e as they knew before. And indeed the climate is one
that makes sitting in a big cane chair much easier than walking even a
hundred yards. But the English for that matter do not trouble greatly
about the customs or conditions of any foreigners. They _are_
foreigners, Spaniards, strangers. It is easy to sit in the garden of a
big hotel surrounded by one's own compatriots and ignore the fact that
the Canary Islands do not belong to us. That they do not is perhaps a
grievance of a sort. One is pleased to remember that Nelson made a bold
attempt to take the city of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe, even though he was
wounded and failed. For no more surprising piece of audacity ever
entered an English head. There was no more disgrace in his failing than
there would be in failing to take the moon. And after all, some day, no
doubt, the English will buy or steal a Canary Island. There is a
lingering suspicion among us all that no island ought to belong to any
other nation, unless indeed it is the United States. With an
enterprising people these cinder heaps would be less heavily taxed and
more prosperous. For the prosperity of Las Palmas itself is much a
matter of coaling. And the islands have had commercial crisis after
commercial crisis as wine rose in price and fell, as cochineal had its
vain struggle with chemical dyes. Now its chief hold is the banana.

My first walk at Las Palmas was through the port to the Isleta. I went
with a Scotchman who talked Spanish like a native and astounded two
small boys who volunteered to guide us where no guide was needed. The
begging, as in all Spanish places, is a pest, a nuisance, a very
desolation. "Give a penny, give a penny," varied by a tremendous rise to
"Give a shilling," is the cry of all the children. Among Spaniards it is
no disgrace to beg. While in the cathedral one day two of us were
surrounded by a gang of acolytes in their church dress who begged
ceaselessly, unreproved by any priest. These two boys on the Isleta
having met someone who spoke Spanish left us to our own devices after
having received a penny. And we went on until we were stayed by
sentries. For the Isleta is now a powerful fort. It was made so at the
time of the Spanish-American War, and no strangers are allowed to see
it. So we turned aside and walked miles by a barbed wire fence, among
fired rocks and cinders, where never a blade of grass grew. The Isleta
is the latest volcano in Grand Canary, and except in certain st