FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 291 
somed broom, blue-flowering flax, and the con- 
trasting green of lupines, beans, Indian corn, 
and potatoes, There is not a blade of genuine 
grass on the island, except on the Consul’s lawn, 
but the ground is covered with red heather, low 
Jaya bushes, — whence the name of the island, 
—and a great variety of mosses. The cattle are 
fed on beans and lupines. Firewood is obtained 
from the opposite island of Pico, five miles off, 
and from the Caddeira or Crater, a pit five miles 
round and fifteen hundred feet deep, at the 
summit of Fayal, whence great fagots are 
brought upon the heads of men and girls. It 
is an oversight in the “New American Cyclo- 
pedia” to say of Fayal that “the chief object 
of agriculture is the vine,’ because there are 
not a half-dozen vineyards on the island, the 
soil being unsuitable; but there are extensive 
vineyards on Pico, and these are owned almost 
wholly by proprietors resident in Fayal. 
There is a succession of crops of vegetables 
throughout the year; peas are green in Janu- 
ary, which is, indeed, said to be the most ver- 
dant month of the twelve, the fields in summer 
becoming parched and yellow. The mercury 
usually ranges from 50° to 80° Fahrenheit, win- 
ter and summer; but we were there during an 
unusually cool season, and it went down to 45°. 
This was regarded as very severe by the thinly 
