172

FURNAS SELTZER WATER.

make wry faces at them, except indeed a feeble old woman, who totters down the hill every morning, and stoops over the spring, in the hope, perhaps, of adding a few more days to her three score years and ten; and, except the experienced Furnas peasant, weary with his day's toil, who may not unfrequently be seen turning out of the path to the iron spring, where, taking off his heavy carapuça, and laying down his burden, he drinks a large draught of the refreshment which God has here provided for him.

Having drunk of the iron-water, the next subject for discussion is such a breakfast as the appetite, which it invariably gives, obliges you to eat. Of this wholesome meal, however,—the test of last night's temperance, -the Portuguese are indifferent eaters. Other occupations succeed, in which they partake more heartily. A pic-nic to the lake is occasionally suggested; and the indication of this is a long string of asses in "lagging file," with party-coloured riders and well-stored panniers on their backs, which, followed by a crowd of drivers and servants, dawdles through the village to the excitement of the irritable cottage curs. A saunter in the Tank, the favourite grounds of the American

MR. HICKLING'S GROUNDS.

173

A ride on

vice-consul, is another amusement. an ass, without aim, another. A paddle in a boat on the Tank is another. Fishing, with crooked pins, for the gold fish in the lake, another. Lounging from house to house, talking an infinite deal of nothing, eating, sleeping, lounging again; eating again, gossiping, snuffing, smoking, card-playing, and sleeping once more, constitute and close the insipidities of the Furnas day.

174

THE WARM IRON BATH.

June 27.-To-day I bathed at the Quentúras,* as the baths of hot water highly impregnated with iron and carbonic acid are called. These baths are away from houses in a lonely field by the river side, and are at some little distance from the Caldeiras, properly so called, which are separated from the Quentúras by rising ground. The water supplying these baths flows from an opening in the bank of the field. The supply of water is very abundant. It comes silently but steadily from its source, without variation or ripple, and is separated into two streams, one of which falls into a pond close by to cool; and the other is directed into a stone gutter leading directly to the back of the baths. At the end of the cooling tank a small shutter regulates the escape of the water, which, by means of another stone gutter is made to join and mix with the hotter current before it reaches the bath. Having performed its duty on the skins of the bathers, both the tepid and the waste water finally fall upon yam beds; and after swamping and enriching them, and turning the earth in which they grow a gaudy red, drip down into a yellow stream

*The analysis of the water of the Quentúras by Professor Graham will be found in the Appendix.

THE WARM IRON BATH.

175

that winds its course a little way below, which afterward joins the sulphur water at the Caldeiras, tumbles and tosses over lava rocks and down waterfalls; and at length escapes from the valley into the sea by way of Ribeira Quente.

The water of these baths is very strongly impregnated with iron, turns the tips of the nails rusty, is astringent to the skin, and almost painfully so to the eyes when you open them under water, feels rough and harsh if you rub your hands together in the bath, acts pleasantly upon the skin in making it feel clean and smooth, far beyond even soap and water; and is more invigorating and less luxurious than the unmixed sulphur baths at the Caldeiras. Owing to the abundance of the supply, and the smallness of the cooling pond, the water not unfrequently flows into the bath at so high a temperature as to require a very considerable time to grow cool ;—a caution, which it may be well to bear in mind, for of all the undignified positions in which a man's body can be placed, few perhaps exceed in absurdity the exasperated plunges of an unsuspecting bather as he screams and scrambles out of a deep scalding warm bath.

June 28.-This morning I have bathed in the

176

THE MISTURAS BATH.

Misturas bath-the mixture, that is, of sulphur and iron. The iron-water is in a tank or reservoir behind the building, and the sulphur boiler -the water of which from its supposed excellence is called holy water by the natives,-flows from a spot at some little distance. It is conducted by gutters cut in the ground to stone troughs at the back of the baths. The stream is turned into the bath by means of wooden shutters, in connexion with which a plug is loosened in the tank, and the two streams of iron and sulphur water-the first icy cold and the other scalding hot-gush into an oblong box of stone in the bathing-house, and empty themselves into the bath, where at length they are thoroughly mingled. But it is not until they arrive here that the streams are properly mixed; for as they fall from the box one half of the stream chills you and the other scalds, and one side of the box is dyed red by the iron oxide, while the other is dull yellow.

These waters are not so pleasurable as the smooth and milky sulphur, but are astringent. They make the eyes smart when opened in the

*The chemical properties of the Mistúras will be found in the Appendix, where Professor Graham's analysis is given.