la femelle, and having no
command over the heads of our steeds, we were content to be
guided by the hallooing and punching of the drivers. In spite,
however, of these inconveniences, if so they may be called, I
shall never cease to congratulate myself on having been of the
party, because the ride proved to be one of the most agreeable I
remember at any time to have taken.

The road from Villa Franca to Ponto del Gada quits the water's
edge, and turns, for a little way, inland, carrying you through a
region as romantic and beautiful as can well be imagined. There
are here no level plains, no smooth paths over which a landau or
tilbury might glide, but, on the contrary, a rugged and stony
track, sometimes leading down the face of steep hills, sometimes
scaling heights which at the distance of a mile appear to be
almost perpendicular, and sometimes winding along the side of a
cliff, and by the edge of a fearful precipice. Except when you
reach the summit of a mountain, the road is in general shaded by
the richest underwood, hanging over it from above; but the whole
aspect of the country is decidedly that of a volcanic production:
the rocks seem to have been cast up and torn asunder by some
prodigious violence, and hurled, by a force which nothing but a
volcano could possess, into the most grotesque and irregular
shapes. It is no uncommon thing to pass under a huge crag,
leaning almost horizontally over the road, and bedded in the
earth by a foundation apparently so slight, as to appear liable
to fall every moment, precipitating the enormous mass upon the
luckless wretch beneath. Nay, the very colour of the stones, and
the quantity of what bears every resemblance to vitrification,
scattered about, all tend to induce the, belief that the main
island owes its formation to the same cause which doubtless
produced the smaller one that has now disappeared.

ST. MICHAEL'S

It is not, however, to be inferred from the above description
that St. Michael's is nothing but a barren rock; far from it.
There is, indeed, in this direction at least, a fair proportion
of that commodity; but tracts of cultivated ground are not
therefore wanting. I should not certainly suppose that the soil
was remarkably rich in any part of the island; but it produces
the fig, the orange-tree, and a grape from which the inhabitants
make very tolerable wine; and there is excellent pasture for
sheep, and a competent supply of grain. But that in w