Anaga and its lighthouse from the sea

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1883 · Authors: Olivia M. Stone

The British traveller of Irish origin Olivia Mary Stone undertook a journey through the Islands for almost six months, from September 1883 until February of the following year. From this stay came the book: Tenerife y sus seis satélites , published in England in 1887. It is a work that holds an exceptional place in the extensive travel literature about the Archipelago due to its engaging narrative, its incessant curiosity, and the account it contains about various aspects of the culture and social reality of the Canary Islands at the end of the 19th century. It also offers magnificent descriptions of the island landscape, as we outline below.

On her approach to the island of Tenerife on the steamer Paraná, the writer was already fascinated by the island’s relief, describing with extraordinary detail the impressive profile of the Anaga massif, with its coast, its roques and its lighthouse; all seen from the sea.

“As we headed directly towards this port [Santa Cruz de Tenerife], we skirted Punta de Anaga and part of the northern coast, whose cliffs, bare and brown, fall perpendicularly into the sea. The profile of the rugged heap of mountains is extremely jagged and pointed. Isolated groups of the verdigris Euphoria Canariensis cling desperately everywhere to the loose and arid earth of the mountain slopes, giving it a curiously patchy appearance unknown in temperate zones. This general aspect of Tenerife’s landscape is not attractive to the passing traveller, although it is extremely grand. The bold broken and jagged profiles of the Anaga mountains, crowned by peaks that stand out clearly against the sky, and that fall directly into the sea, where there seems to be no place to land, suggest an inhospitable coast. One or two pointed and strangely shaped splinters rise from the sea to the west, close to the coast. The lighthouse, built in what seems to be an inaccessible place, indicates that it is possible to live on this peninsula. Grey and basaltic in appearance, with a terribly convulsed and contorted surface, only a cone appearing in the distance is needed to confirm the overwhelming sensation with which we approach this monument that possesses a force that commands respect and terrifies even the most insensitive beings.”

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