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SUPPLEMENT. 



rxAVING unexpectedly procured a letter to the Vicar of 

 Canical, about fifteen miles from Funchal, and the last village 

 towards the eastern end of the island, from which it is not much 

 more than three miles distant, I hastened to explore its eastern 

 environs. I quitted Funchal at half past three in the morning, but 

 did not arrive at Canif al until mid-day, having been detained at 

 Machico. It is a small and scattered assemblage of miserable 

 huts, like a Hottentot kraal, into which the inhabitants seem to 

 creep for shelter rather than comfort. I surprised the good 

 vicar intent on his only book, the Filosofia moral, in a small but 

 dry room, tacked on to the church, and reached by a flight of 

 steps, as if it were the belfry. He received me very kindly, 

 covered his little table with excellent bread and cheese, wines, and 

 marmalade, and ordered an intelligent, active lad to accompany 

 me in my ramble towards Porto Louren^o. 



We had followed a rough track, on the margin of shallow cliffs 

 of alternations of tufa and basalt, for abovit a mile and a half, when 

 we reached a depression, more like a basin than a plain, covered 

 with a deep bed of loose and agglutinated sand. These sands 

 have in some degree been fixed or bound by the numerous bran- 

 ches of forest-trees which they have enveloped, for these branches 

 (which have preserved their lateral twigs) are so numerous, that 



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