Lieutenant Grey was most indefatigable in collecting information during
the short period of our stay at the island, as an examination of his
interesting work will at once satisfy the reader: he explored a cave
three miles to the north-east of Santa Cruz, known by tradition as La
Cueva de los Guanches, and reputed to be a burying-place of the
aboriginal inhabitants of the island: it was full of bones, and from the
specimens he brought away, and also from his description of all that he
examined, they appear to have belonged to a small-limbed race of men.

Besides the wine trade, a considerable traffic is carried on with the
Moors upon the opposite coast, who exchange gums and sometimes ivory for
cotton and calico prints, and occasionally tobacco.

TRADE WITH MOGADORE.

The chief port for this trade is Mogadore, from whence ships not
unfrequently sail direct to Liverpool.

A singular circumstance was mentioned to me by our first Lieutenant Mr.
Emery, as tending to prove the existence of commercial intercourse
between the various tribes in the interior, and the inhabitants of the
coast at Mogadore on the north-west coast of Africa, and Mombas on the
south-east. In the year 1830, certain English goods were recognized in
the hands of the Moors at Mogadore which had been sold two years
previously to the natives at Mombas. The great extent of territory passed
over within these dates, renders this fact somewhat extraordinary; and it
affords a reason for regretting that we did not keep possession of
Mombas, which would ere this have enabled us to penetrate into the
interior of Africa: we abandoned it, at the very time when the tribes in
the interior were beginning to find out the value of our manufactures,
especially calicoes and cottons.

From the best information that Lieutenant Emery had obtained among the
natives, it seems certain that a very large lake exists in the interior,
its banks thickly studded with buildings, and lying nearly due west from
Mombas.

It was Lieutenant Emery's intention to have visited this lake had he
remained longer at Mombas; the Sultan's son was to have accompanied him,
an advantage which, coupled with his own knowledge of the country and its
customs, together with his great popularity among the natives, must have
ensured him success. It is to be feared, that so favourable an
opportunity for clearing up the doubts and darkness which at present
beset geographers in attempting to delineate this