Mountains and Islands 



difficulty of access to them. It is a journey of 

 some three hours in a steam-launch from Fun- 

 chal to the usual landing-place, and if there is 

 much surf, landing there is by no means a 

 certainty at the end of it, and it may be neces- 

 sary to scramble ashore at the foot of some 

 inhospitable cliff, and make one's way up as 

 best one can. The islands have very little 

 vegetation and less fresh water, but goats arc 

 not very particular. The scenery has a very 

 weird, unfinished appearance, suggesting a pic- 

 ture of the world after the subsidence of the 

 Deluge. The usual method of shooting is to 

 take one's stand on the narrow plateau at the 

 top of the island, almost iioo feet above the 

 sea-level, and to shoot down at the goats which 

 are driven along the rocks almost perpen- 

 dicularly below — not a very easy kind of 

 shootino; for those unaccustomed to it. 



The caves of the larger island are inhabited 

 by a species of seal (Monac/ius albiventer)^ the 

 only mammal, with the exception of two species 

 of bat, indigenous to the Madeiras. Mr. 

 Yate Johnson states that the caves they haunt 

 have their mouths under water, and can only 

 be approached by diving. When the fishermen, 



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