AND PORTO SANTO. 41 



of basalt and tufa, the former covered with greyish-green patches 

 of crustaceous hchens. The erica scoparia, and the arborescent 

 heath, (one of which measured eight feet in circumference,) were 

 mingled with the laurels on the sides of the precipices, and in 

 every sheltered nook. A beautiful lichen', (belonging to the idio- 

 thalames of Acharius,) grew luxuriantly on the til laurel. But 

 the wonder and admiration we first bestow on the majesty of the 

 scene is, in the next moment, eqvially excited by the roads, which 

 the ingenuity and, perseverance of man has created here ; hewing 

 them out of vertical faces of solid rock, projecting them by 

 walls and earth from the very sides of impending crags, and join- 

 ing peaks and gaps, which nature seemed to have disunited for 

 ever, as monuments of the great convulsion which rent the bosom 

 of the island. The engineer, Don Joze d' Alfonseca, has immorta- 

 lized himself by this daring and useful undertaking, which has 

 connected the whole island ; the inland barriers, between the 

 various points, having been hitherto pronounced insurmountable, 

 as well as impassable, and a great part of the interior being con- 

 sequently neglected and unknown ™. 



Having rode for some time in a northward direction, we turn 

 to the east, and wind along the very brink of the perpendicular 

 precipices, which, like narrow walls, divide the more terrific 

 scenery of the southern abyss, from the milder beauties of the 

 northern. The first of these dividing ridges, for there are three, 

 pretty nearly equal in height, is 4161 feet above the sea, and 2081 

 above the bottom of the southern Coural. The temperature at 



' Genus. Frondes coriaceae, complanatse, in lobis verrucosis divisae, et farina atra 

 fronde inspersa, subtus virides. Scutellse super marginemfrondis sessiles, fusc£e, cum 

 margine pallido. 



" These roads occupied about three years in making, and were finished in 1817. 

 Every man was obliged to contribute a dollar, or two days' labour. The work was 

 frequently carried on by means of scaffoldings from the rocks and precipices. 



G 



