Widnes Examiner. — 1883-03-03 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

TEE CANARY ISLANDS.—One very interesting fact in reference to the Berber people is that the aboriginal but now extinct inhabitants of the Canary Islands owed their origin to this race. These lovely islands—the "fortunate isles" of the early Roman poets, the "Hesperides," or islands of the blest," of many a songwriter since' where tte souls of the departed dead rested—a region lying beyond ie then limitless sea, where the horizon was lit up by the iya of the setting sun—seem to have been peopled in com, pirefively recent times; for when Juba 11., the African King of Iffutritania, explored them—as narrated by Pliny —there seemed to have been few inhabitants on the islands. In modern times they were first explored between the years 1326 and 1334. Theirhistory is the history of any country on which the Spanish race ever set foot. Slaves were contioually taken on different expeditions made to them by We people, and in one of them the "King and Queen of Lausarote " and seventy of the inhabitants were captured and earned into slavery. In the year 1402 Messire Jean de Bethenceurt, a Norman knight, subdued the islands, in spite of the gallant resistance of the inhabitants, who were called Gnanchee." At that time there were about 9,000 people in Canaria. Grande, and 5,000 on Tenerife. The natives were said to have been tall, but of simple habits and few arts, knew nothing of metals, and ploughed the land with the ho-rns of bullocks. They believed in a future state, and worshipped a supreme being called Achoron Achaman.,, They also believed in a malignant being, " Yruena," and that the abode of the wicked was in a cavern on the side of Tevde. Marriage and various other moral and social institutions were established i amongst them. They embalmed the dead, and laid the bodies n caverns or catacombs in the' sides of mountains where they have been found since the depopulation of the islands. These mummies were placed erect, with their feet against the sides of the cave; the chiefs, with a staff in their hands, and a vessel of milk by their sides. The mummies were prepared by saturating the boiy with a kind of turpentine, and then drying it before a slow fire or in the sun. In the tombs were laid aromatic plants, and the corpses were decorated with laces, on which were hung little dishes of baked earth, and the whole body wrapped in bandages of goatskin. The body was filled with .a kind of grain resembling rice. It was not, however, until 1496 that the Camarians were thoroughly subdued, and in a few years the remnant, after being forced to be baptised, were either exterminated or sold into slavery. It is a pretty tale of piracy, bigotry, sanctity, and murder that llessire de Bethenoourt has to. tell us—a tale, unfortunately, not Mans in those (lays, nor for several centuries since.—Front The Petplies of Me Worl4.  KAY'S TIC Pam, ri specific in Neuralgia. Bace-ache, &c, Is ; postage Id. Sold by Chemists. Kay Bros. Stockport —Ade  "What would you do, Mr. M., if your wife died 2" asked Mrs. D. Mr. M. (who is very methodical) : "I would bury her."  In all evils which admit a remedy impatience should be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, would remove the cause. Gravity does not indicate wisdom any more than silence, nor is a turn for conversation of a cheerful, instructive character the distinctive mark of fools, whatever stupid dulness may hint on the subject. There is nothing so certain to insure success in life—real success—as thorough honesty of character, and a habitual abhorrence on principle of all petty meanness, artfulness, disguises, and the many social hypocracies of the age. A nurse was telling about a man' that had become so terribly worn out by dissipation that he could not keep any food on his stomach, when one of her listeners asked, "What does he live on, then ?" "On his relations, ma'am," answered the nurse.