AZORES. 



33 



we had to cross numerous water- worn gullies, and our road led 

 constantly up and down steep hills. We crawled up one side of 

 the ridges, and made fearful dashes down the other, the mules 

 going with great spirit. We passed between fields of maize and 

 corn, with tall hedges of reeds (Arundo donax), planted round 

 them to break the force of the wind, and a kind of lupine 

 planted in geometrical patterns amongst the corn to be ploughed 

 in after the crop was reaped, as manure. 



We passed many fine flower gardens, planted with a large 

 variety of Australian, New Zealand, and South American plants, 

 and went by numerous hills, small volcanic cones, planted with 

 firs and various timber trees with great care. The appearance of 

 the island has been wonderfully modified by careful plantation, 

 most of the work having been done by a Mr. Brown, a gardener 

 from Kew, who was brought to the island 30 years ago by 

 Don Jose de Canto, to superintend the laying out of his garden. 

 We halted for luncheon at a small stream under a clump of 

 Australian blue gum trees, beneath which on the margins of the 

 stream grew a profusion of ferns. Here flourished the cosmo- 

 politan break fern, and another Pteris (P. arguta); Woodwardia 

 radicans, not so long ago discovered to occur in Great Britain, a 

 splendid bright green fern, with large fronds, the tips of which 

 bend over to meet the soil, and then take root, whence the 

 name ; Asplenium monanthemum, hardly to be distinguished in 

 appearance from our home A. trichomanes ; Asplenium marinum, 

 Adiantium nigrum, — the lady fern, the hart's tongue, the male 

 fern, and the common polypody. With these was Osmunda 

 regalis, and abundance of the Maiden hair. 



We crossed the lower central ridge of the island, and looked 

 down upon the bright blue sea on the other side. We passed a 

 threshing floor where threshing was going on in the old biblical 

 style, as all over the Azores, where primitive customs are 

 maintained to an extraordinary degree. The threshing floor is a 

 circular flat space, usually near a house in the home corn-field, 

 about 40 feet in diameter, and with a bottom of cement or some 

 hard mortar. On this the corn is laid and pairs of oxen are 

 driven round and round over it, yoked to a heavy wooden sledge- 

 like machine, like that used for dragging casks on in England. 



D 



