Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/98

 town of Galdar, former residence of the native kings. On the west side the largest place is Aldea de San Nicolas, and on the south coast nothing is seen except some traces of the old Berber town of Arguineguin, where Webb and Berthelot found the remains of four hundred houses.

Numerous villages are scattered over the cirques and on the slopes of La Cumbre. The most elevated of these is Artenara, which stands at an altitude of over 4,000 feet in the caldron of Tejeda, all its houses being excavated in the brownish tufa of the mountain. Nearly all the inhabitants are charcoal-burners, who have completely cleared many of the former wooded slopes.

Teneriffe (Tenerife, Tonerfiz, or the "White Mountain," as explained by some etymologists), is the largest island in the archipelago. Here is also the loftiest volcano, the far-famed Peak of Teyde, which has at times been seen to vomit from above the clouds fiery lava-streams down its steep flanks seawards. Few other oceanic beacons can compare with this 2 majestic cone standing out West of Greenwich _15°aet in white and light blue tints against the deeper azure ground of the firmament. But although visible at times from distances of 120 and even 180 miles, it is too often wrapped in a vapour mantle, concealing it altogether from the eager gaze of mariners.

The island itself, unlike Gran Canaria, consists of three distinct sections differing in their general aspect and geological age. The north-east section mainly comprises the old igneous uplands of Anaga, cut up, eroded in every direction, and at their base carved out by the action of the waves into deep indentations. The western section also consists of an isolated mountain mass, the