NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 



177 



of steam with a slight sulphurous smell. A little further on there is a smaller 



spring in even more violent ebullition, tossing up a column five or six feet high ; 



and beyond this a vent opening into a kind of cavern, not inaptly called ' Bocco do 



Inferno,' which sends out water, loaded with grey mud, with a loud rumbling noise. 



The mud comes splashing out for a time almost uniformly, and with little commotion, 



and then, as if it had been gathering force, a jet is 



driven out with a kind of explosion to a distance 



of several yards. This spring, like all the others, 



is surrounded by mounds of siliceous sinter, and of 



lime and alumina and sulphur efflorescence. The 



mud is deposited from the water on the surface of 



the rock around in a smooth paste, which has a high 



character as a cure for all skin complaints. At first 



I could. not account for the grooves running in stripes 



all over the face of the rocks ; but I afterwards 



found that they were the marks of fingers collecting 



the mud, and I was told that such marks were more 



numerous on Sunday, when the country people came 



into the village to mass, than on any other day. 



"At a short distance from the ' Caldeiros ' a 

 spring gushes out from a crack in the rock of a cool 

 chalybeate water, charged with carbonic acid, and 

 with a slight dash of sulphuretted hydrogen. There 

 is a hot spring close beside it. The flavour of the 

 aerated water is rather peculiar at first, but in the 

 hot steamy sulphurous air one' soon comes to like its 

 coolness and freshness, and it seems to taste all the 

 better from the green cup, extemporised out of the 

 beautiful leaf of the Caladium. The warm water 

 from all the springs finds its way by various channels 

 to join the river Quente, which escapes out of the 

 ' Valley of the Caves,' at its northeastern end, and, 

 brawling down through a pretty wooded gorge, joins 

 the sea on the north coast about six miles from Villa 

 Franca." 



San Miguel is well cultivated. The orange groves (see fig. 77) are surrounded by high 

 walls or close set hedges, to protect the trees from the strong winds which prevail all the 

 winter. The fields of maize and corn are shielded from the wind by tall hedges of Reeds 

 (Arundo donax), and the appearance of the cornfields is peculiar, because a kind of 



Fig. 74. 



Araucaria cuokti, in the garden of 

 Don Jose do Canto, San Miguel. 

 (From a Photograph. ) 



(narr. CHALL. EXP. VOL. I. — 1884.) 



23 



