FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE 325 
where steam poured up between the stones, 
—and oh, from what wondrous central depths 
that steam came to us! There has been no 
eruption from any portion of Pico for many 
years, but it is a volcano still, and we knew 
that we were standing on the narrow and giddy 
summit of a chimney of the globe. That was a 
sensation indeed ! 
We saw many another wild volcanic cliff and 
fissure and cave on our two days’ tour round 
the island; but it was most startling when, on 
the first morning of that trip, as we passed 
through one of many soft green valleys, sud- 
denly all verdure and all life vanished, and we 
found ourselves riding through a belt of white, 
coarse moss stretching from mountain to sea, 
covering rock and wall and shed like snow or 
moonlight or mountain-laurel or any other pale 
and glimmering thing; and when, after miles 
of ignorant wonder, we rode out of it into green- 
ness again and were told that we had crossed 
what the Portuguese call a Misterio, or Mys- 
‘tery, —the track of the last eruption. The 
white moss was the first garment of vegetation, 
just clothing those lava rocks once more. 
But the time was coming when we must bid 
good-by to picturesque Fayal. We had been 
there from November, 1855, to May, 1856; it 
had been a winter of incessant rains, and the 
