13. Springs, Vegetables and Pirates

Most historical villages and towns in the western Canaries are at a considerable height above sea level, usually somewhere between 1200 and 1800 feet. El Hierro is no exception.Often they seem to follow the spring-line and this is undoubtedly true for the other western islands. But not for El Hierro. The few springs we have are only so in name: just bits of seasonally damp ground or the slowly dripping roof of rock in some overhang or cave. Perhaps for this reason, the island’s two earliest villages, Las Montañetas and La Albarada, both long-abandoned and in ruins, were within easy walking distance from El Garoé, our miraculous distilling tree, at a comparable altitude.

You may ask what, then, people did in other villages until the relatively recent advent of municipal supply forty years ago. Water for household use was rainwater collected from roofs and stored in underground cisterns lined first with wood and later with lime. 30 cubic metres per household per year.

Another reason is that the climate at these altitudes is better for settlement. It is cooler and damper and it rains more, and more regularly. This is clearly more congenial than the hot, dry coast to the agricultural settlers from northern and western Iberia. Significantly, Las Montañetas, with the island’s first Town Hall, provided the vegetables and La Albarada the meat for the island’s early settlers.
If you’re observant, you’ll notice that at least some villages must have grown on the sites of Bimbape settlements ( Bimbape: the name of the prehispanic inhabitants – more about these in a later post). But then why did they choose the site?

In my opinion the most important reason in either pre- or post-conquest times was safety. History books tell us with great relish about the attacks by more or less official pirates like Drake, Jambe de Bois, Van der Does, even Nelson. The less spectacular but almost constant and deadly incursions by pirates from the Barbary Coast of north Africa are never mentioned. You would think at first sight that an insignificant island like El Hierro had little to offer in the way of loot. But not so. Like all the other islands it was inhabited by people and slaves were the pirates’ most lucrative prize

Gadifer de la Salle, a god-fearing military man from France, visited El Hierro in 1402. In the chronicle of his voyage (Le Canarien) it would seem 400 aborigins of the island were taken captive that year but this figure is more likely to refer to La Palma. He himself, however, found it natural to capture four women and a boy while he was here. Such prizes would be sold on the European market – how otherwise would there have been interpreters at his service? After the conquest of the island in 1405 the European, Christian settlers taken by corsairs would have been sold on the Barbary Coast White Slave Market to Ottoman buyers. This trade continued into the nineteenth century.

It seems logical then to locate your villages some way from the coast, at a defendable height from which you can see advancing marauders. The villagers of La Albarada are said to have bound their cockerels’ beaks with horsehair so that the fowls’ crowing would not give their position away at night – that’s how serious their fear was! (Here, incidentally, cocks crow at night as well.)

The capital of El HIerro, Valverde, cradled between foothills at 1800 feet above sea level. You can see the breakers near the airport in the centre of the photo. On the horizon, La Gomera and further still the pale silhouette of Tenerife.

12. Magic

El Hierro is full of magic. But like beauty, magic is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not talking about the magic of a spectacular sunset to the west but rather of the improbable pastel colours of the sky in the east at the same hour. Or the smell in the evergreen forest of leaf mold and wild mushrooms that throws you back to childhood, perhaps even a childhood of many generations ago. The pine forest, silent or, if there is a breeze, hissing with the sound of waves of air breaking on the pine-needles. The cloud-mist condensing into drops of pristine water on twigs and leaves, dewdrops on spiders’ webs, giant dandelions with yellow suns for flowers, vineyards on fire in autumn, the sound of a boy practising a folk melody on his flute or the primeaval beating of distant drums on Saints' days …

One of my favourite bits of magic is on the country lane that goes up from El Mocanal to the road to the village of San Andrés. I said "up" because it really climbs steeply past the houses of the hamlet of Betenama before arriving at a relatively flat area with incongruous palms standing high on the left. The lane then climbs again through abandoned walled fields and dispersed stands of evergreens - what remains of the laurisilva forest that once clothed these slopes. As the vegetation becomes denser, you’ll see on your right a wood of Canary “beeches”. On first sight it is a little disconcerting: the trees have straight trunks with no sprouts, quite unlike the beeches in the evergreen forest that look coppiced. The more you look, the more the little wood casts its spell on you. As your eyes become used to the contrast of light you’ll make out sheep grazing on the grass and ferns between the rocks and, perhaps, some way off and camouflaged by the play of light and shadow, the white mare. A scene worthy of Samuel Palmer.

The white mare has lived in the wood for many years, at least sixteen, and she is getting old. Her back sags a little from bearing a foal every year or two, sometimes white like her, long legged creatures that skip around her and disappear on the first weekend of June. When I pick up my younger grandchildren from the airport we always drive home this way. We stop and call out to her. Sometimes she comes but most often pays us no attention at all. I tell them she is a unicorn and only a pretty little girl can tame a unicorn. If a grandson says in petulance that she hasn’t got a horn, I reply he can’t see it because he doesn’t believe. I, of course, have seen her horn on several occasions.

The Unicorn in the gully between the road and the enchanted wood. If you can't see her horn, you know why!

11. Pancho Cura

We wanted island lamb, not New Zealand lamb, for our first Christmas dinner here. So I went up into the mountains to find Pancho Cura, a shepherd I had previously met.

There he was, huddled under a tatty threadbare blanket with his back to a stone wall, his flock on the slope before him in the misty, freezing drizzle of Jinama. He whistled to his dogs to round up the flock and told me to go and choose the lamb I fancied. I couldn’t do that so he reluctantly got up and came back laughing and holding up a lamb by its front legs, belly towards me, for my approval. “But Pancho!” I said, “That’s a female!” (I knew the shepherds only sacrificed the males, the females were for milk and breeding.) He released the creature and came back with another, this time a male.

He refused my money and told me it was a Christmas present. He added that since I knew so much about his calling, I could come back and relieve him whenever I liked. I did go back, the next time we came to the island, with a present for Pancho – a genuine “Esperancera” shepherd’s blanket cape, creamy white with two blue stripes and made in Scotland. We remained good friends after that.

Sheep grazing in the pine forest.  Photo: Orlando Harris

10. The Weatherman's Nightmare

Perhaps not quite a nightmare, we're too insignificant for that.

In September we had 88 mm of rain on one day between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. My vegetable garden and the orchard looked like swimming pools - shining sheets of water with circles of ripples as the last drops fell. An hour later there was no water anywhere. It had all been absorbed by the light sandy soil that had been crying out for a good soaking for months. I went out and walked around the vineyard which is mostly on sloping ground. Even better than in the garden. In a year's time I'll be drinking that downpour!


I decided to have a look at the meteorological site on internet. The general forecast for the island was that we should be in brilliant sunshine with one or two fluffy white clouds. I checked the numerical models on the same site. Anyone with a little knowlege of our village, El Pinar, could have seen we were in for rain. Our rain usually comes on westerlies or occasionally from the south. Besides, a day or two before the sea had been white like a lake, a sure sign of rain. The Trade Winds were coming in from the northeast but there was an area of low pressure to the west and moisture-laden winds were curling round the west and south of the island. You see, the weatherman in his office in Madrid has in front of him a flat map with contours drawn on it, not mountainous El Hierro.

Curiously, in El Pinar we get almost as much rain in a year as East Anglia. But we get it in a very few days in autumn and winter. From April or May not a drop until September at the earliest. That's why almond trees grow so well, and apricots, grapevines, figs, plums and nectarines. All these need dry, warm summers and have long taproots that go down deep, or are grafted on rootstocks that do. The almond trees flower in February - the countryside is invaded by white and pink blossom, the petals falling like snowflakes and the air pungent with the scent of honey-blossom.

Almond trees in El Pinar

9. Chorch

The two women were so involved in their conversation that they paid no attention to Chorch’s endeavours at the base of his cage. He had worked it open and was now climbing up, pressed hard to the outside, gripping the horizontal bars in his beak while his claws slipped on the smooth chrome of the vertical wires. But one thing was getting it open and another was this business of flying away. He had never flown, just exercised his wings as nature dictated in a clumsy imitation of the birds he had seen in the sky overhead and in the tree his cage was hanging in.

When the man with the moustache emerged from the house, Chorch clung to the wires on the outside of his cage without moving. But the man saw him, cried out and disappeared back into the dark doorway. The women glanced towards where the man had been and smiled condescendingly when he came out again with a cloth held in both hands. The cloth made Chorch recall the taste of blood. The man approached the cage. Chorch no longer hesitated. More than flight, it was a jump and a frantic flutter to the nearest branch of the tree, but the man came on holding the cloth in front of him. This time he had to do it. Bursting through the twigs and leaves, Chorch flapped his wings furiously and found himself launched in the air. Without being aware how, he managed to rise above the stone wall that loomed up before him only to crash painfully into a bush on the other side. Somehow he was not injured and his gaudy feathers were in place. He worked his way to the outside of the bush just as Moustache was climbing over the wall and the women were approaching on his left, waving their arms and calling out.

Chorch took off again, flying straight towards and above the advancing menace. His flight was rapid and not entirely out of control. Shortly after passing the people he veered to the left towards the relative safety of a stand of vegetation and, overflying the first clumps, came to an abrupt stop in the highest branches of a large almond tree. He remained still, recovering from the effort and the shock. In the late summer foliage his bright rusty, yellow and green plumage kept him well camouflaged from Moustache who several times trampled past under the tree making ridiculous noises. Most importantly, his colouring kept him hidden from the large black crows and the tawny kestrels overhead.

As the sun went down, Chorch dared another short flight to the greater safety of a leafy fig tree that also, he discovered, afforded him food and protection from the cold evening breeze. During the night, he was startled by the sound of a cat in the dry grass below the tree. He had to climb up higher into the milky branches that burnt his tongue, as the cat, attracted by his scent, reached the thicker bough where he had been roosting.

Despite the continual fear of people, cats and large birds, Chorch felt exhilarated by his newly earned freedom and spent the next day feeding on figs and flying from tree to tree. Hatched and bred in captivity, he had nevertheless inherited enough instinct to master the technique of landing on branches and tree trunks as well as navigating through fairly dense undergrowth. By the afternoon he had adapted well enough to risk a call but the appearance of Moustache a few minutes later taught him the wisdom of discretion. The trees were in a hollow surrounded by hills and the sun sank into the skyline early. Perhaps it was the prospect of another terrifying night that spurred him to do it but, as the shadows of evening climbed to the branch where he was nibbling the bark, Chorch took off and flew towards the rim of the bowl.

Once over the top, Chorch landed on the white skeleton of a dead fig tree. The sun in all its glory lit up in gold and warmth the abrupt coastline far below and the vast expanse of the ocean stretching to the west. His rest was interrupted a few minutes later by the sound of movement somewhere below him. At once he was in the air again, high over the rocky breakers and then the apparently calm sea, flying true towards the red setting sun. To him it was towards light and warmth. Or was it, perhaps, the response to some far deeper urge? He could not have known that America, the origin of his kind, lay on the other side of the ocean. And he certainly did not know that he would never reach it. But he was free.

8. The Pine Forest

The Canary Pine is rather special. Unlike most pines, it very often recovers after being cut down, especially if it is young. Secondly, it has three needles joined together and not two like most pines. Thirdly, it is very fire resistant – it’s not that it won’t burn but rather that it joins forces with the flames. These rush up the trunk burning off part of the thick bark and then catching the needles at the top. As the pines are usually close to one another the canopy fire spreads quickly. All this happens so quickly that the fire never really gets enough time to burn down the forest. After one of our forest fires, the scene is heartrending: black tree-trunks, red canopies and a red carpet of scorched needles on the ground, not a sound or sight of life. But then the next year, new needles are sprouting on the high branches and latent buds are breaking out from under the thick scaly bark. In three or four years, most people would never realize there had been a fire.

Nevertheless, forest fires on the island can be very dangerous for their speed of propagation can be so fast that hikers and even people in cars can easily be cut off from escape. If they spread from the forest they can devastate cultivated land. During the hot dry summer months, teams of fire-fighters and invigilators keep watch on traffic going into the forest, barbecues are forbidden, and people are asked to be very careful with cigarettes. Sometimes all access is cut off.

The pine forest is generally a very quiet place. There is no undergrowth except for small patches of grass because the ground is covered with a thick mantel of pine-needles. And very little life, except for an occasional kestrel – I often wonder what they eat! But it is a life-giver. The crowns capture from the clouds moisture which drips down to and through the mantel to be absorbed by our porous soil.

The forest is hardly used at all today, but in the past it was economically very important. Pine needles were used for bedding, animal and human, and in times of need the nuts were eaten as well as the tender inner bark. The white wood satisfied a great variety of uses but the dark, solid and heavy resinous heartwood was most important. This “tea” (pronounced “tay-ah”) is virtually indestructible except by fire. It was used extensively in building, especially in the more wealthy homes, and for making such things as watering and feeding troughs. Large splinters were used on top of the beams as a base for flat roofs and, curiously, the esteem in which a young married couple was held could be judged from the length of the central load-bearing beam of their roof. The resin in this heartwood readily burns and so splinters provided convenient torches for lighting the way as well as village festivals.

The Pine Forest high up near the centre of the island. Notice the ancient pines in the background.

7. Don Zósimo

For four hundred years the island’s forests were harvested irresponsibly. Where once there had been pines and laurels there were finally barren slopes, scrub and gullies. A few majestic pines proudly stood, and still stand, here and there to remind people of what the island had once been. Then soon after the Spanish Civil War, a young forestry engineer from the island of La Palma was sent to El Hierro by the government. The post was only temporary but he fell in love with a girl from here and spent the next fifty years or so replanting the forest.

Not long ago, I was driving a Canadian and a friend to El Pinar (which means “The Pine Forest”) when the Canadian suddenly said, “Aren’t these pines tall? They’re much bigger that those at home!” I was naturally surprised but my friend exclaimed, “Of course, Don Zósimo lived HERE, not in Canada!” There was more truth in that than my friend realized. In Canada the forests are big business but not where Zósimo was. Zósimo loved his trees almost as much as he loved his family. No-one dared cut one down, or even uproot a little Christmas tree, without his permission. And gradually he and his team clothed a huge swathe of the southern slopes of the island in forest, just a few thousand pines a year.

He had a sense of humour, too. The story goes that that some-one in the Ministry sent him an order to plant trees in a certain hollow on the edge of the forest. When the civil servant came to inspect whether his order had been carried out, he found the hollow planted with row upon row of fig and almond trees. “What´s this?” he exclaimed, “I meant pine trees.”

“As you just said ‘trees’ and this is common land, I planted trees that would be most beneficial to the local people, almonds and figs. There are plenty of pines all around!”

Hoya del Gallego (The Galician's Hollow) planted with fig and almond trees