FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 323 
the arched gateway ; to the tufa ledges near by, 
where the soft rocks are honeycombed with the 
cells hollowed by echini below the water’s edge, 
a fact then undescribed and almost unexam- 
pled, said Agassiz on our return ; to the lofty, 
lonely Monte da Guia, with its solitary chapel 
on the peak, and its extinct crater, where the 
sea rolls in and out; to the Dabney orange 
gardens, on Sunday afternoons; to the beauti- 
ful Mirante ravine, which we sought whenever 
a sudden rain had filled the cascades and set 
the watermills and the washerwomen all astir, 
and the long brook ran down in whirls of white 
foam to the waiting sea; or to the western 
shores of the island, where we felt like Ariad- 
nes, as we watched ships sailing away towards 
our distant home. 
And I must also pass over still greater 
things, —the winter storms and shipwrecks, 
whose annals were they not written by us to 
the New York “Tribune”? and the spring 
Sunday at superb Castello Branco, with the 
whole rural population thronging to meet in en- 
thusiastic affection the unwonted presence of the 
Consul himself, the feudalism of love ; and the 
ascent of the wild Caldeira, when we climbed 
height after height, leaving the valleys below 
mottled with blue-robed women spreading their 
white garments to dry in the sun, and the great 
