before he could grant- the audience; in which he graciously
permitted us to come ashore, in a place where there seemed
nobody but himself and the drummer to prevent us. The landing
is almost as bad as that at Funchal. I begged to wash myself
before.I proceeded to the governor’s, and was bowed into a stable,
and furnished with a decanter of water, not as the most convenient,
but as the most splendid vessel that could be immediately
laid hold of in the neighbourhood. The governor’s house looked
like that of the lawyer in a small village in England; it was very
neat, of one story, and contained but two sitting rooms, one of
which, however, was spacious, and very comfortably furnished. A
row of cannons (some1 of which had fallen from their carriages,
whilst the others, from their monstrous touch-holes. and rusty
condition, were emblems of peace rather than war, and fit subjects
for a society of antiquaries); adorned the turf before the house,
and a second row, in sufficiently good condition for the gunner or
drummer to fire a salute with some safety, was ranged jn the yard.
We were given to understand, that we should find the Governor
in his library, which proved to be a small room, level with the
court, adorned with about a dozen books, the drum, some old
maps of Sanson and Jansens,; (more useful for giving an idea, of
the history, than of the actual state of geography) and some rude
drawings of his son’s, a genteel, smart boy, about thirteen years of
age. His Excellency was hard at work in a cotton jacket, writing
despatches to Madeira ; the unexpected appearance of our boat
having flattered him with the rare opportunity of communicating
the unchangeable state of things in Porto Santo to his superior.
He received me with the greatest politeness, and begged me to
believe, that both he and his house were at my service, and
sending for the Commandant (an old man of seventy, distinguished
by a red edging to his great coat) charged him to order one of the
most intelligent of the better class of peasantry, on his allegiance,
as a mihtia-man, to accofnpany,’ and direct me, in my rambles
through the island.
The lowest visible deposit in the inland of Porto Santo; is a
calcareous tufa, of a greenish-grey colour, which extends, in the
north-eastern parts of the island, to a height of 1600 feet, and is
ribbed throughout with numerous vertical dikes; of a reddish-
brown basalt. The middle of the island affords a plain, or rather
a shallow basin off sandstone. On a level with the sea on the south
side, where it covers the beach with a siliceous sand, which, as
we walk to the eastward, gradually becomes mingled with the
black ferruginous sand resulting from the decomposition of the
tufa. Following this plain in its greatest length, that is, front the
beach on the south side, to the Fonte Araya, which is immediately
above the beach on the north side, (a distance of 2% miles, and
forming the breadth of the middle part of the island) we find
ourselves on a sloping cliff 418 feet above the sea. We may
descend this cliff with ease for 134 feet, where the sandstone
terminates, being superposed on the tufa, which' is here 2$4 feet
deep, (that is, from its junction with the sandstone, to the surface
of the waters which hide it) and is still intersected by basaltic
dikes, which have evidently descended through it, from the highest
peaks of the interior of the island.
The lowest bed of this sandstone (which may be best examined
in the excavations near the southern beach, being hidden by sand
and debris at Araya) is hard and solid, and is used as a building-
stone. It is of a reddish buff-colour, of a slaty structure, with
indurated veins, effervesces pretty vigorously, and presents small
black spots, apparently ferruginous. This gradually passes into a
looser sandstone (best seen at Araya), of a lighter buff colour
within, acquiring a blackened' seoriaccous appearance on its outer
surface, and of a less, stratified appearance, whilst the still looser
sandstone above it, presents horizontal bands in the vicinity of
M