144 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



Between Canifal and Machico are frequent vertical surfaces of 

 alternations of tufa and basalt, from 300 to 500 feet high, and 

 ribbed by longitudinal dikes, sometimes bifurcated downwards, 

 but never upwards. Close to the little bay of Machico there 

 is a grand slip from the eastward of 45°. I had been compelled to 

 put into Machico in my way to Canif al, to see the Portuguese 

 gentleman who gave me the letter to the vicar. He was 

 evidently the chief proprietor, as well as the chief magistrate of 

 the place, and seemed to live in a sort of slovenly plentifulness. 

 His house was comfortable, and the room I saw tolerably clean ; 

 but in the passage or small hall, there was a handsome lamp, 

 (certainly the only one out of Funchal) the glass covered within 

 with accumulated stalactites of grease, and a miserable tallow-can- 

 dle, about the size of a rush-light, half burnt, and leaning out of 

 the socket against the glass. A good humoured, but dirty female 

 servant, of square dimensions, received me without stays or hand- 

 kerchief, her brawny brown back crossed by the strings, but not 

 covered by the body of her gown; and the valet, an old dwarf, 

 followed wherever he went by two or three mongrel puppies, 

 waited on us without shirt or shoes, leaving his blue cloth jacket 

 half open for coolness' sake. The master (who seemed an excel- 

 lent tempered man, and who decided lots of disputes and com- 

 plaints during the two hours of my stay, his door being actually 

 besieged by petitioners) pressed me to stay to breakfast in so 

 obliging a manner that I could not refuse, and after an hour's 

 preparation, I was regaled with excellent green tea, hung beef, 

 fresh eggs, bread and butter, and Lisbon sweet cakes and biscuits 

 in a fossil state. As I sat at the window during the din of prepa- 

 ration, " sighing my soul out to Cani^al," where I feared to arrive 

 too late in the day, and contemplating the picturesque peaks 

 which frown upon the burial-place of the unfortunate Anna, I 



