CHAP. I.] BERMUDAS TO MADEIRA. 45 



such situations. The flavor of the aerated water is rather pecul- 

 iar at flrst, but in the hot, steamy, sulphurous air one soon comes 

 to like its coolness and freshness, and it seems to taste all the 

 better from the green cup extemporized out of the beautiful leaf 

 of the Caladium. The warm water from all the springs finds 

 its way by various channels to join the river Quente, which es- 

 capes out of the " valley of the caves " at its north-eastern end, 

 and, brawling down through a pretty wooded gorge, joins the 

 sea on the north coast about six miles from Villa Franca. 



We left Greu'a after breakfast next morning, our long train 

 of about twenty saddle and baggage asses winding along the 

 eastern shore of the lake and up the steep passes — gloriously 

 fringed and mantled with Woodwardia and Pteris argicta, and 

 variegated with copses of the dark tree-heath and brakes of the 

 bright green faya — to the crest of the ridge bounding the north- 

 ern end of the valley ; and thence down crooked and laborious 

 ways through many gorges planted with grafted fruit-bearing 

 chestnuts, and over many lava spurs, to the road along the south 

 shore, where we found the carriages waiting for us. The wheat 

 harvest was going on vigorously in the lower lands, and shortly 

 before entering Yilla Franca, a long town which straggles over 

 four or five miles between Ribeira Quente and Ponta Delgada, 

 we stopped and rested at a farm-house where tliey were thresh- 

 ing. The carriage I was in had fallen a little behind the rest, 

 and when we came up the scene at the farm-yard was very live- 

 ly. Outside was the threshing-floor, a hardened round area 

 with a stake in the centre. The wheat was spread on the baked 

 clay floor, and two sledges, each drawn by a pair of oxen, went 

 slowly round and round, " treading out the corn." The sledges 

 were driven, with much noise and gesticulation, by tawny, good- 

 natured Agoreans, and were often weighted by a mother or aunt 

 squatting on the sledge, holding a laughing black -eyed baby. 

 The drivers were armed with enormously long poles, with which 

 they extorted a certain amount of attention to their wishes 



