time Bermuda potatoes are being printed in big letters on the bills
of fare along Broadway. Santa Cruz itself supplies passing steamers
with coal, and passengers with lace work and post cards; and to the
English in search of sunshine, with a rival to Madeira. It should be
a successful rival, for it is a charming place, and on the day we
were there the thermometer was at 72°, and every one was complaining
of the cruel severity of the winter. In Santa Cruz one who knows
Spanish America has but to shut his eyes and imagine himself back in
Santiago de Cuba or Caracas. There are the same charming plazas, the
yellow churches and towered cathedral, the long iron-barred windows,
glimpses through marble-paved halls of cool patios, the same open
shops one finds in Obispo and O'Reilly Streets, the idle officers
with smart uniforms and swinging swords in front of cafés killing
time and digestion with sweet drinks, and over the garden walls
great bunches of purple and scarlet flowers and sheltering palms.
The show place in Santa Cruz is the church in which are stored the
relics of the sea-fight in which, as a young man, Nelson lost his
arm and England also lost two battleflags. As she is not often
careless in that respect, it is a surprise to find, in this tiny
tucked-away little island, what you will not see in any of the show
places of the world. They tell in Santa Cruz that one night an
English middy, single-handed, recaptured the captured flags and
carried them triumphantly to his battleship. He expected at the
least a K.C.B., and when the flags, with a squad of British marines
as a guard of honor, were solemnly replaced in the church, and the
middy himself was sent upon a tour of apology to the bishop, the
governor, the commandant of the fortress, the alcalde, the collector
of customs, and the captain of the port, he declared that monarchies
were ungrateful. The other objects of interest in Teneriffe are
camels, which in the interior of the island are common beasts of