I02 Voyage of the Novara. 



the ground, and in the crevices of which an old laurel, 

 the last of its genus at this height, had taken root. The 

 natives call this singularly-shaped group Homem em pe, or 

 the man standing erect. 



Arrived at an open space of meadow ground, the Barreiro, 

 or Encumiada Caixa, a gigantic rocky ridge, suddenly rises 

 to a prodigious height, from a frightful ahyss of almost fathom- 

 less depth. We now hastened across a plain covered with 

 lava, to the rough basaltic summit of the Encumiada Alta. 

 Safe on an eminence* above yawning gulfs, beneath a deep blue 

 sky, in the brilliancy of a lovely morning sun, we abandoned 

 ourselves to the thrilling impressions of the magnificent picture 

 which nature here brought forth of earth, rock, and manifold 

 vegetation. Towards the south an immense mountain ridge, 

 with serried peaks (called Torres and Torinhas), rises to a 

 height of 6000 feet, declining almost imperceptibly on the left 

 hand, wdiilst on the right it descends abruptly in terraces, 

 with perpendicular walls of rocks 1000 feet in height, connected 

 by an inaccessible I'idge with the imposing, stupendous, cupola- 

 shaped summit of the Pico Ruivo. All this is disclosed 

 to the eye within a radius of little more than two miles, 

 Deep clefts and ravines run from the rocky crevices, and 

 unite in a gloomy and profound abyss of 3000 feet, 

 which forms the mouth of the ravine of llibeiro Secco. 

 Similiar chasms open to the right and to the left, and 

 when they are too distant to be distinguished by the eye, 



* 5883 feet, according to the geologist's barometrical measui'emeuts. 



