CHAP. I.] BERMUDAS TO MADEIRA. 39 



in one's memory, and refer each picture to its proper place. 

 This little valley, now ringing with English " chaff" and laugh- 

 ter, and littered with the inevitable sardine-tins and soda-water 

 bottles, seemed a reflex of our confused cosmopolitan condition 

 of mind. The tall, smooth tree - boles, with their scanty blue 

 aromatic foliage, all around us — which made up the greater 

 part of the vegetation — were the gum-tree {Eucalyptus rohus- 

 tus), from New Holland. The group of beautiful dark conifers 

 on the other side of the stream, showing in every tone of color 

 and in every curve of their long drooping branches their thor- 

 ough luxuriance and " at-homeness," were no Atlantic or Euro- 

 pean cypresses, but Cryptomeria Jajyonica, the lawn tree which 

 saddens us with its blighted brown twigs after a too hard frost 

 in England. The tree above it with the dark-green phyllodes 

 was Acacia 7nelanoxylon, from Australia ; the livelier inter- 

 mixed greens were due to the Japanese Plttosportim midulor 

 turn., to Persea Indica, and Laurus Canariensls — both of some- 

 what doubtful origin, though reputed natives — and to the un- 

 doubtedly native Myrica faya. 



The Agores have been particularly fortunate in having their 

 climate made the most of by the introduction of suitable and 

 valuable plants. When the islands were first discovered, they 

 were clothed with natural forest, but during the earlier period 

 of their occupation the wood was cut down with so little judg- 

 ment that it was almost exterminated, and it became necessary 

 to send planks for orange-boxes from Portugal. Of late years, 

 however, several of the wealthiest and most influential proprie- 

 tors, both in Fayal and San Miguel, have interested themselves 

 greatly in forestry and acclimatization, and have scattered any 

 of their new introductions which seemed to be of j^ractical 

 value about the islands with the utmost liberality. All the 

 trees from Europe and the temperate parts of America, north 

 and south, and those of Australia, ]^ew Zealand, Japan, and the 

 cooler parts of China, seed freely in the Azores, so that there 



