Page:Costumes of the Canary Islands.djvu/12



, is the name by which a native of Fuerteventura is known in the Canaries, and is derived from their using a kind of sandals called Majos, bound on the feet with leathern thongs. Their dress, in warm weather, consists of a shirt and a pair of short drawers made very wide, and confined round the waist by a parti-coloured sash. On particular occasions, however, they wear a blue cloth jacket and smallclothes, &c., as shown in the right hand figure. but more commonly a blue waistcoat scallopped on the back, is put on. Hats are entirely unknown to them; and their place is supplied by a cap called Montero, of blue cloth lined with red or yellow: so contrived that the lower part, which when loosely put on hangs behind the head, can at pleasure be drawn over the face in such a manner, as to leave only the eyes and nose visible, in this manner it is used in winter, or on any occasion when the wearer chooses to disguise himself, which is too often the case; for the Majoreros are a very wild and fierce race of men, and upon the least provocation, eight or ten of them with their faces hidden in this way, will set upon an individual and beat him sometimes to death with their Garotes and short thick sticks, or cachiporros, having a large knob at one end often loaded with lead, iron, nails, &c., which they carry hanging by a string from the wrist.

The vicinity of this island and Lanzarote to the coast of Barbary, and the frequent invasion of them by the Moors in former times, together with the intercourse yet kept up between them, have given to their inhabitants many of the terms, the customs, and even the looks of the natives of Barbary. The distance between them is so small, that they have an old adage which runs,

signifying that from Tunege, on the south east coast of the island to Barbary, you may go and return in a day. Their manner of sitting balanced on the balls of their feet, with their hams resting on their heels, is evidently a Moorish custom.

The natives of Fuerteventura are bony, well-set men, but spare and dry and very swarthy. They are excessively dirty in their persons and habits. are possessed of much strength, and can bear great fatigue, but will work no longer than necessary to satisfy present wants, and are besides incorrigibly dishonest.

In soil and produce, Fuerteventura differs in no essential point from Lanzarote, except that water is even yet scarcer than there, only one spring being known in the whole island; so that the inhabitants are obliged to use the brackish water obtained by sinking wells in the sand, and such as they can collect in cisterns during the rainy season; but when a winter has been more than usually dry, they are under the necessity of sending vessels to Canary or Tenerife for a supply.