“On the north-west side of Teneriffe is the port and city of Orotava, which is probably the best health station in the world for invalids troubled with throat and lung diseases. It is located in an amphitheatre of hills, two or three miles from the sea. It is even superior to Madeira in the uniformity of its temperature. The region around it is a perfect garden, and the thermometer never falls below fifty degrees, or rises more than a degree or two above eighty; and these extremes are of very rare occurrence. The average temperature is about sixty-eight degrees. One month hardly varies more than a couple of degrees from the one next to it. Invalids here may remain out of doors all the time, and keep their windows open night and day. But it has not yet become to any great extent a health resort; and there is a lack of accommodations for visitors and temporary residents. “The Grand Canary is about fifty miles to the south-east of Teneriffe. It is a beautiful island, fertile and populous; and until recently the seat of government, which has been transferred to Teneriffe. It has a range of mountains, some peaks of which are over six thousand feet high. Many streams flow from these hills, which in the rainy season become raging torrents. Las Palmas, or the Palms, is a city of twenty thousand inhabitants, formerly the capital of the islands; but Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, as it is called to distinguish it from another Santa Cruz in the island of Palma, has wrested from it this distinction; and there is a strong rivalry between the two places. It is still the Church capital of the Canaries. It is overlooked by two high mountains; and through the city runs the Guiniguada River, which is crossed by a bridge with immense arches, built two hundred years ago. It has some fine buildings, and several educational institutions. The harbor is very bad, for a heavy surf rolls in most of the time; but it has a sheltered port two miles to the eastward of it. “Fuerteventura lies east of Teneriffe, and is fifty-two miles long. It has the appearance of being a barren island, but has very fertile spots in it. The mountains are not so high as in Grand Canary, and it has no good harbors. Lanzarote lies to the north-east, and is thirty-one miles long. Alegranza is a small island, and the most northerly of the group; but it is celebrated as being the home from which first came the beautiful songster we call the canary-bird. There are other small islands. Fuerteventura is only about sixty miles from the coast of Africa.