io ENGLAND TO RIO DE JANEIRO CHAP, i 



not a little on our peculiar excellence in that production. 

 The fat of this was white, like the fat of mutton, but the 

 meat brown and coarse-grained as ours, though much 

 smaller. 



The town of Funchiale is situated at the bottom of the 

 bay, very ill-built, though larger than the size of the island 

 seems to deserve. The houses of the better people are in 

 general large, but those of the poorer sort very small, and 

 the streets very narrow and uncommonly ill-paved. The 

 churches here have abundance of ornaments, chiefly bad 

 pictures, and figures of their favourite saints in laced clothes. 

 The Convent of the Franciscans, indeed, which we went to 

 see, had very little ornament ; but the neatness with which 

 those fathers kept everything was well worthy of commenda- 

 tion, especially their infirmary, the contrivance of which 

 deserves to be particularly noticed. It was a long room ; 

 on one side were windows and an altar for the convenience 

 of administering the sacrament to the sick, on the other 

 were the wards, each just capable of containing a bed, and 

 lined with white Dutch tiles. To every one of these was a 

 door communicating with a gallery which ran parallel to the 

 great room, so that any of the sick might be supplied with 

 whatever they wanted without disturbing their neighbours. 



In this convent was a curiosity of a very singular nature : 

 a small chapel whose whole lining, wainscot and ceiling, was 

 entirely composed of human bones, two large thigh bones 

 being laid crossways, with a skull in each of the openings. 

 Among these was a very singular anatomical curiosity : a 

 skull in which one side of the lower jaw was perfectly and 

 very firmly fastened to the upper by an ossification, so that 

 the man, whoever he was, must have lived some time without 

 being able to open his mouth ; indeed it was plain that a 

 hole had been made on the other side by beating out his 

 teeth, and in some measure damaging his jawbone, by which 

 alone he must have received his nourishment. 



I must not leave these good fathers without mentioning 

 a thing which does great credit to their civility, and at the 

 same time shows that they are not bigots in their religion. 



