We sailed from Madeira, following a southerly course, and arrived at the Canary islands, which are at the distance of about 320 miles from Madeira. There are seven of these islands in all, four of which have been settled by the Christians, Lanзerotta, Fuerteventura, Gomera, and Ferro; over which Herrera281, a Spanish gentleman, is lord. Large quantities of an herb called Oricello or Orchel282, are annually sent from these islands to Cadiz and Seville, which is used in dying, and is sent from these places to all parts of Europe. Great quantities of excellent goat skins are exported from these islands, which likewise produce abundance of tallow, and good cheese. The original inhabitants of the four islands that are subject to the Christians, are Canarians283, who speak various languages or dialects, not well understood between the different tribes. These people have only open villages, without any fortifications; except on the mountains, which are exceedingly high, and there they have a kind of rude walls or redoubts, to flee to in case of need. The passes of these mountains are so difficult of access, that a few resolute men might defend them against an army. The other three islands of this group, Grand Canaria, Teneriffe, and Palma, which are larger and better peopled than the other four, are still unsubdued and possessed by the aboriginal idolaters. Grand Canaria has between eight and nine thousand souls, and Teneriffe, which is the largest of all these islands, is said to contain fourteen or fifteen thousand, and is divided into nine separate lordships. Palma, however, has very few inhabitants, yet it appears to be a very beautiful island. Every lordship seems to have its own mode of religious worship; as in Teneriffe, there were no less than nine different kinds of idolatry; some worshipping the sun, others the moon, and so forth. They practise polygamy, and the lords have the jus primae noctis, which is considered as conferring great honour. On the accession of any new lord, it is customary for some persons to offer themselves to die as a sacrifice to his honour. On this occasion, the lord holds a great festival on his accession day; when all who are willing to give this cruel proof of their attachment, are attended to the summit of a high cliff in a certain valley, where, after some peculiar ceremonies, and certain words muttered over them, the victims precipitate themselves from the cliff, and are dashed to pieces. In reward of this sanguinary homage, the lords consider themselves bound to heap extraordinary honours and rewards on the parents of the victims.

Teneriffe, which is the largest of these islands, and the best inhabited, is one of highest islands in the world, and is seen in clear weather from a great distance; insomuch, that I was informed by some mariners, that it had been descried at the distance of between sixty and seventy Spanish leagues, which make about 250 Italian miles. In the middle of the island, there is a prodigiously high peaked mountain, shaped like a diamond, which is always burning. I received this account from some Christians, who had been prisoners in the island, who affirmed that it was fifteen Portuguese leagues, or sixty Italian miles, from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the peak.

They have nine lords on this island, who are called dukes, and who do not succeed by inheritance or descent, but by force; on which account they have perpetual civil wars among themselves, in which they commit great slaughter. Their only weapons are stones, maces or clubs, and darts or lances, some of which are pointed with horn, and others have their points hardened in the fire. They all go naked, except a few who wear goat skins before and behind. They anoint their skins with goats tallow, mixed up with the juice of certain herbs, which thickens the skin, and defends them against the cold, of which they complain much, although their country is so far to the south. They have neither walled, nor thatched houses, but dwell in grottos and caverns of the mountains. They feed on barley, flesh, and goats milk, of which they have abundance, and some fruits, particularly figs. As the country is very hot, they reap their corn in April and May.

We learnt all these things from the Christians of the four settled islands, who sometimes go over by night to the three other islands, and make prisoners of the natives, whom they send into Spain to be sold as slaves. Sometimes the Spaniards are themselves made prisoners on these expeditions, on which occasions the natives do not put them to death, but employ them to kill and flea their goats, and to cure the flesh, which they look upon as a vile employment, and therefore condemn their Christian prisoners to that labour in contempt. The native Canarians are very active and nimble, and are exceedingly agile in running and leaping, being accustomed to traverse the cliffs of their rugged mountains. They skip barefooted from rock to rock like goats, and sometimes take leaps of most surprising extent and danger, which are scarcely to be believed. They throw stones with great strength and wonderful exactness, so as to hit whatever they aim at with almost perfect certainty, and almost with the force of a bullet from a musket; insomuch that a few stones thrown by them will break a buckler to pieces. I once saw a native Canarian, who had become a Christian, who offered to give three persons twelve oranges a-piece, and taking twelve to himself, engaged, at eight or ten paces distance, to strike his antagonists with every one of his oranges, and at the same time to parry all theirs, so that they should hit no part of him but his hands. But no one would take up the wager, as they all knew he could perform even better than he mentioned. I was on land in Gomera and Ferro, and touched also at the island of Palma, but did not land there.

Leaving the Canaries, we pursued our course towards Ethiopia, and arrived in a few days at Cape Branco, which is about 870 miles from these islands. In this passage, steering south, we kept at a great distance from the African shore on our left, as the Canaries are, far-advanced into the sea towards the west. We stood almost directly south for two-thirds of the way between the islands and the Cape, after which we changed our course somewhat more towards the east, or left-hand, that we might fall in with the land, lest we should have overpassed the Cape without seeing it because no land appears afterwards so far to the west for a considerable space. The coast of Africa, to the southwards of Cape Bronco, falls in considerably to the eastwards, forming a great bay or gulf, called the Forna of Arguin, from a small island of that name. This gulf extends about fifty miles into the land, and has three other islands, one of which is named Branco by the Portuguese, or the White Island, on account of its white sands; the second is called Garze, or the Isle of Herons, where they found so many eggs of certain seabirds as to load two boats; the third is called Curoi, or Cori. These islands are all small, sandy, and uninhabited. In that of Arguin there is plenty of fresh water, but there is none in any of the others. It is proper to observe, that on keeping to the southwards, from the Straits of Gibraltar, the coast of exterior Barbary is inhabited no farther than Cape Cantin284, from whence to Cape Branco is the sandy country or desert, called Saara or Saharra by the natives, which is divided from Barbary or Morocco on the north by the mountains of Atlas, and borders on the south with the country of the Negroes, and would require a journey of fifty days to cross,-in some places more, in others less. This desert reaches to the ocean, and is all a white dry sand, quite low and level, so that no part of it seems higher than any other. Cape Branco, or the White Cape, so named by the Portuguese from its white colour, without trees or verdure, is a noble promontory of a triangular shape, having three separate points about a mile from each other.