AND PORTO SANTO. 27 



tary feeling of the heart, undirected, but not unabated, from the 

 loss of reason. 



I lost no time in beginning my excursions into the interior, and 

 first visited the waterfall, which is about three hours walk from 

 Funchal. The most direct route, is to descend into the ravine of 

 the first torrent to the westward of the town, and to follow it 

 until it is terminated by the fall. The bed of the torrent over 

 which you walk, for there is no path, is full of immense, rolled, 

 masses of basalt, nodules, and amygdaloidal fragments of all forms 

 and sizes ; leaving gaps of surface between, occasionally strewed 

 with ferruginous sand, from the decomposition of the masses of 

 tufa which have been swept down by the torrent. The whole 

 distance is to be performed by stepping and jumping from block 

 to block, (which, when they become sHppery after rain, is not a 

 little hazardous) and descending at rare intervals, to walk over 

 sharp stones and sliding pebbles. To quit the torrent, and scram- 

 ble over the hills and basaltic rocks which bound it on each side, 

 is to lose yourself and the objects of the journey, as I found in my 

 first attempt to reach it. Don Joze Monteiro kindly volunteered to 

 accompany me the second time, and proceeding westward from the 

 Mount Church, we descended with some difficulty into the torrent, 

 at about half way between the waterfall and the mouth ^. The lower 

 part of our descent was variegated with pclargonia, the digitalis 

 purpurea, and various composite, umbclliferte, and feryis ; the two 

 latter extending to the bed of the torrent, where they were 

 mingled with hepatica and water-cresses. The adiantum Africanum 

 grows abundantly, and lines every httle cave hollowed out of the 

 rocks by the streams, but the inhabitants make no use of it ; pro- 

 bably, this species, although so similar to the a. capillus veneris, 



" We passed over several patches of red earth, apparently resulting from the decom- 

 position of the tufa and basalt, but it seemed to me, to be highly unfavourable to 

 vegetation. 



E2 



