pigeon-pies, chickens, hams, tongues, and wines, became part of our own being, we could quietly contemplate the lonesome beauty of the deep vale below us. How different was that green silent valley now, with its tranquil lake and solitary bird, from the time when it was the mouth of a vast furnace, casting out smoke and flame, and pouring down red-hot torrents of rock, and showers of burning cinders, into the hissing, and steaming, and bubbling sea. Then, "fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell;" - now, as quiet a spot for the discussion of cold meat on a sunny day, as could be found anywhere.

The Caldeira appears to be perfectly circular, and is a complete basin, the edge being regular, that is, as regular as these natural works ever are; not a mathematical circle, but a fine waving line. We were nearly an hour and a half in walking round its rim, and we thought it by far the most striking old crater we have yet seen in the islands. The valley of the Furnas is much larger, but its size takes away from its apparent depth; and its shape is so irregular a circle that the two cannot be compared together. In Corvo there is one crater, and in Flores there are several; but the sides of these slope so much more

gradually, that they rather appear to form shallow basins, bearing no resemblance to this deep and circular valley, whose walls are sunk like a shaft in the very apex of the island, and are seen suddenly and unexpectedly from a point where the eye takes in the whole view at a single glance. Its volcanic origin cannot be doubted for an instant; and on those who are unused to volcanic scenery, (if they have not travelled so much as to be quite above being impressed by any scenery at all,) it produces a strong impression at the time, and a very durable one.

From this point, which is, as it were, the nave of the wheel, a good general view may be had of the entire island, which, from its circumference to its centre; from the sea, that is, to this spot; whether sprinkled with villages and marked out with fields (as it is near the coast) or swelling into hills, or rising into cones or small craters, or broken up into ridges and valleys, which the wants of the islanders have not yet required for cultivation, (as it is between the belt of fields on the coast and the summit on which we were standing)-the eye discovers no colour but green. The slope from the Caldeira to the sea is gradual, but steeper towards the north and north-east;

and although the aspect of the island is neither grand nor sublime, still it has a quietude and soft fertility, which are of themselves agreeable; and, when seen in immediate contrast with the pomp and majesty of Pico, soaring high into the distant clouds, possess additional charms.

We had occasion to remark, in our excursion to-day, (and the same observation applies to the other islands we have seen,) the scarcity of field flowers, as compared with their frequency in England. A botanist, who had gone through the islands in search of flowers, made the same remark. The daisy we never saw, nor wild violets. The flower most commonly seen by the road-side, is the shabby rag-wort. I never remember to have seen even the modest little wild geranium of our English hedges. One of the most common flowers here is a rose, with small flowers, and numerous petals, called the rosa multiflora; this is frequently met with in the outskirts of the town, and the cottagers occasionally cultivate it in their gardens.

In common with all the islands, the want of timber trees is everywhere felt by an English eye, so that Johnson's exaggerated satire on Scotland, "Trees, sir, trees! why my walking-stick is

8

ABSENCE OF WOOD.

the only stick of timber I have seen in Scotland,' might with about equal justice be applied to the Azores; where, if it were possible to move the wealthier landowners to plant more largely, as the proprietors of lands in Scotland were stirred up by Johnson's sarcasms; not only would the scenery of the islands profit by it, but lands now comparatively useless would become productive. A thriftless use is made of what little timber there is; trees are cut without being replaced; young plantations are rarely to be seen; and to such an extent has this short-sighted destruction been carried in Fayal, that, with ample room for plantations, the principal supply of fuel is derived from Pico, which island can spare somewhat from its limited population. But the want of timber does not interfere with the verdure and appearance of fertility which characterise these islands.

May 15.-A man of science from America, who was here last year, found in the rocks, on the north-eastern side of the Bay of Horta, a vein of opal in a state of partial decomposition. We walked to see it this morning, and found the friable stone which was so called. It soon crumbles to powder after exposure to the air, and

DEFICIENCY OF WOOD.

9

possesses few of the external characteristics of that stone. In returning we looked into a fort upon the shore, where were one or two rusty guns, a decayed pyramid of balls, a plot of cabbages, and an old woman hanging out her linen in the sun; as unwarlike a place as the kitchengarden of one of those battlemented boxes which cockneys build in the outskirts of London.

Although the Islands of St. Michael's, Corvo, and Flores are plentifully supplied with pure and excellent water, in this island as well as in Pico and St. George's, (at least in the parts we visited,) water is scantily supplied, and is in many respects bad. In the former islands there are fountains everywhere, from which streams are continually flowing, beneath which the women have only to place their red pitchers, and they are immediately filled; but in these islands the water is drawn from wells, around which groups of men and women are to be seen dropping in little buckets or horns, and slowly and laboriously filling from them their larger wooden tubs. So behindhand are they in mechanical contrivance, that there is not in the streets even a common windlass (that universal machine above an English cottager's well) to save their labour; and it is