AND PORTO SANTO. 43 



a single and sudden turn transports us from brilliant sunshine to 

 a thick mist, from the deep shade of a laurel grove to the broad 

 light of an abrupt break, with a glimpse of the sea. Vast insulated 

 rocks raise their heads in broken turrets and spires, and look like 

 the ruined fortresses of some gigantic race, entombed beneath the 

 huge blocks of basalt, which have been sundered from the mass 

 above, and rolled down towards the valley. These immense frag- 

 ments, eternal monuments of " the wars between the torrents and 

 the mountains," seem, sometimes, to be so nicely balanced on a 

 single point, as only to await the violence of the storm to precipi- 

 tate them into the bed of the stream. The mouldering trunks of 

 large blasted trees contribute to the solemn grandeur of the scene, 

 which is varied in colour by the warm red of the tufa, the cold 

 grey of the basalt, the very different shades of the evergreens, 

 ferns, broom, and moss ; and the frost-hke, silvery appearance as- 

 sumed by the decayed heath trees. The moss, hi/pnum intricatum, 

 was the only one I could see or hear of; it abounds even at the 

 greatest heights, forming a rich, velvet-like verdure, when combined 

 with the smaller graminea, and the young shoots of the eriae, 

 wliich are so beautiful when putting out their first leaves ; this 

 hi/pnum also gi'ows on the thallus of the til lichen. Having reached 

 the bed of the torrent, we look around, and feel as if we were in an 

 amphitheatre of unscalable rocks, without a single outlet. The 

 small valley, through which a few miserable huts are thinly scat- 

 tered, presents flourishing vineyards, and smiling gardens of 

 cabbages, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes, (convolvulus batata). This 

 is the highest point at which the vine is cultivated in Madeira, 

 for making wine, and its success is entirely owing to the nuns 

 of Santa Clara (to whom this Courali belongs) having given up 



■I I have taken some pains to ascertain the meaning of the word Coural, which we 

 do not find in the Portuguese dictionaries, and am assured, on native authority, that, 

 coupled with dasFreiras, it means the " Nuns fold" i. e., the place of their retreat, 



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