Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/792

768 made baskets, mats, and fish cords. The flower stalks shoot up to a height of fifteen to twenty feet in an incredibly short time, and like mammoth candelabra, as they look, are a striking feature of the landscape. The graceful pepper tree, commonly planted along the highroads, seems to be wild in a few localities. Large groves of magnificent chestnut trees are found on Canary and Teneriffe. The fruit is gathered and sold in great quantities. The almond industry also flourishes in certain regions, and the beautiful trees cover the valleys of a most charming part of central Grand Canary. Fig trees were introduced by some of the earliest European adventurers, and have now become thoroughly established, their fruit being one of the staple foods of the islanders. Oranges and bananas, the chief exports of the country, only grow when planted. Tomatoes, the third great product, are occasionally wild.

But the collector's richest fields are the forests. It is impossible to picture to one's self the paradise these islands must have been before the conquering Spaniard wantonly destroyed so much of the woodland. Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are now entirely destitute of native trees, and with the trees went many precious springs, so that these two islands are now practically desert. The chaplains of Béthencourt, who were in Fuerteventura early in the fifteenth century (1402), describe it as "covered with rich vegetation; lentiscos, olives, date palms, tamarisks, and cardos (Euphorbia canariensis) made dense woods," and as having numerous brooks and abounding in herbs and plants and fragrant flowers, which gave to the island a charming and agreeable aspect. Pedro Gomez Escudero, writing of Canaria in the same century, says: "The whole island was a garden, all covered with palms; because from one place, which is called Tamarasaite, we took more than sixty thousand little palms, and from other parts an infinite number." And Dr. Chil says: "After the conquerors and their descendants had for more than three hundred years declared war to the death against the forests, yet at the beginning of this century many leagues were so covered with dense woods that, in going from Telde to San Lorenzo, one arrived in this latter village after a summer day's journey without having seen a ray of sunlight, having passed continually beneath a copious foliage where plants grew perennially fresh and luxuriant." These incontestable facts seem hardly credible, for one would need an abiding supply of scientific enthusiasm now to stay long enough among the scorched rocks of Fuerteventura to make the careful study of their life which is needed. Hierro and Palma are still well wooded, and the extensive forests and abundant water supply of Gomera make it, in Dr. Chil's estimation, the most beautiful member of the archipelago. Only scattered tracts of woodland remain in Canary and Teneriffe.