or for some other quite as cogent, betrothed; and a gentleman who is eligible, instead of undergoing the details of courtship, intimates his wish to the parents of the young lady, and the affair is speedily settled. Whether as a consequence of this, or owing to the general laxity of morals, and natural voluptuousness, the marriage tie is constantly broken by the men in the most open way. Indeed, where the priests as a whole body set the example of breaking their vows to God, can it be wondered at that their flocks stray from the right path?

"If they be foul on whom the people trust,
the baser brass contract a rust."

Well may

June 13.-A fine bracing day with a N. E. and N. W. wind. Walked down Ribeira Quente. Found hot springs and heard rumblings in the earth. Met with a spot which was white and clayey like the soil at the Caldeiras. The ground was hot and reeking, smelt strongly of sulphur, and sent up hot steam from holes in the surface.

Men were bottling the cold iron water at the Caldeiras for Lisbon. Among the white soil, near the beds of several of the boiling iron springs,

FURNAS PEASANTS.

163

our servant dug up numerous small round stones varying in size, from that of large peas to that of walnuts, completely covered with a burnished metallic coating, which was probably sulphuret

of iron.

June 14.-"Let the whole world stand if the whole world does not confess that there is not in the whole world a damsel more beautiful than the Empress la Mancha the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso." So say the Furnas peasants of their valley among the mountains; of which they are as fond and as proud as the Swiss of theirs. The contentions between the natives, as to the merits of each island, are quite as energetic as if they were attended with results. Three servants from the neighbouring Islands of Pico, Fayal, and Flores, after uniting in their disgust at the valley of the Furnas, fell to loggerheads in the most ludicrous manner when the comparative merits of the other three came to be discussed; and might possibly have come to blows if it were usual for intemperate discussions to end in blows. But their vehemence goes off in action, -they beat the air instead of belabouring one another.

A muggy relaxing day, very oppressive to the

feelings. A still evening with heavy clouds. The trees hang their leaves as if there was a stagnation of life; and even the light silver aspen with its ever-twinkling leaves is as motionless as a quickset hedge.

CHAPTER XI.

Ye sons of Indolence, do what ye will.

THOMPSON.

Watering-place insipidities.-The Tank.-Warm baths.-St. John's Day.-Ceremonies of the "Holy Ghost."— Furnas lodgings.-Patriarchs of the Valley.-Climate.-Fat Azoreans-Indigestion and vapours.

JUNE 23.-It is the end and aim of every visitor at the Furnas, just as it is for a loiterer at any other watering-place, to spend his time in listless indolence, and in this respect the occupations of one day among the loungers and bathers at the Caldeiras, are like those of a whole season, and probably will be as those of a hundred years; unless, indeed, this quiet and healthful place should by means of transatlantic steamers and other consumptive luxuries be transformed

into a second Madeira or rather into another Baden-Baden, and blow its pleasant bubbles like those from the Brunnens of Nassau. The order of the day is uniformly this:

As early in the morning as five o'clock the operations of bathing begin, and they continue until nine, ten, and eleven o'clock. A company of four or five persons from Ponta Delgada, who have taken lodgings or own houses in the valley, assemble at their door wrapped in cloaks and provided with umbrellas, under the ample shadow of which they saunter down to the baths followed by their bare-footed or liveried servant with his gaudy bag of towels. Another set from Villa Franca similarly dressed, or wearing strangefashioned hats and bonnets, such as now are only to be seen in the Ladies' Magazine, (of the date of steel-buckled hats and tall crowns,) may choose to ride on asses; and these, accompanied by their noisy driver, splash through the ford and hurry and scuffle in the same direction. A pale soldier and his young wife who cannot afford to ride; obese shopkeepers from Allagoa, abdomine tardi ; merry children piled two and three upon one ass; a helpless paralytic in his palanquin; a wasted invalid whose heavy cloak hangs about