8 
MADEIRA. 
a kind of altar, but what the subject is intended to represent 
I am really at a loss to decide. A figure in the picture, 
intended probably for St. Francis, the patron saint, seems to 
be intent on trying in a balance the comparative weight of a 
sinner and a saint. But the very accurate drawing from 
which the annexed print was taken, and with which I have 
been favoured by Mr. Daniell, Avill perhaps best explain 
the subject. A dirty lamp suspended from the ceiling, and 
just glimmering in the socket, served dimly to light up this 
dismal den of skulls. The old monk who attended as shew- 
man was very careful to impress us with the idea that they 
w ere all relics of holy men who had died on the island ; but 
I suspect they must occasionally have robbed the church- 
yard of a few lay-brethren, and perhaps now and then of a 
heretic, (as strangers are interred in their burying ground,) in 
order to accumulate such a prodigious number which, on a 
rough computation, I should suppose to amount to at least 
three thousand. The skull of one of the holy brotherhood 
was pointed out as having a lock-jaw, which occasioned his 
death; and, from the garrulity of our attendant, I have na 
doubt we migl'it have heard the history of many more equally 
important, which, though thrown away upon us who had no 
taste for craniology, would, in all probability, have been 
highly interesting to Doctor Gall, the famous lecturer on 
skulls in Vienna. On taking leave we deposited our mite 
on the altar, as charity to the convent, which seems to be 
the principal object in view of collecting and exhibiting this 
memento mori of the monastic and mendicant order of St» 
Francis. 
