AND PORTO SANTO. 53 



bed, old wine, and fresh marmalade to any welcome guest. An 

 insulated hollow rock stood on the beach at the mouth of the 

 torrent, and with the simple addition of a door and a few steps, 

 had been converted into a chapel ; 



the vast cliff of tufa on the east, seemed to threaten to over- 

 whelm it. 



I met the Padre, a very respectable looking man, taking his 

 evening walk, with, as I was afterwards told, the principal family 

 of the neighbourhood. The old lady seemed to be asserting her 

 right to an interference in some of the affairs of the parish ; two 

 awkward-looking young men followed at a short distance, arm in 

 arm, and left a handsome-looking girl to walk behind them, entirely 

 alone ; she returned the salutations of the peasantry with the 

 prettiest grace imaginable. Perhaps this poor girl was destined 

 to be thrown away on one of the insensible beings who were 

 strutting before her, for choice has nothing to do with Portuguese 

 marriages, until widowhood leaves a female her own mistress. I 

 was favoured with a bow by each of the party, although my white 

 jacket and trowsers, so nearly approaching the garb of the pea- 

 santry, did not entitle me to it, in the first instance ; I would have 

 gone without my supper, hungry as I was, to have been allowed 

 to pass the evening with them. I took up my quarters for the 

 night in the remaining part of the habitation of the ancestors of 

 a lady, whose weekly quadrille parties, and brilliant annual ball, I 



