Book Description

Excerpt from A Collection of Voyages Round the World, Performed by Royal Authority, Vol. 4: Containing a Complete Historical Account of Captain Cook's First, Second, Third and Last Voyages, Undertaken for Making New Discoveries, &C The city of Laguna, which fiands near a lake', about nine miles from the fea, _ is the principal place in Tene rifi'e: it is called by the Spaniards St. Ch'riftoval de la Laguna, and is handfomely built, having two parifh churches, and a palace for the governor, who refides here. The aldermen of this city pay a price to the king to ferve their offices of magifirates but this gives them great power over the inhabitants, who are divided into three claiies, namely, gentlemen, merchants, and hufbandmen, or as they are termed by the natives, idle men, bufy men, and labouring men. The land on each fide of the road, leading to Laguna, is, in general, rocky, but fome fpots of corn-land are interfperfed here and there, and terminated by fmall vineyards on the fides cf the mountains. This city prefents the be holder with an agreeable profpeft, as it {lands on the fide of a hill, and firetches its fkirts on the plain be hind: it is large, compaet, and populous: the houfes, though not uniform, have a pleafant appearance; be fides the governor's houfe, and the two parifh churches, here are two nunneries, four convents, an hofpital, and fome chapels, befides many gentlemen's houfesa The convents are thofe of St. Francis, St. Augufiine, St. Dominic, and St. Diego. The churches have pretty high fquare fieeples, which top' the ref't of the build ings. The fireets are not regular, yet they are for the mofl: part fpacious, and near the middle of the town is a large parade, which has good buildings about it. There is a ftrong prifon on one fide of it, near which is a large conduit of good water that fupplies all the town., The inhabitants have many gardens that are fet round with orange, lime, and other fruit trees, in the middle of which are flowers, fallading, &c. And indeed, if the people were curious this way, they might have very pleafant gardens: for the town {lands high from the fea, on the brow of a plain that is all open to the eaft, and has confequently the benefit of the trade wind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.