INTRODUCTION. xvii 



at hand wlien he will be able to revel at large in this Atlantic paradise, in remote 

 spots seldom visited by strangers, and at altitudes where the fierce elements of 

 winter shall give way at last to perpetual sunshine and the fresh breezes of a 

 calmer sea. There is something amazingly luxurious in betaking oneself to Tent- 

 life, after months of confinement and annoyance (it may be entirely, — 'partially 

 it must be) in the heat and noise of Funchal. We are then perhaps more than 

 ever open to the favoiu'able impressions of an alpine existence ; — and who can 

 adequately teU the ecstasy of a first encamjoment on these invigorating liills ! To 

 turn out, morning after morning, in the solemn stillness of aerial forests, — where 

 not a sound is heard, save ever and anon a woodman's axe in some far-off tributary 

 ravine, or a stray bird hymning forth its matin song to the ascending sun ; to feel 

 the cool influence of the early dawn on the upland sward, and to mark the thin 

 clouds of fleecy snow uniting gradually into a solid bank, — aff'ording glimpses the 

 while, as they join and separate, of the fair creation stretched out beneath ; to 

 smell the damp, cold vapour rising from the deep defiles around us, where vegeta- 

 tion is stni rampant on primaeval rocks and new generations of trees are springing 

 up, untouched by man, from the decajing carcases of the old ones ; to listen in the 

 still, calm evening au" to the humming of the insect world (the most active tenants 

 of these elevated tracts) ; and to mark, as the dayUght wanes, the unnumbered 

 orbs of night stealing one by one on to the wide arch of heaven, as briUiant as 

 they were on the first evening of thek birth ; — are the lofty enjoyments, all, which 

 the intellectual mind can grasp in these transcendent heights. 



It is needless however to pursue the picture further, for it is impossible to do 

 justice to what experience alone can enable us to appreciate. And let not any 

 one suppose that the varied objects and scenes of novelty which administer to our 

 superior feelings, and charm the eye, in these upland solitudes are adapted only to 

 the scrutiny of a naturalist, and are either beneath the notice of, or else cannot 

 be sufiiciently entered into by the general mass, — for such is by no means the 

 case. A single trial, we are convinced, T\all be more than enough to prove the 

 reverse, pro\dded the adventurer be not altogether insensible to perceptions from 

 without, or incurious as to the workings of the external universe around him. 

 This however, we need scarcely add, is a sine qua non, — for it has been well said 

 that " he who wondereth at nothing hath no capabilities of bliss ; but he that 

 scrutinizeth trifles hath a store of pleasure to his hand : and happy and wise is the 

 man to whose mind a trifle existeth not^ 



The great expense necessarily attending the pu.blication of a work Hke the 

 present one will be a sufficient guarantee that it has been undertaken purely as a 

 " labour of love," and with the sole aim (within its prescribed limits) of arriving 

 at the truth. How far I have succeeded in this is a problem which must lie 

 solved by others : meanwhile I apjpeal boldly to observation, in situ, as the test by 

 which I would most desire to be judged, — having but httle fear of the experiment, 

 and believing that we are never in so favourable a position for deciding on tlie 



c 



