The catacombs, inviolable except to the sacrilegious, were numerous in the rockiest and least accessible parts of the island. Mr. Addison found them in the Cañádas del Pico, 7,700 feet above sea-level. [Footnote: Tenerife: 'An Ascent of the Peak and Sketch of the Island,' by Robert Edward Alison. _Quarterly Journal of Science_, Jan. 1806.] Hence it has been remarked of the Guanches that, after a century of fighting, nothing remained of them but their mummies. The sharp saying is rather terse than true. The Guanches were barbarians, not savages. De Béthencourt's two chaplains, speaking in their chronicle of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, tell us 'there are many villages and houses, with numerous inhabitants.' The ruins still found in the Isles are called 'casas hondas' ("deep houses"); because a central excavation was surrounded by a low wall. The castle of Zonzamas was built of large stones without lime. In Port Arguineguin (Grand Canary) the explorers sent by Alfonso IV. (1341) came upon 300 to 400 tenements roofed with valuable wood, and so clean inside that they seemed stuccoed. They encircled a larger building, probably the residence of the chief. But the Tenerifans used only caves. The want of canoes and other navigating appliances in Guanche-land by no means proves that the emigration took place when the Canaries formed part of the Continent. The same was the case with the Australians, the Tasmanians, and the New Zealanders. The Guanches, at the same time, were admirable swimmers, easily able to cross the strait, nine miles wide, separating Lanzarote from La Graciosa. They could even kill fish with sticks when in the water. The fattening of girls before marriage was, and is still, a Moroccan, not an Arab custom. The rude feudalism much resembled that of the Bedawi chiefs. George Glas, [Footnote: _The History of the Discovery and Conquest of the Canary Islands_, &c. 4to. London, 1764. I have given some notices of the unfortunate 'master mariner' in _Wanderings in West Africa_, vol. i. p. 79] or rather Abreu Galindo, his author, says of their marriages, 'None of the Canarians had more than one wife, and the wife one husband, contrary to what misinformed authors affirm.' The general belief is that at the time of the conquest polyandry prevailed amongst the tribes. It may have originated from their rude community of goods, and probably it became a local practice in order to limit population. Possibly, too, it was confined to the noble and the priestly orders.