ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 115 



would be fit to return our expected salute, and 

 seemed glad when told that as a surveying- ship 

 we were exempted from saluting- the flags of other 

 nations. A sea wall runs along- the face of the 

 town ; parallel with this is the principal street, with 

 others at right angles extending up the hill. The 

 narrow streets are clean and well paved, — the 

 houses, generally of one story, are built of tough 

 g-rey trachyte. 



Almost every inch of available ground upon the 

 island of Fayal has been turned to good account : 

 Indian corn is the chief agricultural product. With 

 our usual bad fortune in this respect we were too late 

 for the grapes and the oranges had not yet come in. 

 The lower grounds are divided into small enclosures 

 by stone walls, and subdivided by rows of a tall 

 stout reed (Arundo donax), resembling sugar cane. 

 Although taxes and other burthens are heavy, and 

 wages very low, yet to a mere visitor like myself 

 there appeared none of those occasional signs of 

 destitution which strike one in walking- through a 

 town at home, nor did I see a single beggar. 



In Fayal and Pico the most careless observer from 

 the anchorage of Horta can scarcely fail to associate 

 the number of smooth conical hills with former 

 volcanic activity ; and in looking- over Capt. Vidal's 

 beautiful charts of the Azores, nearly all the 

 principal hills throughout the group are seen to 

 have their craters or caldeiras. Fayal exhibits a fine 

 specimen of one of these caldeiras in the central and 



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