course was dull enough. What I fell in with most worthy of remark was a palm tree, the largest we have yet seen, and which bore three splendid bunches of date. One has an African association about this tree, that makes me always glad to see it. They are not very common here, and those there are seem generally much disfigured by the stripping of their branches, which are used in some of the processions of the Romish church.

Soon after leaving Santa Cruz you pass a friary with a locust tree in front. A curious rude cross stands on the edge of the cliffs opposite, which is said to have been erected by the first discoverers, and hence the town itself derives its name.

Ascend gradually till we reach a spot overlooking the valley of Machico-a broad and deep ravine-the bottom of a green and cultivated aspect; walled to the west by the black and lofty cliff on which we stand; while on the opposite side runs a range of high mountains, having a peculiarly bold and alpine outline. Below-near the beach, at the mouth of the valley-stands the town, to which we descend by a long, steep, and winding road.

All country towns are dull, but abroad they are commonly dismal, and of the minor miseries of life there are not many more formidable than the being confined in one for the four and twenty hours

even. The villas of Madeira form no exception to the description; and Machico is perhaps below even the average demerit of the class.

To be sure we did not see it to advantage. It was a black, lowering evening. The sky threatened a storm, and the breakers were beginning to roar on the beach as if impatient for its coming. The landscape around looked gloomy, hemmed in on either side by precipitous rock, while the mountains at the head of the valley were dark in mist.

After some perambulation of the dull, dirty, unpaved streets of the place, we found out the Senhor to whom our letter was directed, who with much civility and alacrity procured us a place of shelter for the night; a large, old, empty mansion, belonging to the Camera or municipal body of the town. We selected the rooms that seemed the most weather-tight and took possession of them, in a mood perhaps of more gloom than there was any thing in the circumstances to justify. However, as our travelling Maitre d' Hotel, the trusty Manoel, proceeded to develope the contents of the provision basket, our spirits sensibly lightened; soon after a friend joined us from the city, and the rest of the evening passed in very tolerable hilarity.

This is, I believe, an average specimen of Ma

deira houses, such as they are out of Funchal : the windows are seldom more than half glazed, the rest of the aperture is closed by a shutter; they have no ceiling on the first, which is the only inhabited floor; over head are the dark wooden shingles of the roof. Certainly in these countries there is little to detain one within doors.

The storm came on-heavy rain, accompanied by thunder-an unusual occurrence in this island, and the effect of which, among the mountains, was very magnificent.

Jan. 18.-Machico, dull and ugly as it is, is illustrious in the romantic history of Madeira, as the spot where our countryman, Robert a Machim with his ill-fated bride Anna d'Arfet landed in the year 1323; and the town is said to take its name from that of the unfortunate lover. One would wish this story to be true, for there are few prettier in romance. It is certainly not very probable in itself, nor supported by much evidence, other than the presumption arising from the universality of the tradition, which one sees not how it could have originated at all without some foundation in fact. The Portuguese in general however do not profess to entertain any doubt about it, and there is no reason why an Englishman should not, at least, be willing to

46

POINT ST. LORENÇO.

believe.' It is a pitiful kind of freethinking that piques itself upon being sceptical in such matters. If you could positively disprove a tradition of this kind would it be worth while? Generally speaking, where the question of mere matter of fact is indifferent in its result either way, I do not think the better of the critic who takes pains to destroy any little illusion, in the belief of which either national pride or the better sympathies of our nature find a harmless gratification. Perhaps we should ourselves have been the rather disposed to implicit faith on this occasion were the scene a little more in character with the story with which it is connected; but it is disfigured by a shabby town, and Machim's chapel itself, a building small and no ways remarkable, was filled with work people who were laying down a new floor.

The morning, after the storm, was still lowering, and the sea rough. However, we hired a large boat, manned by six stout fellows, and pushed off for Point St. Lorenço. After a voyage of about an hour and a half we reached a little bay, with a sandy beach, the only one they tell me in the island, nearly two miles east of Caniçal. There was a heavy surf, but one of our men stripped himself, and conveyed us through it, sitting on his

shoulders, and holding as well as we could by his head. Close on our right was a green conical peak, on the summit of which is perched the little chapel of N. S. da Piedade. In front, on the declivity of the hill to the beach, lay the fossil bed, or petrified forest, as it is called, of which a full account is given in Bowdich. I shall only add, that the application of the term forest to these petrifactions, or whatever they are, is apt very much to mislead our expectations as to their appearance. Had not my attention been called to it, I believe I should have walked over the tract without being at all aware that there was any thing extraordinary in the fragments of white calcareous deposit with which it is plentifully scattered. On closer attention, however, you perceive that these have precisely the configuration of the low stems and roots, not of a forest, indeed, but of large broom and heath bushes; and, for a considerable space, the ground is over-run with their convolutions, which, in form and size, are so exactly similar to that with which they have been identified, that it is difficult not to believe in the fact of their vegetable origin.

The fossil bed extends quite across the Point, which is here not much more than a mile broad. We passed over it, continually ascending