; B16 T. E. Bowditch, Esq. On the Geognosy of 
and Porto Santo have yielded, lest there should be more delay 
than I anticipate in the publication of my detailed description of 
these islands. The sketch of a Flora, and the fuller report on the 
geographical distribution of plants in Madeira, which I have al- 
ready forwarded to Sir Humphry Davy and the Cambridge 
Philosophical Society, make it unnecessary to say any thing 
more just now on either head, unless it be to remark that I 
have since found the I satis tinctoria, and a male Date-tree, 
neither of which I had then met with. 
I must premise that it is my present intention, and I hope to 
persevere throughout my journey, (even should it be extended 
some years by the support of the Government), to accompany the 
MSS. I may send home from time to time, by accurate drawings 
of the most interesting of those new objects of Natural History 
I may meet with in the different parts of Africa I hope to be per- 
mitted and enabled to visit. It takes away very much from the 
usefulness of a journey, when it is attempted to save the trouble of 
making drawings, by substituting for that concise description of 
the object which will suffice with a good figure, a tiresome verbal 
detail of minutiae, wholly uninteresting, and frequently unintelli- 
gible without the aid of the pencil. The only probable difficulty 
is, that no publisher will undertake to go to the expence of having 
these figures engraved ; and that they may thus be lost to the 
naturalist and others, who would feel an interest in referring to 
them, as illustrations of the text. Contemplating this probability, 
I have determined to obviate it in some degree, by regularly trans- 
mitting one set of these drawings to Sir Humphry Davy, to de- 
posit wherever he thinks they may be most readily and conve- 
niently consulted by the naturalists of my own country, who will 
always find them numbered, so as to correspond with the referen- 
ces in the text of my travels. I shall also transmit a duplicate set 
of these drawings, to be deposited for the same purpose in the 
library of the French Institute. The two sets of 107 figures, (se- 
veral of which are coloured) referred to in this first part, have 
been forwarded with the manuscript. 
Not daring to venture as far as the granite rocks of Cintra, 
(which are about 1600 feet above the level of the sea), from the 
hourly expectation of the departure of the vessel to Madeira, I 
contented myself with crossing the river to Almada. The forma- 
2 
