LUMINOUS WAVES. 167 watery, it will be found to flush the face if drunk in any quantity; and when new, as it generally is when consumed, is intoxicating. February 13.- Looking out of the window tonight, I noticed an unusual light in the sea, and, on going down to the shore, I saw on a grand scale, such as I have never yet seen described, the whole line of coast, as far as the eye could stretch, luminous with mollusca. The night was quite calm, pitch-dark, sultry like summer, and the sky obscured by heavy masses of clouds. A long reef of black rocks runs for a considerable distance into the sea, near that part of the shore where the fishermen usually launch and land their boats; and over this reef the waves, which even in the calmest weather break across it, were to-night slowly swinging backwards and forwards, and breaking into foam. In doing so, there first appeared a soft fringe of silvery light, as the wave curved over, and as it rose and broke, a gradually increasing line of light sparkled for a moment and was then instantaneously quenched. Another and another wave, at intervals of a few seconds, rolled over the reef, occasionally throwing up a jet of illuminated spray, which quickly disappeared, and then rippled on the shore in a 168 LUMINOUS WAVES. broad undulating band of bright frosted silver. A quiet little bay beneath our windows was more luminous than any other spot. A ridge of black rocks screened it from the ocean, between which and the shore the water was in complete repose. But every seventh or eighth wave would flash through the rocks in a flood of light, would be instantly extinguished in the quiet pool, until a minute after the same wave turned over on the sands in a dim phosphorescent bow. The poet Shelley must have watched the ocean under similar circumstances, when he said "I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolv'd in star-show'rs thrown." Because nature has done much, these lazy rascals seem determined to do nothing. DIARY OF AN INVALID. Island of Villa Franca. - Funeral. - Priests.- Diet. Beggars.-Rains. FEBRUARY 14.-Yesterday we paid a visit to the island of Villa Franca, which lies in front of the town, at nearly a mile's distance from the shore. Our boat's crew consisted of Thomazia's son, 170 AZOREANS AND RED INDIANS. a wiry, determined little fellow, who, to use an Irish simile, was "like a bladder of brandy, all skin and spirits," and three sturdy boatmen from the town, who launched us through the surf, and pulled off in a noisy, harum-scarum manner, without order or time. I had just before been reading in the last Quarterly an admirable article on railroads, from the pen of Sir Francis Head, in which the author describes, as no one else can describe, a descent through the great American rapids, where the old Indian, with his "icy cold judgement," and immutable presence of mind, stands in his small bark, issues his quiet orders to his young comrade in a mild tone of voice and short monosyllables, watches with his tranquil beardless face the scene of turmoil around him; and having been whirled in his frail bandbox through the boisterous dangers of the rapids, calmly shoulders his light canoe, and without expressing fear or bravado proceeds along his journey. The contrast between his quiet dignity and the clamour of four chattering Azoreans, each of whom, without regard to age or experience, claimed a right to give his loud opinion on the boat and the waves; who listened to the child quite as readily as to the elderly ISLAND OF VILLA FRANCA. 171 man jabbering at the bow-oar; whose flurried faces were covered with hair; who exclaimed aloud at every ominous breaker, - laughed, cheered, when it was right to pull, and whose boat was as clumsy as the canoe of the Indian was frail, appeared no less striking than the melancholy contrast between the wise and chivalrous simplicity of the Indian character, and the perfidiousness and mercenary cunning of their "civilized" enemies. The island appears to be the shattered crater of a volcano, and is composed of a soft kind of rock, which geologists very appropriately term "tuff," but which (as that word describes nothing to those who have never seen a tuff) may be resembled to a hardened brown clay, of a coarse texture, lying in thin layers, which in this instance dip in regular lines, towards the cup of the crater. The cup is broken in the inner edge, and, the breach being large enough to allow a vessel of one hundred tons to enter, is occasionally made use of as a place of safety for hauling up small vessels, for the purposes of cleaning and repairing them. The edge most exposed to the sea is much worn by the waves, which in boisterous weather break over it into the basin with |