started with a party, some on foot and some on asses, to see the Caldeira, which is one of the natural beauties of Fayal.

Speaking generally of the island, it is a low cone, with a lozenge-shaped base; and in the top of this cone, which is nearly in the centre of the island, the Caldeira is sunk. It is frequently covered with a cap of clouds, which, although they may shut out the view from the summit, and obscure the depths of the crater, yet fully compensate for these hindrances to impatient travellers, by the floating shadows which they throw upon the mountains, by the strength of colouring which they borrow from the morning and the setting sun, and by the varied delicacy with which these colours are reflected from their surfaces upon the hill-side. To-day, however, the mountain had doffed his cap, and from the shore to the summit was enriched by the yellow light of a hot morning sun.

After passing the scattered houses on the outskirts of the town, the road lay along the valley of the Flemings, through which sometimes a river runs, whose rocky bottom was now quite dry. Having crossed this, we began the gradual and easy ascent of the mountain, at first through fields, and then over heath and grass, inter

ASCENT TO THE CALDEIRA.

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spersed with a few wild flowers; among which, a bright-belled heath, of deep scarlet, was scattered among the herbage, that resembled in colour the fruit of the wild strawberry, and was entirely different from the common heath so abundant in these islands; the quiet unobtrusive blossoms of which seldom attract the eye. Now and then a woman or a girl tripped past us on her way down the mountain, carrying on her head a heavy load of wood; a few scattered cows and heifers stopped grazing and stared round, or started off with their tails awry, when we walked so close as to disturb them; and as we neared the topmost edge of the crater, a group of idle wood-cutters, with their figures clearly cut out against the sky, lay and stood about, surrounded by their wives and children, who squatted on the ground, and tried in vain to silence a yelping Azorean cur, which ran forwards to bark and bite, as naturally as if he had been at the cottager's own door.

As is usual in ascending all mountainous ground, we passed one ridge after another, wishing and thinking each was the last, (for the dull succession of hill upon hill, clothed only with rough grass, was without variety,) when,

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SUDDEN VIEW OF THE CALDEIRA.

without a moment's warning, we suddenly stopped on the precipitous edge of the crater. Hitherto there had been unvaried sunshine, and no tree or other object to cast a shadow; but now we suddenly saw beneath our feet an enormous valley, deeply sunk in the earth, the huge fissures, with which its almost perpendicular sides were cleft, being in deep shade, and the projecting ridges in bright light. At the bottom was a gloomy lake, over which one white sea-gull floated the only living thing in that solitary place. The eye can gaze long, and without fatigue, and with much delight, on all things that are beautiful; but the first glance (like the first rapid perusal of a letter from one we love at a distance) seems to fill the mind at once, and make it a temporary master of the delight. We gaze longer afterwards, that we may remember it more surely; but the first glance is the intensely pleasurable one.

Having taken this first look at the glorious scene that had rewarded our toilsome ascent, the next fell on the contents of a goodly basket, stored by no sparing hand, which had been spread at our feet; and, sitting on the soft grass, in sunshine moderated by mountain breezes, as

pigeon-pies, chickens, hams, tongues, and wines, became part of our own being, we could quietly contemplate the lonesome beauty of the deep vale below us. How different was that green silent valley now, with its tranquil lake and solitary bird, from the time when it was the mouth of a vast furnace, casting out smoke and flame, and pouring down red-hot torrents of rock, and showers of burning cinders, into the hissing, and steaming, and bubbling sea. Then, "fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell;" as quiet a spot for the discussion of cold meat on a sunny day, as could be found anywhere.

now,

The Caldeira appears to be perfectly circular, and is a complete basin, the edge being regular, that is, as regular as these natural works ever are; not a mathematical circle, but a fine waving line. We were nearly an hour and a half in walking round its rim, and we thought it by far the most striking old crater we have yet seen in the islands. The valley of the Furnas is much larger, but its size takes away from its apparent depth; and its shape is so irregular a circle that the two cannot be compared together. In Corvo there is one crater, and in Flores there are several; but the sides of these slope so much more

gradually, that they rather appear to form shallow basins, bearing no resemblance to this deep and circular valley, whose walls are sunk like a shaft in the very apex of the island, and are seen suddenly and unexpectedly from a point where the eye takes in the whole view at a single glance. Its volcanic origin cannot be doubted for an instant; and on those who are unused to volcanic scenery, (if they have not travelled so much as to be quite above being impressed by any scenery at all,) it produces a strong impression at the time, and a very durable one.

From this point, which is, as it were, the nave of the wheel, a good general view may be had of the entire island, which, from its circumference to its centre; from the sea, that is, to this spot; whether sprinkled with villages and marked out with fields (as it is near the coast) or swelling into hills, or rising into cones or small craters, or broken up into ridges and valleys, which the wants of the islanders have not yet required for cultivation, (as it is between the belt of fields on the coast and the summit on which we were standing) the eye discovers no colour but green. The slope from the Caldeira to the sea is gradual, but steeper towards the north and north-east ;