Travellers have delighted to speak of the Peak of Teneriffe, as the highest mountain in the ancient world, whereas, by the best accounts, Mont Blanc exceeds it* by 3523 feet, or near a mile of perpendicular altitude.

The Isle of Ferro, having no such mountain to distinguish it, was celebrated for a century or two on the credit of a miraculous tree, single in its kind, enveloped in perpetual mists, and distilling sufficient water for the ample supply of the island.** But this wonder, though vouched by several voyagers, and by some as eye-witnesses, vanished at the approach of sober enquiry, nor could a single native be found hardy enough to assert its existence.

The truth is, that the Canary Isles, though a valuable possession to Spain, and an excellent resource to voyagers of all nations, contain no wonders, except what belong naturally to volcanic mountains such as the Peak, which, though it always threatens, has not now been noxious for more than eighty years***.
[* The height of Mont Blanc, on a mean of the best accounts, is 15,673 English feet from the level of the sea, Teneriffe 12,150.] [** Clipperton speaks of it as a fact, Harris's Voyages, Vol.

I.p.

187.
Mandelsloe pretended to have seen it, ibid.p.806.Baudrand was the first who by careful enquiry detected the fiction.