ness.

about between island and island, we have determined to start for Fayal by the next vessel which sails. Accordingly we paid a visit yesterday to the municipal chamber of the town to procure passports; for as small jealousies exist between one island and another, we were recommended to provide ourselves with these, to avoid unpleasant hindrances. The process occupied rather more than one hour, talking included. This is the Villa Franca fashion of getting through busiThere were no copper-plate forms, readymade to fill in, or sharp clerks to return short answers, or red-tape alacrity; nothing to indicate that time was a commodity, or that, if it was one, it was worth saving; but, on the contrary, a pair of leisure men, able and willing to gossip with you for any length of time, and full of politeness, courtesy, and curiosity. While the passport was copied from a greasy duplicate, one of these leisure men detailed all the distressing symptoms of his dyspepsia in a limping mixture of English, Portuguese, and French; politely refused the customary payment for the passport, went through the necessary bows at parting, and wished us a pleasant voyage among the islands and a safe return to the baths.

VOL. I.

S

We shall leave Villa Franca with something like regret. We know every one in the town, and the insides of half the cottages; and in every degree of rank in the place, from the Morgado in the square to the poorest cottager in the outskirts, we have met with cheerful, unvarying civility. The substantial kindness of our good friend Mr. Hickling also, whose hospitality has supplied us with an excellent house during the whole of our stay at Villa Franca, deserves a warmer expression of thanks than it would be agreeable to him to read in these pages.

CHAPTER XIV.

Here scatter'd like a random seed,
Remote from men, thou dost not need
The embarrass'd look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamefacedness:
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer.
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts, that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech:
A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!

APRIL 13, Saturday night.-On Wednesday morning, which was as bright a day as ever

shone, we at length bade adieu to the town of Villa Franca, and started with our ass-driver "Spider" and his active Jacks, for the caldeiras at Ribeira Grande. We had a large party to see us off. There were as many as twenty patients on the stair-case, clamouring Senhor Medico for advice, and mixing noisy thanks with entreaties as they pressed upon him, when he came into the street. "Spider" and his men were strapping beds, baskets, carpet-bags, and hat-boxes on the back of one grunting ass, which, as he was swayed backwards and forwards by the vehement tugs of his master, scraped acquaintance with five or six other Jacks, patiently waiting for their sick riders on the shady side of the way. Thomazia looked sad as she said her last "viva;" her gipsy-faced daughter, with a brown bantling in her arms, taught the child to make its little bow; a group at the bottom of the street waved their hands with their parting "vivas;" several heads bowed and viva'd from as many balconies and doors; the asses clattered over the paved streets, with a sharp iron jingle; the good-tempered Nun, from her wooden balcony, gave a cordial good-b'ye, and asked rapidly when we should return; others whom we passed,

made like inquiries of our hasty drivers, until at length, the fountain and church being passed, and the stream crossed, having threaded along the deep pumice lanes, and sandy sea-shore, and stony cliffs, and sudden defile on the old road to Villa Franca, we turned inland in a northerly direction, towards the town of Ribeira Grande. The road and lanes through which we passed, bore a very English aspect. They were edged with turf and brambles, carved into deep ruts, and hedged in with grass banks, on which grew willows and bramble-bushes, with lank grass, and occasional fringes of fern, just as may be seen in rough drives and lanes at home. Near Ribeira Grande, we came to a valley filled with rugged lava turned grey with lichens, which stretched before our path for a couple of miles in a westerly direction, having cultivated ground behind it, and in the distance a long line of truncated conical hills, and the dim mountains of the "Seven Cities." Except that they were on a smaller scale, and composed of volcanic formations, these grey ruins must have borne a strong resemblance to the barren portion of the valley of the Mississippi, (described in De Tocqueville's first volume on America,) where, "as you