The Canary Islands

Probably many people have shared my feeling of disappointment on landing at Santa Cruz. I had long ago realised that few places come up to the standard of one’s preconceived ideas, so my mental picture was not in this case a very beautiful one; but even so, the utter hideousness of the capital of Teneriffe was a shock to me.

Unusually clear weather at sea had shown us our first glimpse of the Peak, rising like a phantom mountain out of the clouds when 100 miles distant, but as we drew nearer to land the clouds had gathered, and the cone was wrapped in a mantle of mist. There is no disappointment attached to one’s first impression of the Island as seen from the sea. The jagged range of hills seemed to come sheer down to the coast, and appeared to have been torn and rent by some extraordinary upheaval of Nature; the deep ravines (orbarrancos as I afterwards learnt to call them) were full of dark blue mysterious shadows, a deeply indented coast-line stretched far away in the distance, and I thought the land well deserved to be called one of the Fortunate Islands.

Santa Cruz, or to give it its full title, Santa Cruz de Santiago, though one of the oldest towns in the Canaries, looked, as our ship glided into the harbour, as though it had been built yesterday, or might even be still in course of construction. Lying low on the shore the flat yellow-washed houses, with their red roofs, are thickly massed together, the sheer ugliness of the town being redeemed by the spires of a couple of old churches, which look down reprovingly on the modern houses below. Arid slopes rise gradually behind the town, and appear to be utterly devoid of vegetation. Perched on a steep ridge is the Hotel Quisisana, which cannot be said to add to the beauty of the scene, and all my sympathy went out to those who were condemned to spend a winter in such desolate surroundings in search of health.

Probably no foreign town is entirely devoid of interest to the traveller. On landing, the picturesque objects which meet the eye make one realise that once one’s foot has left the last step of the gangway of the ship, England and everything English has been left behind. The crowd of swarthy loafers who lounge about the quay in tight yellow or white garments, are true sons of a southern race, and laugh and chatter gaily with handsome black-eyed girls. Sturdy country women are settling heavy loads on their donkeys, preparatory to taking their seat on the top of the pack for their journey over the hills. Their peculiar head-dress consists of a tiny straw hat, no larger than a saucer, which acts as a pad for the loads they carry on their heads, from which hangs a large black handkerchief either fluttering in the wind, or drawn closely round the shoulders like a shawl.