes round San Juan that the real Malmsey, or Canary Sack, of former times was produced. This famous wine, the virtues of which Shakspere has chronicled, came from a grape called malvasia, which, since the oïdium appeared in these islands, has been little cultivated. Within the last few years, however, it has been gradually receiving more attention from the Canarians. The bunches are moderate in size, and the grape, which is round in shape, is harsh to the taste and yet sweetish. It does not grow at a greater altitude than 1,200 or 1,300 feet. When fully ripe, the bunches are twisted on their stalks, where they are allowed to remain until nearly converted into raisins, and are then gathered and pressed. It therefore requires as many grapes as would yield five pipes* of the ordinary dry wine to make one of the rich Malmsey. The wine of to-day is vidonia, which is sold for some ten pounds a pipe. The grape from which it is obtained is white and juicy.

As we neared Icod, we noticed the women carrying their children sitting straggle-legged on their hips, a leg in front and one behind, an Eastern custom. Some of them carried, besides a child, heavy jars of water under the other arm, or barrels on their heads.

The little town of Icod de los Vinos (Icod of the Wines), now officially styled Icod, lies on a pleasant, fertile slope, stretching to the sea. It is a clean-looking village. The streets are narrow, and seem to shoot from the irregularly shaped plaza like the thoroughfares from the central "fixed point" in the Seven Dials. Entering the fonda, or inn, we were conducted to the sala, or drawing-room. This is generally the largest room in a house, and faces the street. Cheap framed prints, usually of Roman Catholic saints or illustrative of legends, hang upon the walls. The

A Tenerife "pipe" is a hundred gallons, or eight gallons more than Madeira, and fifteen less than port.

floor is bare, chairs are placed round the walls, and one or two tables, adorned with wax flowers under glass or something else equally trumpery-never a book—are placed either at the wall or in front of the sofa. The sofa is the pièce de résistance of the room. It is large, deep, stiffbacked, usually of horse-hair, and covered with crocheted antimacasssars. In front of it is a piece of carpet or rug, the only one the room possesses. The foot-wide boards of the floor were adzed, not planed. The sofa in this instance was cane-bottomed and covered in red cloth. We found the room filled with men who were smoking.

At dinner, where I was the only woman present, I was seated beside a very respectable Spaniard, who spoke to me in French. I told him we had ridden from Orotava, and had felt the heat so great in the afternoon that we were suffering from headaches. He explained that he was a doctor from Buenavista, and assured me that the heat would do us no harm, that sunstrokes are unknown, and that it was only because we were unaccustomed to it that we were overpowered by the sun; all of which turned out true, fortunately.

At Icod we succeeded in obtaining some good photographs of the dragon tree-a fairly grown specimen-the town, and the Peak, which is here seen to much advantage, rising as it does more abruptly than at Orotava. The view from the azotea (flat housetop) is very fine and picturesque; the great and overwhelming object of interest being Teide. At this side the wall of the Cañadas has broken down, and the intervening mountains are low, thus giving an abruptness to the rise of the volcano not seen at Orotava. Icod seems to lie at the foot of El Pico, under its shelter, and the head has to be raised to see the summit. White and picturesque, on a slope, lies Icod, guarded on the east by a line of hills running to the sea. Numerous palms wave their branches all down the little valley, which ends in an alluvial plain by the sea-shore. All around are signs of careful culti vation. The hillsides on the east are almost bare rocks, but wherever it is possible the ground has been laboriously terraced, and maize and other crops give evidence with what

success.

The dragon tree of Icod is now the finest specimen of that plant extant in the islands. It is in a garden in the town, about fifty yards below the fonda, on the right bank of the watercourse.

Before breakfast, on the morning after our arrival at Icod, we succeeded in exploring the Guanche cave, which lies close to the sea. We experienced a little difficulty in finding the opening, which descends straight into the ground. A slab of stone, similar to many others around, covers the top. We crept inside the narrow opening, and, with pine torches lighted and held aloft for our guidance by two boys, proceeded to explore. We walked along for a short distance, about fifteen yards, when the cave took a sudden turn to the left and descended abruptly. The floor was now level for some distance, when it began again to descend steadily, the roof rising and opening into large vaulted chambers twenty feet high. Low passages intervened between these about two and a-half feet high, along which we had to creep, taking care of our heads. There were a few stalactites and some bones, for this is a celebrated Guanche burial cave. Many things are said of this subterranean cemetery, the nearest to truth being that it is 11,000 feet long. Tradition asserts that the cave reaches to the Ice Cavern in the Peak, and also that an arm of it descends to the sea. When first discovered, some of the galleries were filled with mummies. Suddenly we saw daylight, and came upon a low opening over a precipice, the mouth draped with vegetation. A small, pretty bay and a boat on the blue sea framed in green made a charming picture. The hole through which we are looking is about six feet wide by two or three high. No sound breaks the stillness save the rustle of the lizards as they glide in and out of the dry leaves and twigs.

Through the darkness of the cavern, lit up vaguely with the red glare of our torches, we crept back once more to the light and heat of the sun, and in another hour were riding in the direction of Garachico, feeling that now indeed we were wanderers, a map with no roads marked our only guide. Although there was a welcome breeze, the road, shaded by few trees and close to the sea, was excessively hot. What a sight we must have presented, with pugarees flying behind us,

coloured umbrellas in our right hands, the reins in our left, galloping under a scorching sun at mid-day!

Near the town we come upon a neck of land jutting out into the sea, while some hundred yards off rises an exceedingly fine mass of what looks like columnar basalt, called El Roque de Garachico. We enter Garachico at the rendezvous for all strangers, the plaza, or public square, situated in midThe appearance of a fountain at the further end of an avenue of sycamores was a welcome delight. The Plaza de la Fuente is exceedingly picturesque. Sycamore trees, planted closely together, render the square impervious to the rays of the mid-day sun, and afford a pleasant shelter to anyone sitting beneath them on the quaint stone seats, shaped at either end

town.

into scrolls.

Two or three crooked streets at odd corners and irregular intervals lead out of the square. The houses have curious balconies of plain or carved wood. The fountain, which, from the name of the plaza, would seem to be a natural spring, is simply a trough in the wall forming one side of the square, into and out of which a spout of water perpetually runs. The bay does not lie in front of the town, but at its western side. Not only from its present beauty, but from its past history, is Garachico interesting. From having once the best harbour in the island, whence was exported, chiefly to England, the malmsey wine of Icod; from building vessels of three hundred tons burden; and from being a flourishing little town, it has descended to a fishing cove and a sleepy village. In December, 1645, mountain torrents rushed downwards, carrying with them rocks and stones. The floods entering

D