THE FORTUNATE ISLES.*
COMMEND US to the French for writing exhaustive books of travels; and commend us also to the lady, bight Frances Locock, who had the industry to translate this work. There is no place so' small that it does not possess a world of curious facts within its- boundaries, and the Canaries seem (though we did not know it before) to have had a long mythological as well as an historical' career, and to be most delightful in the way of natural science.
Their huge sentinel, standing up like a lonely cloud on the dis- tant horizon of the waters as you approach from Madeira, is the- Peak of Teneriffe. It is said to be visible fifty leagues off, but a. constant cloud hangs over the sea, and it rarely allows the- mountain to be seen. Teneriffe, says our author (vol. ii., chap- 10), is not merely a great geological fact; it is a giant witness of old Atlantis, the fabled land of which Plato speaks as having heard. the tradition from his grandfather Critias, and of which Irish. poets have more than once beautifully written, for there is a legend. that it may ever and anon be seen from the coast of Galway,. shining dimly in the light of the setting sun, though never to bts. trod by mortal footstep more.
M. Pegot-Ogier believes all the islands near the north-west coast of Africa to be the remains of a veritable country, which
* The Fortunate Isles; or, the Archipelago of The Canaries. Bp E. Pdgot-Oiter: London : Bentley. either projected far beyond the present coast-line as a huge peninsula, or was really an island as large as the Australian continent, since Critias told his grandson that Solon had heard in Egypt how "the sea at that time surrounded an island not far from the Pillars of Hercules, and larger than Asia and Libya put together." Of the people of Atlantis our author thinks he finds definite trace in the present inhabitants of Libya, where we "still find the race, the language, the tribe, and the name, the banner or pennon, and the pastoral life." And the Guauches, who were inhabiting Gran Canaria when conquered by the Spaniards, are merely a branch "detached by some cataclysm from a stem of which the Berbers were the last representatives." These Gnanches, who remained in possession until the year 1500, are represented as a highly organised people. Our author has the greatest possible objection to the Spaniards, and we think he draws a somewhat fantastic picture of their victims, when he tells us that they lived, previous to their conquest, "under a monarchical government, similar to that of St. 1A3111S, supposing the States-General and Provincial to have been in permanent session." 1Vhen he goes on to tell us that there was an organised system of justice ; that laws were handed down by tradition ; that the civil governments were in the hands of the nobility, while the army consisted of all the able-bodied citizens, and public instruction was limited to the inculcation of moral principles, we rub our eyes, and are fain to think that the fabled beauty of lost Atlantis hangs over the picture in the writer's mind, and that he is unconsciously placing his own ideal in Gran Canaria ; and this suspicion gathers strength when we are told that "land was distributed by the chief according to a capitation law ; men and women all had their parts allotted to them." In fact, we learn that it was a regularly constituted society, such as existed in primitive times, anterior to slavery, which did not appear until after the Stone Age, at least as a recognised institu- tion. It was the Keltic government, the government of the Caucasian races anterior to the Noachian deluge ! Oh, shade of Peter 'Wilkins! return from your distant isle, upborne upon the pinions of your winged wife, and tell us all about it !
But though we think his ardent philosophical republicanism makes him unfair to mediasval Spain, and exalt its victims, just as Irish writers represent Keltic Ireland as a Christian Greece over- run by savage Saxon barbarians, his chapter on the Guanche race will well repay perusal. Indeed the book is so full that we scarcely know where to pick and choose. One chapter is devoted to the Dragon-tree, once believed by scientific men to have come from the East, but now recognised as belonging exclusively to the "islands of Atlantis." It is found in Maleira. and Porto Santo, where it was certainly never taken by man ; it is found in Palma, and all over Teneriffe, while in India it is absent. It gives the beat kind of "dragon's blood," a kind of purple resin used for dyes and in medicine. One particular tree, which existed 4,000 years ago, is declared to be in life at this day, identified by historical description. Quite a short time since—in its lifetime, that is to say, about the year 1500, when Spain took possession of the islands—this tree was declared to measure 48 feet in circumference close to the ground. It was spoken of by a Spanish traveller as early as 1350, and it has lived to be photographed in the nineteenth century. A twig nearly 10 feet in circumference was broken off in a storm, and somebody carried it off for the benefit of Kew Gardens. Humboldt put down its age as 10,000 years. Botanical science classes it among the asparagus ; but a learned Frenchman, M. de Michel, insists that it is in some sort animal. "He has found in the tissue, between the bark and the stem, an utricular layer, which he has examined with a powerful microscope., and he has seen living granules, excessively small, produced in it. These granules move, come together, and form fresh utricles." This dragon-tree, whether beast or vegetable, is a relic, says our author, of the earlier world, co-habitant with the monstrous animals which have vanished from the scene, with the exception of one or two species like the rhinoceros, of whom it was once said that "be looked as if God had forgotten him."
To pass to a totally different subject, our readers will be astonished to hear that the Islands possess a very active press ; "a remarkable fact in a country ruled by a despotic monarchy, naturally inimical to the spread of knowledge." There are eight newspapers in Teueriffe, comprising "two liberal political papers, one official bulletin, one of local interest, one of public education ; three times a month appears a publication in the form of a review, disseminated by the Society of Friends of the Country. This re view treats of trade, commerce, navigation, statistics, agriculture, science ; in short, of every possible occupation." Every steamer which touches at the Islands brings over the newest French and Spanish books. "Under the title of 'Insular Library,' a Santa Cruz publisher, named Vidal, publishes new works, republishes those out of print, and sells every book on the subject of the Islands or written by islanders. This patriotic undertaking does not pay badly."
Of the Spanish language M. Pegot-Ogier speaks rapturously. Says he, " It approaches the French language in precision, and surpasses it in everything else, as it does all modern languages. It is the most sonorous, the most flexible, and the richest. It adapts. itself to music even better than Italian." And in another place he makes a pretty comparison, when speaking of Ercilla, a poet of the time of the Conquest, who wrote his epic poem, " Araucana," "in language as delicate and flexible as his own sword." "In the Islands the ladies," he says, "speak very pure Spanish ; but what is most remarkable about their speaking is the charm of their rhythmic sentences, and the sweet, dignified voice." Of the future of Spain, and by consequence of the Islands, M. Pegot- Ogler discourses at length, after the manner of a moderate French Radical. He would like a Federal Republic, and makes his typical Spaniard, Don Antonio, say there, that "to lead us to a republic, we have local patriotism, provincial privileges, different customs, peculiar dialects, and the memories of the past, which produce in Spain a certain peculiar provincial life, which is a solid foundation for a confederation. There would then be not one nation to be defeated at one blow, but ten provinces one after the other, which would be impossible ; one bold soldier could no longer destroy in one day the work of centuries." The author does not believe in constitutional monarchy, and says that contemporary history (we suppose in Italy) proves that it cannot govern with- out monopolising authority, and, therefore, without destroying national liberty. If this is not the case in England, it is because the British monarchy is a fiction, the government being really in the hands of an oligarchy.
Such speculations about the future of a disorganised nation make thoughtful readers reflect how much more goes to make the life of a nation than any government can supply. From what a rich soil in the past has our English liberty sprung, and how manifold have been the influences, religious and literary, as well as military and political, which enable us to hang together as a people to- day, being, in spite of all our faults and difficulties and oppressions, yet suffered to subsist, yet truly "members one of another!"
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