The perpetual cool that prevails in La Laguna makes the city the favorite home for the inhabitants of the Canaries. The residential capital of Tenerife is magnificently placed in a small plain surrounded by gardens at the foot of a hill crowned with laurel, myrtle and strawberry trees. It would be a mistake to rely on some travelers who believe the town lies by a lake. The rain sometimes forms an enormous sheet of water, and a geologist who sees the past rather than the present state of nature in everything would not doubt that the whole plain was once a great lake, now dried up. La Laguna has fallen from its opulence since the erupting volcano destroyed the port of Garachico and Santa Cruz became the trading center of the island. It has no more than 9, inhabitants, with nearly 400 monks distributed in six convents, though some travelers insist half the population wear cassocks. Numerous windmills surround the city, a sign that wheat is cultivated in this high country. The Guanches called wheat at Tenerife tano, at Lanzarote triffa; barley in Gran Canaria was called aramotanoque, and at Lanzarote tamosen. The flour of roasted barley (gofio) and goat's milk constituted the main food of these people about whose origins so many systematic fables have been written.