CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 115 



About four leagues north-east from Villa Franca lies a place 

 called the Furnas, being a round deep valley in the middle of the 

 east part of the island, surrounded with high mountains, which 

 though steep, may be easily ascended on horseback by two roads* 

 The valley is about five or six leagues in circuit ; the face of the 

 mountains, which are very steep, is entirely covered with beautiful 

 evergreens, viz. myrtles, laurels, a large species of bilberry, called 

 uva de serra, or mountain grapes, &c. and numberless rivulets of 

 the purest water run down their sides. The valley below is well 

 cultivated, producing wheat, Indian com, flax, &c. The fields 

 are planted round with a beautiful sort of poplars, which grow 

 into pyramidal form, and by tljeir careless, irregular disposition, 

 together with the multitude of rivulets, which run in all directions 

 through the valley, a number of boiling fountains, throwing up 

 clouds of steam, a fine lake in the south-west part about two 

 leagues round, compose a prospect the finest that can be imagined. 

 In the bottom of the valley the roads are smooth and easy, there 

 being no rocks but a fine pulverized pumice stone that the earth is 

 composed of. 



There are a number of hot fountains in different parts of the 

 valley, and also on the sides of the mountains : but the most re- 

 markable is that called the Caldeira, situated in the eastern part of 

 the valley, on a small eminence by the side of a river, on which is 

 a bason about 30 feet diameter, where the water continually boils 

 with prodigious fury. A few yards distant from it is a cavern in 

 the side of the bank, .in which the water boils in a dreadful manner, 

 throwing out a thick, muddy, unctuous water, several yards from 

 its mouth, with a hideous noise. In the middle of the river are 

 several places where the water boils up so hot, that a person can- 

 not dip his finger into it without being scalded ; also along it's 

 banks are several apertures, out of which the steam rises to a con- 

 siderable height, so hot that there is no approaching it with one's 

 hand : in other places, a person would think, that a hundred smiths' 

 bellows were blowing together, and sulphureous streams issuing out 

 in thousands of places, so that native sulphur is found in every 

 chink, and the ground covered with it -like hoar frost ; even the 

 bushes near these places are covered with pure brimstone, condens- 

 ing from the stream that issues out of the ground, which in many 

 places is covered over with a substance like burnt alum. In these 



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