EVERY one agrees that La Palma is almost the most beautiful of the group of seven Fortunate Isles, so it is all the more deeply to be deplored that there is not better communication between the little port of Santa Cruz de la Palma and Teneriffe or Grand Canary. At rare intervals during the winter, especially towards sunset, the island had emerged from the clouds in which it is usually enveloped and lain dark purple against a golden sunset sky, an omen which we had learnt to dread in Orotava, finding there was great truth in the saying of the country people, “When La Palma is to be seen, rain will come before two days,” and sure enough the storm always came.
The little town of Santa Cruz, or La Ciudad as it is locally called, as if it was the only town in the world, is most picturesquely situated on steep slopes, very much resembling the situation of Funchal in Madeira on a smaller scale. Possibly in days to come La Palma may have a great future before it as a tourist resort, when the new mole fulfils the hopes of natives and their port becomes a coaling-station for larger steamers. An hotel among the pine woods would certainly be very attractive, especially in spring, when the whole island is afoam with fruit blossom. At present a bad fonda is the only accommodation in Santa Cruz, and most people curtail their stay in consequence, and hurry away at the end of three days during which time the steamer has been at the neighbouring islands of Hierro and Gomera, or else they ride over to Los Llanos, spurred by the report of a very fairly comfortable inn. The island affords almost endless expeditions, especially to good walkers, as the tracks are bad and slippery for mules. Near Santa Cruz the Barranco de la Madera is the home of the Virgin de las Nieves, a very ancient and much venerated image of the Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. Every five years this sacred figure is carried down to the sea in solemn procession, and the stone ship at the mouth of the great barranco, which is called after Our Lady of the Snows, is rigged and decked in gala fashion with bunting. Not only from all parts of the island, but many devout Spaniards congregate to do honour to her, and a great fiesta takes place, which must be a curious and most interesting ceremony.
The Barranco del Rio is the most beautiful of all the walks in the neighbourhood. Like its namesake near Guimar in Teneriffe, it is a happy hunting-ground for the botanist, and those who have a steady head and do not mind narrow paths and precipices can wander far along through the gorge, where the beautiful rocks are clad with innumerable ferns and native plants.
In ancient days the Guanches gave the island the name of Benahoave, meaning “my country,” which sounds as though they were so proud of the island when they took possession of it, probably sailing across from Teneriffe, that they meant to stick to it. The present name first appears on the old Medici map in Florence (1351), which is said to be the oldest chart of these waters. The name is supposed to have been given to the island by an expedition composed of Florentines, Genoese and Majorcans who had visited the Canaries some ten years before. It was probably the last-named who christened the island La Palma, after the capital of Majorca, so at the time of the conquest, though the Spaniards introduced many changes in the way of laws, religion and agriculture, they did not change the European name by which the island had become known.
Webb and Berthelot when they visited the island in 1837 were loud in praise of the wealth and luxury of the vegetation, which in their opinion surpassed that of any other of the Canary group.
The island centres in the vast abyss of the Gran Caldera, which centuries ago was the boiling cauldron of a great crater. The islanders are immensely proud of their old crater, and always assert that the Peak of Teneriffe was merely thrown up by their volcano in one of its most terrific upheavals. As in the other islands at a certain elevation the region of laurels and other evergreen trees, in whose shade ferns flourish, is succeeded by the mammoth heaths, and higher still come the beautiful pine woods with their slippery carpet of pine needles on which both man and beast find a difficulty in keeping a footing. On the more arid slopes of parts of the Cumbre the scattered vegetation is more suggestive of Alpine regions. The above-mentioned learned travellers attribute the presence of the immense number of apparently wild almond and other fruit trees to their having sown themselves from the original trees introduced to the island by the conquerors, who, determined to make the most of the climate and soil, set about to change the face of the land. The natural vegetation receded to the higher regions as the lower parts became more and more cultivated with almonds, vines, oranges, lemons and bananas, which up to then had been unknown in the island. In some districts woods of chestnut trees, which were also introduced, have taken the place of the virgin forest. To these two travellers also belongs the honour and glory of having discovered the Echium peculiar to the Island, and they at once gave it its local name, Echium pininana, though nana does not seem very appropriate to it, as it is anything but dwarf, growing to a height of 15 ft. with a dense spike of deep blue flowers. Several of the lovely Canary brooms appear to be indigenous to the island, and Professor Engler of Berlin, who visited La Palma last year, found the yellow-flowered Cytisus stenopetalus in two varieties, palmensis and sericeus, besides the graceful drooping and sweet-scented white Cytisus filipes and Retama rhodorrhizoides, and the Cytisus proliferus common to most of the islands.
Most people prefer to visit the great crater from Los Llanos, an expedition occupying three days. The journey across the Cumbres viâ El Paso to Los Llanos is one of extreme beauty, as the vegetation begins very soon after leaving Santa Cruz, and at a height of only 1000 ft. the chestnut, laurel, and heath woods begin. The path winds through these enchanting woods until at a higher elevation the giant heaths alone are left. From the top of the Cumbre Nueva there is a magnificent view over the whole island, Santa Cruz nestling among the hills by the shore and in the far distance lie Teneriffe and Gomera. To the south is the old Cumbre, called Vieja in contradistinction to its newer neighbour; from one of its heights a stream of lava is said to have descended in 1585, which is probably the last occasion on which the volcano showed any activity. The dense vegetation covering some of the streams of lava speaks for itself of their great age, as it is said that not a particle of vegetation appears on lava until it has had four centuries in which to grow cold, and then the first sign of returning life is a peculiar lichen which appears on the heaps of lava. The great mountain of Timé, whose black and forbidding precipice overhangs the Barranco de las Augustias, makes many a traveller wonder who first had the courage to make a path, steep and narrow though it is, down the face of the rock. Possibly the goatherds, pastors, first learnt the lie of the land, swinging themselves on their lanzas or long spiked poles from rock to rock with surprising agility, and then others not trained to this strange mode of progression made the paved track.
On the western slopes the pine woods soon commence, the splendid trees increasing in size until the sacred Pino de la Virgen is reached—a giant whose trunk measures some 25 ft. round. Hardly a traveller passes the shrine at its foot without dropping a coin, however humble, into the money-box which is kept for its support. How long the pine has been regarded as a holy tree, or for how many generations the lamp has been lighted nightly, I know not; but in 1830 Berthelot wrote: “This beautiful tree, said to be a contemporary of the Conquest, shows no sign of age; a little statue of the Virgin has been placed in the first fork of its branches; every evening the woodcutters of the neighbourhood come silently and reverently to light the little lamp which hangs above the sacred image. At dusk, if one passes near the Pino Santo, this lamp, which shines alone in the depth of the forest, casting shadows on the leafy bower which protects this mysterious shrine, inspires one with a sense of deep feeling and dread. The presence of this tree, which has been made sacred and endowed with mysterious powers, caused me to feel for it the very greatest veneration.”
Though the little village of El Paso is situated somewhat nearer to the Gran Caldera, few travellers stop there, as it does not boast of an inn, however humble, and to be taken as a “paying guest” does not appeal to many people. It is better to push on to Los Llanos, a pleasant village reached by a road from Tazaconte, which runs through orange groves, where in spring the air is heavy and sickly with the scent of the blossom, and then passing through almond groves and orchards of every kind of fruit tree, so to the very last the beauty of road is kept up, and the traveller is well repaid.
Though the expedition to the Gran Caldera is always described as a tiring one, the natives would feel deeply hurt if any visitor to their island did not go to see their mighty crater. It is indeed mighty—a vast basin, measuring in places four to five miles across, and some 6500 to 7000 ft. deep; its very size makes it difficult to realise that it is a crater, and it might easily be regarded as merely a deep hollow among the mountains. Though its walls are great bare grey crags, the pine woods which clothe the lower slopes of the hills which rise from the bottom of the crater, in places the bottom itself being clothed with trees, make it all the less like an ordinary crater. Great deep ravines tear the base, and these in their turn have become pine woods, carpeted with soft and slippery pine needles which for centuries possibly have lain undisturbed. The Caldera is recommended as a camping-ground, as water, which in Palma is scarce, is to be found; in fact, innocent-looking dry stony beds may through rainy weather on the higher land suddenly become a roaring stream. Some people might think it too inaccessible a spot, but the solitude, and the sound of the wind whispering among the pines, would appeal to many. That the depth of the crater has altered since a bygone age is evident, as caves of the Haouarythes, the aboriginal inhabitants of La Palma, are now absolutely inaccessible; nothing but a bird could reach the entrance to them. The action of water is said to account for this; possibly underground streams broke loose after a plutonic effort and upheaval of the volcano, and the upper crust subsided.
Peasants are still to be seen wearing the peculiar hood or montera made of dark brown woollen cloth lined with red flannel, in shape like a sou’wester, turned up in front fitting closely to the head, the flap hanging behind lined with red, or sometimes if the flap is not required as a protection against the weather the corners are buttoned over the peak in front. The mantas, blanket cloaks, are all made of wool woven in the island. These are both articles of men’s dress. The women’s caps have no flaps, and are very ugly, and the picturesque dress which survived for a time in Breña Baja is now extinct altogether, as are also the tiny round hats made from the pith of the palm.