The trip was so far routine that we followed in the steps of all
previous travellers, and so far not routine that we made it in March, when, according to all, the Mal Pais is impassable, and when furious winds threaten to sweep away intruders like dry leaves.
The good folk of the Villa, indeed, declared that the Ingleza could
never reach even the Estancia de los Inglezes.
Our train was modest--a pair of nags with their attendants, and two
excellent sumpter-mules carrying provisions and blankets. The guide was
Manoel Reyes, who has already appeared in the 'Specialities of a
Residence Above the Clouds.' He is a small, wizen-faced man, quiet, self-contained, and fond--exceedingly fond--of having his own way. By dint of hard work we left the Fonda Gobea at 9 A.M. on March 23, with loud cries of 'Mulo!' and 'Anda, caballo!' and 'So-o-o!' when the bât-beasts indulged in a free fight.
Morning smiled upon our incept. Nothing could be lovelier than the
weather as we crossed the deluging Martinianez Fiumara; struck the
coast-road westward, and then, bending to the south-west, made for the
'Gate of Taoro,' a gap in the Cañáda-wall. From the higher level truly
charming was the aspect of Orotava: it was Funchal many times
improved. Beyond the terraced foreground of rich deep yellow clay, growing potatoes, wheat, and the favourite chochos (lupines), with apple and chestnut trees, the latter of two kinds, and the lower fields marked out by huge agaves, lay the Happy Valley. Its contrast of vivid greens, of white quintas, of the two extinct volcanos overlooking Orotava, and of the picturesque townlets facing the misty blue sea, fringed with a ceaseless silvery surf by the brisa, or north-east trade, the lord of these latitudes, had not a symptom of the Madeiran monotony of verdure. Behind us towered high the snowy Pilon (Sugar-loaf), whose every wave and fold were picked out by golden sunlight, azure half-light, and purple shade.
As we advanced up the Camiño de Chasna, a road only by name, the
quintas were succeeded by brown-thatched huts, single or in
clumps. On the left, 3,400 feet above sea-level, stood the Pino del
Dornajito ('of the Little Trough'), one of the few survivors in this
once wealthy pine-ground. The magnificent old tree, which was full grown
in the days of the conquest, and which in the seventeenth century was a
favourite halting-point, suffered severely from the waterspout of
November 7, 1826; but still measured 130 feet long by 29 in girth. The
vegetation now changed. We began brushing through the arbutus
(callicarpa), the wild olive (Olea excelsa), the Canarian oak, the daphne, the myrtle entwined with indigenous ivy (Hedera canariensis); the cytisus, the bright green hypericum of three species, thyme, gallworts, and arborescent and other ferns in numbers, especially the hare's-foot and the peculiar Asplenium canariense, the Trichomanes canariensis, and the Davallia canariensis; the brezo (Erica aborea and E. scoparia), a heath whose small white bells scented the air; and the luxuriant blackberry, used to fortify the drystone walls. The dew-cloud now began to float upwards from the sea in scarf-shape, only a few hundred feet thick; it had hangings and fringes where it was caught by the rugged hill-flanks; and above us globular masses, white as cotton bales, rolled over one another. As in the drier regions of Africa the hardly risen sun made itself felt.