On Some Days The Peak Stands Out Clear
From Ocean To Summit, Looking Every Inch And More Of Its 12,
080 ft.;
and this is said by the Canary fishermen to be a certain sign of
rain, or fine weather,
Or a gale of wind; but whenever and however
it may be seen, soft and dream-like in the sunshine, or melodramatic
and bizarre in the moonlight, it is one of the most beautiful things
the eye of man may see.
Soon after sighting Teneriffe, Lancarote showed, and then the Grand
Canary. Teneriffe is perhaps the most beautiful, but it is hard to
judge between it and Grand Canary as seen from the sea. The superb
cone this afternoon stood out a deep purple against a serpent-green
sky, separated from the brilliant blue ocean by a girdle of pink and
gold cumulus, while Grand Canary and Lancarote looked as if they
were formed from fantastic-shaped sunset cloud-banks that by some
spell had been solidified. The general colour of the mountains of
Grand Canary, which rise peak after peak until they culminate in the
Pico de las Nieves, some 6,000 feet high, is a yellowish red, and
the air which lies among their rocky crevices and swathes their
softer sides is a lovely lustrous blue.
Just before the sudden dark came down, and when the sun was taking a
curve out of the horizon of sea, all the clouds gathered round the
three islands, leaving the sky a pure amethyst pink, and as a good-
night to them the sun outlined them with rims of shining gold, and
made the snow-clad Peak of Teneriffe blaze with star-white light.
In a few minutes came the dusk, and as we neared Grand Canary, out
of its cloud-bank gleamed the red flash of the lighthouse on the
Isleta, and in a few more minutes, along the sea level, sparkled the
five miles of irregularly distributed lights of Puerto de la Luz and
the city of Las Palmas.
We reached Sierra Leone at 9 A.M. on the 7th of January, and as the
place is hardly so much in touch with the general public as the
Canaries are {14} I may perhaps venture to go more into details
regarding it. The harbour is formed by the long low strip of land
to the north called the Bullam shore, and to the south by the
peninsula terminating in Cape Sierra Leone, a sandy promontory at
the end of which is situated a lighthouse of irregular habits. Low
hills covered with tropical forest growth rise from the sandy shores
of the Cape, and along its face are three creeks or bays, deep
inlets showing through their narrow entrances smooth beaches of
yellow sand, fenced inland by the forest of cotton-woods and palms,
with here and there an elephantine baobab.
The first of these bays is called Pirate Bay, the next English Bay,
and the third Kru Bay. The wooded hills of the Cape rise after
passing Kru Bay, and become spurs of the mountain, 2,500 feet in
height, which is the Sierra Leone itself.
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