46 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



although shivering with cold the whole way. One slip would have 

 been a slip into eternity ; but the thought of danger was diverted 

 by the clouds which were still rising out of the valley, and which, 

 frequently conceahng the precipices the torch would otherwise 

 have disclosed, seemed to assure our steps by the impression, that 

 we were riding on the margin of some vast rocky lake. My guide 

 tied a handkerchief over his head, leaving it to float out behind 

 from beneath his sharp pointed cap, tucked up his trowsers, pulled 

 up his swarthy boots, which looked like a skin shrivelled and 

 discoloured with age and dirt, let his shirt hang loose over his 

 waistband, and waving the torch every touch and turn to keep it 

 in, preceded me, looking like the most haggard of wizards : as I 

 shrunk from the breeze and looked around me, I could not but 

 recall the words of Ossian, " Ghosts ride on clouds, and fly upon the 

 winds, and meet together in some secret cave to talk of mortal 

 man." I arrived at Mr. Veitch's quinta in about three hours. 



My next attempt was more successful. I slept in the Coural the 

 night before, and starting before sunrise, was on the top of the 

 Pico Ruivo by half past nine in the morning. We passed through 

 thickets of the clethra arboreal vaccinium cappadocium, and laurels, 

 before we reached the arborescent heaths, which contribute with 

 the thick grass to give the peak its unusual verdure : the mentha 

 and melissa shed their fragrance even on the summit, and the 

 purple digitalis presented itself very nearly as high. There was 

 not a cloud to be seen when we first arrived, and the broken vol- 

 canic peaks, the abrupt breaks, and deep abysses, which met the 

 eye in every direction, almost led me to feel like one who, sur- 

 viving some great convulsion of nature, had crawled to the highest 

 eminence to contemplate the ruins of a divided continent. The 



' This clethra does not seem to me to have been well described, or else it is a 

 different species : it has no bracteee, the ovary is covered with hairs, and the stigma is 

 forked at the top. 



