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English paupers would eat any other bread than that made of wheaten flour? Here they are fully content with the rough and almost nauseous Indian-corn bread. Riches and poverty, however, are, of course, entirely comparative: there is the poor lord, who has only 5000l. a year; and the poor Irishman, who, for thirty weeks each year, cannot get more than two-thirds of a sufficient number of bad potatoes. He can only be said to be rich who has few wants, and can supply those few; for, as luxuries increase, so do our necessities; and the man who has long been used to luxurious living, suffers as much when deprived of it, as the poor Hibernian when compelled to stint himself on potatoes. Every cottage in England has now its tea-pot, and its white loaf; a century ago these were luxuries which no one of those who were then living on barleybread and beer ever dreamed would become necessaries. Now, every washer-woman looks forward to her tea, like the opium eater to his pipe or his pill, or the drunkard to his dram; and it is as necessary to produce feelings of bodily comfort as either of these. It seems very probable that this change of luxuries into

necessities, is a curse which parents transmit to their offspring. The stock of the Durham cattle, which from their birth are highly fed for the London markets, absolutely require, in the course of two or three generations, similar over-feeding to keep them in a state of health; and, for the same reasons, the diet which rears the infants of the poor Irish, or hardy Highlanders, would be insufficient for children whose parents and forefathers have, for many generations, been high livers. More sins of the fathers are visited upon the children than perhaps we are aware of.

The islanders call themselves Portuguese, and talk the language of Portugal; but the Spanish having had at one time possession of the islands, the breed has been crossed, and the mixture of Moorish blood has improved it. They are handsomer and more graceful than the Portuguese. But although the island is small, and the peasants have a general cast of features which characterizes them, the difference of physiognomy in different parts of the island is so great,

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that a special character of face may be said to belong to almost every town. Some of the finest and most strikingly marked faces I have seen were from the neighbouring town of Allagoa; but the men look like banditti, and are said to be turbulent, passionate, and revengeful. women, in common with the men, have large mouths; and they widen them still more, and deform their lower lips, by the constant use of their "spinning jennies." Sitting or standing at their cottage doors, or walking in the sun, the women and girls may always be seen in the active

use of distaff and spindle;-twisting and wetting the silky flax with the same rapidity and ease as the Italian peasants. The flax is continually between their lips and teeth; and the consequence is, that their lower lips are in many instances turned downwards until they grow blubber or wry. In more senses than one they may be said to live" from hand to mouth."

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The people in this town, instead of being turbulent, like the inhabitants of Allagoa, are remarkable for their mildness and quietness, and, in this respect, are said to excel the other islanders. Good temper, however, although occasionally dashed with revenge, seems to be a characteristic quality of the whole people, who at the same time possess the failings of mere good temper; ishness and insincerity. The poor have as much finesse as if they had been a highly polished people, and might even prove themselves to be courtiers, if Touchstone's test be the true one;-"I have been politic with my friend; smooth with my enemy." There is also a difference between the physiognomy of the natives of each island in the group, even more apparent than that which may be noticed between the inhabitants of separate

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districts; and their characteristic distinctions may here be illustrated by a collection of heads indiscriminately taken from our sketch-books, in which the faces and head-dresses peculiar to all the islands we have visited-namely, to St. Michael's, Fayal, Pico, St. George's, and Flores and Corvo, -have been correctly represented.