night, are evidently referable to the causes detailed in the memoir
of Sir Humphry Davy. • From the unequal degree and depth of
the cooling of the earth and sea, when losing caloric by radiation
after the setting of the sun, the surface of the sea, and, consequently*
the air which reposes on the sea during the night, becomes
warmer than the earth, and the air immediately upon it j both
these airs, from the nature of the climate, and the locality of
Madeira, are always nearly saturated with-humidity, and the fogs
or mists which arise from their mixture are unusually considerable,
from the depth of the sea and great elevation of the land : the
descending current of colder air mixes with the mist as it forms
oq the surface of the water, whose comparative warmth keeps up
the ascent of the vapours, which thus continue to rise until after
the appearance of the sun; they cover the volcanic peaks behind
Funchal, and at a later hour arrive at those of the other parts of
the interior, which they abandon after the setting of the sun for
the warmer surface of the ocean. In a country where there is no
rain for six months together, these regular mists conspire with the
torrents to fertilize whole tracts of land, which would otherwise
remain useless.
I started the next morning from Mr. Veitch’s Quinta, which is
about a mile below the view of the Coural das Freiras, to descend
into this beautiful valley on my way to the Pico Ruivo. The
road winds for nearly three miles, on the verge of-the precipices,
before it reaches the point of descent; and a succession of romantic
openings, of varied character* left me loth and unable to decide
which was the most sublime.. I found the amiea montana, at a
height of 3500 feet, and it is said to grow even on Pico Ruivo: the
echiumgiganteum, not only the most1 beautiful of its family, but
in itself a magnificent tree, starts from the clefts of the rocks,
and enlivens the rugged soil with its large bunches of blue flowers,
and downy leaves. The rocks presented the same alternations
of basalt and tufa, the former covered with greyish-green patches
of crustacéous lichens. The erica scoparia, and the arborescent
heath, (one of which measured eight feet in circumference,) were
mingled with the laurels on the sides of the precipices, and in
every sheltered nook. A beautiful lichen1, (belonging to the idio-
thalames of Acharius,) grew luxuriantly on the til laurel. But
the wonder and admiration we first bestow on the majesty of the
scene is, in the next moment, equally excited by the roads, which
the ingenuity and perseverance of man has created here ; hewing
them out of vertical faces of solid rock, projecting them by
walls and earth from the very sides of impending crags, and joining
peaks and gaps, which nature séemed to have disunited for
ever, as monuments of the .great convulsion which rent thé bosom
of the island. The engineer, Don Jôze d’Alfonsë’ca, has immortalized
himself by this daring and useful undertaking, which has
connected the whole island ', the inland barriers, between the
various points, having been hitherto pronounced insurmountable,
as well as impassable, and a great part of the interior being consequently
neglected and unknown“1.
Having rode for some time in a northward direction, we turn
to the east, and wind along the very brink of the perpendicular
precipices, which, like narrow walls, divide the more terrific
scenery of the southern abyss, from the milder beauties of the
northern. The first of these dividing ridges, for there are three,
pretty nearly equal in height, is 4161 feet above the sea, and 2081
above the bottom of the southern Coural. The temperature at
1 Germs. Frondes coriaceæ, complanatæ, in lobis verrucosis divisæ, et farina atra
fronde inspërsa, subtus virides. Soutellæ super marginemfrondig sessiles, fuscæ, cum
margine pallido.
“ These roads occupied about three years in making, and were finished in 1817.
Every man was obliged to contribute a dollar, or two days* .labour. The work was
frequently carried on by means of scaffoldings' from the rocks and precipices.
G