nine o’clock in the morning, was 51°, and De Saussure’s hygrometer
marked 89°. The only birds I saw, were the falca tesalon, (perhaps
a variety, from the difference between some parts of its plumage,
and Cuvier’s description of the species",) an ant-thrush°, (myothera,
IUig.,) the red-legged partridge, and a blackbird, only differing
from the European species in the colour of the beak, which was
dark brown, and merely edged with yellow. The woodcock
(scolopax rusticóla, L.) is found in the mountains, and never quits
the island. My mule was sadly worried by the musca da serva,
which did not appear to me to differ from the hippobosca equina: the
guide insisted that it only fixed itself on the animal for warmth, and
did not suck the blood, begging me to look at its talons, which bore
two nails, much indented, but the proboscis and its sheaths, were
very evident?. The Pico Ruivo faces the beginning of the descent
into the Coural; the beetling rocks and broken peaks, over which
the clouds are sailing, seem to threaten to overwhelm us at every
step, and we involuntarily withdraw our eyes from these impending
ruins, to fix them with a shudder on the more startling depths
immediately beneath us, and sometimes on both sides of the artificial
wall, along which we frequently descend. There were
several picturesque streams and falls of water, but it wanted the
torrents, which follow the heavy rains, to complete the sublimity of
the scene. The road sometimes curves: round like a bastion, and
n The upper part of the bird was of a reddish brown, with dark brown horizontal
stripes; the under, whitish with longitudinal blackish brown spots, diminishing in
number upon the thighs/ the lower part! of the belly 'w'as quite white; the envergure
measured two feet three inches, and from the end of the beak to the end of the tail
was one foot two inches.
0 The head, back, wings, and tail, were of an olive brown, the belly whitish ; the
throat, breast, and space between the eye and the beak, orange: it measured inches
from the end of the beak to the end of the tail; the tarsus was 1£ in. long, and the
tail 2 inches.
p The antennae were short* bearing tubercles with a hair.
a single and sudden turn transports us from brilliant sunshine to
a thick mist, from the deep shade of a laurel grove to the broad
light of an abrupt break, with a glimpse of the sea. Vast insulated
rocks raise their heads in broken turrets and spires, and look like
the ruined fortresses of some gigantic race, entombed beneath the
huge blocks of basalt, which have been sundered from the mass
above, and rolled down towards the valley. These immense fragments,
eternal monuments of “ the wars between the torrents and
the mountains,” seem, sometimes, to be so nicely balanced on a
single point, as only to await the violence of the storm to precipitate
them into the bed of the stream. The mouldering trunks of
large blasted trees contribute to the solemn grandeur of the scene,
which is varied in colour by the warm red of the tufa, the cold
grey of the basalt, the very different shades of the evergreens,
ferns, broom, and moss; and the frost-like, silvery appearance assumed
by the decayed heath trees. The moss, hypnum intricatum,
was the only one I could see or hear of; it abounds even at the
greatest heights, forming a rich, velvet-like verdure, when combined
with the smaller graminece, and the young shoots of the ericee,
which are so beautiful when putting out their first leaves; this
hypnum also grows on the thallus of the til lichen. Having reached
the bed of the torrent, we look around, and feel as if we were in an
amphitheatre of unscalable rocks, without a single outlet. The
small valley, through which a few miserable huts are thinly scattered,
presents flourishing vineyards, and smiling gardens of
cabbages, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes, (convolvulus batata). This
is the highest point at which the vine is cultivated in Madeira,
for making wine, and its success is entirely owing to the nuns
of Santa Clara (to whom this Comal“1 belongs) having given up
q I have taken some pains to ascertain the meaning of the word Caural, which we
do not find in the Portuguese dictionaries, and am assured, on native authority, that,
coupled with das Freirás, it means the “ Nuns fold,” i. e., the place of their retreat,