.98 ENGLISH BURYING GROUND. own loneliness-the grave-stones, too, at least, tell us the names of our company, - t The Portuguese always bury in their churches. The only burial grounds I believe at Madeira, are those of the English. There are two of them. During the late war, when the island was garrisoned by English troops, the merchants found that the space of their own little cemetery was no longer sufficient for the increased demand for accommodation which such an accession of their countrymen necessarily occasioned. Another piece of ground was accordingly procured, and allotted for the reception of strangers; it is small and surrounded by a high wall-the Peak Castle almost immediately overlooks it, and the Gothic bastions of the old fortress nowhere shew better against the sky than as seen from this spot. For the rest the area is perfectly unadorned; and we rather wondered no one had been at the pains to plant a few cypresses among the mouldering heaps. I like the presence of trees, particularly evergreens, in a church-yard-there is something at once instructive and consolatory in the rapprochemens which they suggest. The sun shines so bright on these graves-Lord Byron has somewhere a beautiful line, where he speaks of a fine morning as Smiling as if earth contained no tomb." ENGLISH BURYING GROUND. 99 The sense of this contrast is nowhere' more strong than in these climates. The day is here so animated and brilliant, that one might fancy, when dying, we should cast a more longing and lingering look than elsewhere, to the warm and cheerful precincts which we leave behind. It reminds one of the Et ego in Arcadia, on the shepherd's tomb in Poussin's pictures-substitute a less happy climate for Arcadia, and the words will lose much of their impressiveness. One is always allowed to moralize in a churchyard; the topics which it suggests are such as though obvious to the most rustic philosopher, can never, from their nature, have the effect of any other kind' of common-place. Perhaps there is something more than commonly touching in the sentiment of this little cemetery-the tenants below were all strangers and sojourners in the land, and for the most part young; for the age of the greater number does not exceed twenty-five. The recollections attached to them are those of youth and beauty-of hope and promise-they did not stay long enough for disappointment and degradation and decay "The good die first; "And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, So says a great living poet; and however ungen tler spirits may question the accuracy of this philosophy, it is something to have the benefit of the natural sympathy which prompts us to think thus kindly of those who are taken before their time *. There is nothing remarkable among the inscriptions. Among the tablets on the wall is one to the memory of Eugenia, wife of the late J. K. Esq.; a woman of singular beauty and elegance, and of whom we have heard much since we came to the island. She was a great grand-daughter of the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield: her only child a short while preceded her, and lies by her side. Her husband, as we have seen, has just followed. THE RIBEIROS, FRIO, AND MEYOMETADE CLIFFS, NEAR FUNCHAL -SOCIETY - LUNCH PARTIES-MOUNTAIN EXCURSIONS GEOLOGY. March 7.-A beautiful day, which I devoted to the exploration of the Ribeiros Frio and Meyometade. It was a pure leste, but I set off early in the morning, in order to pass the mountains betimes, and thus spent the whole heat of the day in the forest. The Ribeiros Frio-as before, the scene at the bridge particularly struck me. Nothing can be imagined more lovely, or more complete in its own character of shade and freshness and seclusion. The descent of the bed of the stream is very rapid-yet it does not, as is usual with such, hurry down in incessant quarrel with its obstructions, but falls over the masses of rocks that at every few yards bar its course, and collects below in a beautiful glassy pool-then falls again, and again, as it were, reposes awhile in clearness and quiet-thus forming a succession of cascades and lakelets, each of which, from the happiness of surrounding circumstances, would in itself compose a perfect picture. The banks consist of masses of smooth mossy rock, richly hung with underwood, from the midst of which spring the finest Tils and Vinhaticos, overcanopying the glade and its naiad, with their unpierced shade. I explored the stream for some way above and below-it preserves throughout the same character in its course, which is always very beautiful; but I think nowhere with so happy a disposition of accident as at the bridge. The ravine, or rather the valley of the Meyometade, is of a very different character, but as perfect in its way*. The mountains above were to-day quite unclouded. These are the mightiest of the island-Arieros-theTorrinhas-Ruivo-with their peers; and they do not here, as at the head of the Curral, present a bare wall of cliff to the valley, but each peak severally descends to it by a distinct ridge of mountain rock, clothed on both sides with the thickest wood, and inclosing between a deep ravine, that looks as if cut into the entrails of the parent mass. There are, I think, some half dozen of these chasms; all of which seem, as it were, to bring the tribute of their gloom and their precipice-their woods and their torrents-to aggravate the wilderness and blacken the night of the abyss below-which is of immense depth-the sides almost * See "Views in the Madeiras." |