CH.vp. II.] MADEIRA TO THE COAST OF BRAZIL. 69 



was dried up and parched ; the water-courses were drj, and all 

 the vegetation had disappeared except the weird -looking suc- 

 culent weeds of the desert, which with their uncouth wrinkled 

 forms and venomous spines looked like vegetable demons that 

 could defy the heat and live anywhere. Here and there outside 

 the town, where the carcass of a dead bullock or a horse had 

 been flung out on the shingle or only half buried in it, polluting 

 the air far and near, there were half a dozen of the Egyptian 

 vulture {Neophron percnopterus) perched lazily upon the bones, 

 and, when disturbed, flying off slowly and alighting again at a 

 distance of a few yards. A curious incident gave us a ghastly 

 interest in the movements of these foul birds. A very excel- 

 lent seaman -school -master, Mr. Adam Ebbels, whom we had 

 taken with us from England, died suddenly just before we 

 reached Bermudas, and his successor was to have joined us at 

 Porto Grande. He came out in the same steamer with a sub- 

 lieutenant who was also going to join the ship. They arrived 

 ten days before the Challenger., and the school-master put up at 

 the French hotel. On the Sunday before our arrival he went 

 out to take a walk, and had not since been heard of. Of course, 

 besides taking all the necessary ofticial steps, we were all on the 

 watch for traces of him, and we were told that, if he were dead, 

 the vultures Avould be our surest guides to the place where the 

 body lay. They have rather an unusual mode of looking at 

 some things at San Vicente. When we were making inquiries 

 about the missing school-master, the general impression seemed 

 to be that he had met with foul play, as he was known to have 

 had a small sum of money about him and a rather valuable 

 watch when he left the hotel; and we M'ere told, further, that 

 a murderer lived in a cottage at a little distance from the town. 

 It seems that there is good reason to believe that this man, who 

 had been originally sent to San Vicente for the good of Portu- 

 gal, had made away with several people during his stay on the 

 island. Although liis jirofession was by no means s]3oken of 



