MADEIRA. 15 
several hundred feet below, and with its pinnacles reaching the 
clouds. The path around this bluff, which is only wide enough for 
one at a time, is a good specimen of the roads around the island. It 
has been worked with great labour, and made quite easy to travel 
by its zigzag direction. The feeling of insecurity to those who 
are unaccustomed to these mural precipices, with the extended 
ocean lying far beneath, serves to give additional interest to the 
scene. 
To the plate of this pass, facing page 1, the reader is referred for a 
correct representation of the same. 
They passed through several villages, all prettily situated, among 
which was Porto Delgada, and about sunset arrived at San Vincente. 
At Porto Delgada, their guides would not allow them to stop, as it 
was necessary to descend and pass along the rocky shore before the 
tide came in. They succeeded in passing safely, but were kept on 
the qui vive by the numerous stories detailed by their guides of the 
accidents that had occurred there. The road to this part of the 
island is little frequented by strangers, of whom only three are said 
to have visited San Vincente during four months. 
On their arrival they found Padre Jacinto engaged at prayers. 
After his duties were finished he received them kindly, and 
accommodated them for the night. San Vincente is but a small 
village of fifteen houses, a chapel, and a distillery, in which, during 
the season, they make between four and five hundred gallons of 
brandy a day. As Padre Jacinto could not speak a word of 
English, they had but little conversation with him. However, a 
little Spanish on both sides, with gesticulations, enabled them to 
pass the usual compliments, and to obtain the requisite directions 
for their proceeding back to Funchal on the next day. They were 
kindly and hospitably entertained by the Padre, and left him with 
many thanks for his kindness. Taking the road or rather path 
across to the Curral, they passed over a most beautiful country, 
meeting with the gigantic virgin forests of laurels, sixty feet high 
and four feet in diameter, and occasionally woods of arborescent 
heaths, of equally surprising size with those they had seen the day 
before, in their journey across the island, further to the eastward. 
No traces of distinct craters were found on any part of the island 
they visited ; the rocks were composed of volcanic breccia, and the 
surface of these was much decomposed. 
The mountain paths by which they crossed, are almost inaccessible 
