and one of them is nearly three-quarters of a mile long. Nowhere else, except in the Sandwich Islands, has such a vast system of volcanic caverns been discovered. They often served as refuges for the inhabitants and their flocks during the incursions of the Barbary corsairs.
The centre of Lanzarote is traversed by a low ridge skirted on the one side by shifting sands, on the other by lava-streams with volcanic cones everywhere strewn about in disorder. From the Montana Blanca, highest point (1,400 feet) of this central district, there stretches a chain of lava hills and craters running north-east and south-west, west of which the plains are covered with coal-black ashes. Amid these hills, bearing the expressive names of Playa Quemada ("Burnt Strand") and Monte del Fuego ("Fire Mountain"), were opened the crevasses whence flowed the lava-streams of 1780 and following years, "at first rapidly as water, then slow as
honey." During these formidable eruptions thirty volcanic cones rose above the lava-fields, which spread over nearly one-third of the island, and which in 1824 again emitted flames and streams of pestilent mud.
San Miguel de Teguise, or simply Teguise, former capital of Lanzarote, still bears the name conferred on it by Béthencourt in honour of his native wife. Lying in a waterless district in the centre of the island, it has been replaced by the new capital, Arrecife, which lies in the middle of the east coast, between two completely sheltered havens. The northern port, Puerto de Naos, is especially well protected by a chain of reefs and islets, and the English traders here settled monopolise the traffic with Mogador in Marocco, and with the other islands of the archipelago.
The castle of Rubicon, erected by the conqueror of Lanzarote, no longer exists, but it has given its name to the eastern extremity of the island.
