The nopal or tunal plant (_Opuntia Tuna_ or _Cactus cochinellifera_) is indigenous on these islands as well as on the mainland of Africa. But the native growth is woody and lean-leaved; and its cooling fruit, which we clumsily term a 'prickly pear' or 'fig,' is everywhere a favourite in hot climates. There are now sundry claimants to the honour of having here fathered the modern industry. Some say that in 1823 a retired intendant introduced from Mexico the true _terciopelo_, or velvet-leaf, together with the Mexican cochineal, the _coccus cacti_ hemipter, [Footnote: The male insect is winged for flight. The female never stirs from the spot where she begins to feed: she lays her eggs, which are innumerable and microscopic, and she leaves them in the membrane or hardened envelope which she has secreted.] so called from the old Greek _KÓKKOS_, a berry, or the neo-Greek _KOKKIVOS_, red, scarlet. It is certain that Don Santiago de la Cruz brought both plant and 'bug' from Guatemala or Honduras in 1835; and that an Englishman, who has advanced a right even in writing, labours under a not uncommon hallucination. But the early half of the present century was the palmy day of the vine. The people resisted the cactus-innovation as the English labourer did the introduction of machinery, and tore up the plants. Enough, however, remained in the south of Tenerife for the hour of need. Travellers in search of the picturesque still lament that the ugly stranger has ousted the trellised vine and the wild, free myrtles. But public opinion changed when fortunes were made by selling the insect. Greedy as the agriculturist in general, the people would refuse the value of a full crop of potatoes or maize if they suspected that the offerer intended to grow cochineal. No dye was prepared on the islands, and the peasants looked upon it as a manner of mystery.