Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Bananas Of Teneriffe Are Those Named By The Spanish
Planters Camburis Or Guineos, And Dominicos.
The Camburi, which
suffers least from cold, is cultivated with success even at Malaga,
where the temperature is only 18 degrees; but the fruit we see
occasionally at Cadiz comes from the Canary Islands by vessels
which make the passage in three or four days.
In general, the musa,
known by every people under the torrid zone, though hitherto never
found in a wild state, has as great a variety of fruit as our apple
and pear trees. These varieties, which are confounded by the
greater part of botanists, though they require very different
climates, have become permanent by long cultivation.
We went to herborize in the evening in the direction of the fort of
Passo Alto, along the basaltic rocks that close the promontory of
Naga. We were very little satisfied with our harvest, for the
drought and dust had almost destroyed vegetation. The Cacalia
Kleinia, the Euphorbia canariensis, and several other succulent
plants, which draw their nourishment from the air rather than the
soil on which they grow, reminded us by their appearance, that this
group of islands belongs to Africa, and even to the most arid part
of that continent.
Though the captain of the Pizarro had orders to stop long enough at
Teneriffe to give us time to scale the summit of the peak, if the
snows did not prevent our ascent, we received notice, on account of
the blockade of the English ships, not to expect a longer delay
than four or five days. We consequently hastened our departure for
the port of Orotava, which is situated on the western declivity of
the volcano, where we were sure of finding guides. I could find no
one at Santa Cruz who had mounted the peak, and I was not surprised
at this. The most curious objects become less interesting, in
proportion as they are near to us; and I have known inhabitants of
Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, who had never seen the fall of the
Rhine but at a distance.
On the 20th of June, before sunrise, we began our excursion by
ascending to the Villa de Laguna, estimated to be at the elevation
of 350 toises above the port of Santa Cruz. We could not verify
this estimate of the height, the surf not having permitted us to
return on board during the night, to take our barometers and
dipping-needle. As we foresaw that our expedition to the peak would
be very precipitate, we consoled ourselves with the reflection that
it was well not to expose instruments which were to serve us in
countries less known by Europeans. The road by which we ascended to
Laguna is on the right of a torrent, or baranco, which in the rainy
season forms fine cascades; it is narrow and tortuous. Near the
town we met some white camels, which seemed to be very slightly
laden. The chief employment of these animals is to transport
merchandise from the custom-house to the warehouses of the
merchants. They are generally laden with two chests of Havannah
sugar, which together weigh 900 pounds; but this load may be
augmented to thirteen hundred-weight, or 52 arrobas of Castile.
Camels are not numerous at Teneriffe, whilst they exist by
thousands in the two islands of Lancerota and Forteventura; the
climate and vegetation of these islands, which are situated nearer
Africa, are more analogous to those of that continent. It is very
extraordinary, that this useful animal, which breeds in South
America, should be seldom propagated at Teneriffe. In the fertile
district of Adexe only, where the plantations of the sugar-cane are
most considerable, camels have sometimes been known to breed. These
beasts of burden, as well as horses, were brought into the Canary
Islands in the fifteenth century by the Norman conquerors. The
Guanches were previously unacquainted with them; and this fact
seems to be very well accounted for by the difficulty of
transporting an animal of such bulk in frail canoes, without the
necessity of considering the Guanches as a remnant of the people of
Atlantis, or a different race from that of the western Africans.
The hill, on which the town of San Christobal de la Laguna is
built, belongs to the system of basaltic mountains, which,
independent of the system of less ancient volcanic rocks, form a
broad girdle around the peak of Teneriffe. The basalt on which we
walked was darkish brown, compact, half-decomposed, and when
breathed on, emitted a clayey smell. We discovered amphibole,
olivine,* (* Peridot granuliforme. Hauy.) and translucid pyroxenes,
* (* Augite. - Werner.) with a perfectly lamellar fracture, of a
pale olive green, and often crystallized in prisms of six planes.
The first of these substances is extremely rare at Teneriffe; and I
never found it in the lavas of Vesuvius; but those of Etna contain
it in abundance. Notwithstanding the great number of blocks, which
we stopped to break, to the great regret of our guides, we could
discover neither nepheline, leucite,* (* Amphigene. - Hauy.) nor
feldspar. This last, which is so common in the basaltic lavas of
the island of Ischia, does not begin to appear at Teneriffe, till
we approach the volcano. The rock of Laguna is not columnar, but is
divided into ledges, of small thickness, and inclined to the east
at an angle of 30 or 40 degrees. It has nowhere the appearance of a
current of lava flowing from the sides of the peak. If the present
volcano has given birth to these basalts, we must suppose, that,
like the substances which compose the Somma, at the back of
Vesuvius, they are the effect of a submarine effusion, in which the
liquid mass has formed strata. A few arborescent Euphorbias, the
Cacalia Kleinia, and Indian figs (Cactus), which have become wild
in the Canary Islands, as well as in the south of Europe and the
whole continent of Africa, are the only plants we see on these arid
rocks.
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