DOUBTLESS, my dear reader, you have before now been condemned to spend a wet day at a solitary country inn. Did you ever spend a wet week in one? Did you ever come down, either on business or pleasure, for a week's exploration of a pleasant country, and find yourself reduced to a seat at the window, watching the slanting rain beating on the puddly road, the turbid eddies of the swollen river, and the mists and clouds brushing along the wooded banks of the valley, and shrouding in a leaden pall all the higher ground about it? Trusting to the promised fine weather, you have brought no books nor any other means of in-door employment; you are the sole guest in the inn, which has itself no means of internal amusement; and you are bound to wait in listless expectation your appointed time, on the chance of each succeeding day being fine enough for the purpose you have in view. Such was my hapless condition for the last day or two, when lo! this morning I stumbled on an old note-book that by some chance had concealed itself in my portmanteau, and found it to contain the record of a voyage made, now, alas! nearly twelve long years ago, into warm seas and sunny lands. The perusal of this has brought back to my recollection glowing scenes that have served to brighten and dispel the gloom that was gathering round my imagination; and I would fain attempt, kind reader, to impart to you, at this dull, dead season of the year, something of the same pleasant feeling that is now playing upon my own fancy, and which, perhaps, like a mental aurora, may lighten the darkness of a wintry hour by a few flashes and gleams of reflected illumination.

It was on a Sunday afternoon, the 11th of April, 1842, that we sailed from Falmouth, in H. M. S. Musca, Captain Darkwood, bound on a long voy

age of exploration. The shores of Cornwall were then streaked and spotted with snow; and we, who were fitted out solely for the tropics, and had accordingly no stoves on board, had been blowing our fingers and stamping our feet on deck for the last week or two, under the influence of a keen and frosty north-east wind — we were not sorry, therefore, to find ourselves at last flying before it for the more genial south. Many travellers relate, with much real or pretended sentiment, the feelings of regret and reluctance with which, as they depart, they look back at the blue shores of their native land fading from their sight. I am afraid it may seem very "matter of fact," but I really cannot pretend either to have experienced anything of this feeling myself, or to have seen any one else apparently under its influence, nor did a whisper of the kind ever meet my ears at the time. As I had long made up my mind to go, the only feeling I seemed to experience, on this or other similar occasions, was one of satisfaction that the bustle and bother of preparation were over at last, and the start fairly made.

There comes a time indeed when, after long years of absence, the remembrance of that hour, the thought of the blue headlands that were all then visible of our native home, rises strongly, painfully in the mind, with a fond yearning to see them once again, and a joyous anticipation of the time when they shall hourly grow more and more visible on the horizon; and I believe that the feelings of the one time are, by a common self-delusion, translated to the other, and thus confounded together in the memory. However that may be, we flew eagerly and joyously before the north-east wind across the Bay of Biscay, into the wide Atlantic; and on the dawn of the following Sunday morning, April 18th, had the island of Madeira

broad on our lee-bow. We were on the north-western side of the island, and all we saw of it at first was a long dark shore, shrouded in mist and cloud; but about eight o'clock we rounded the south-western corner of the island, and sailed at once into a different clime. We appeared to pass suddenly, in the course of half an hour, from the dark, cold, gloomy north, into the warm, sunny, and genial south. Our course lay close along the southern shore of the island. This consisted for the most part of lofty and precipitous cliffs of red tufaceous volcanic rock, interstratified with large beds of black columnar basalt. They were frequently broken through by the mouths of small valleys, issuing out of the lofty interior of the island, the ground of which slopes steeply towards the sea, furrowed and indented everywhere by these deep incisions. Each of the ridges ended in a cliff, and each ravine had its little central gully, down which leapt a silver thread of water, forming often a succession of cascades, and sometimes flinging at last its bright waters over a lower cliff into the sea. In the larger of these ravines now and then arose a conical peak, or jutting brow, with a dark, precipitous face frowning over the deep, narrow valley below. All the tops of these hills and ridges were brown and bare; lower down they were clothed with pines or other trees, many of which were now leafless; below these again the ground was parcelled out into small enclosures and rows of trellis-work for the vines; while in the bottoms of the valleys, and in a lovely fringe along the shore was a rich and luxuriant vegetation of broad-leaved bananas, and groves of laurels and oranges and other southern trees and plants. On the slopes, among the vines, were sprinkled a few white houses and cottages, with many small, round, thatched huts; while at the mouths of the principal valleys were small villages gleaming from among the trees, with their modest churches and prettylooking bridges across the larger brooks. After feasting our eyes for some time on this beautiful landscape, and being interested by the admirable sections exposed in the cliffs, where the different layers and masses of rock were often cut through by narrow intersecting dykes, we anchored at Funchal about noon, and soon afterwards landed for a walk about the town.

Our passage had been so rapid, and we had brought so much of the northern atmosphere and temperature along with us, that stepping ashore at Funchal was like walking suddenly on a wintry day into a great hot-house or conservatory, except that, along with the warmth, we felt none of the close, stifling atmosphere of those places. A rich,

warm, genial air played among the leaves of the trees, the bright sunlight flashed from whitened wall and windowpane, birds sang and flowers bloomed around us, and the glowing light and deep, broad shadows revealed for the first time, to my eyes at least, that those features were not exaggerated in Italian and other pictures of a southern clime.

At

Of Funchal I shall not attempt to give any description. The whole island of Madeira is only one great mountain, with many valleys, radiating from the centre to the sea. one part of the coast, where the slope of the hills is a little more accessible than usual, and where a rather longer pebble beach intervenes between two rocky headlands, lies the town of Funchal; its steep streets, and terraces of houses, running and straggling right up the hills from the beach, to an indefinite altitude; while far away above the town are still seen white houses and convents, among the wooded recesses of the mountain's side.

I cannot resist, however, giving a slight sketch of our ride to the Corral, one of the lions of Madeira.

Thirteen of us, lieutenants, middies, and all, landed one morning on the beach, were immediately assailed by a cloud of light horsemen, called burruqueros, and were each incontinently mounted on the outside of a small horse, with an attendant hanging on by his tail. The horses were good, spirited little things, marvellously surefooted, to assist which quality their shoes are turned up at the ends, so as to form actual spikes.

The burruqueros are light, active fellows, each dressed in a white frock and trowsers, with boots of untanned leather, and a small conical cap of blue and red cloth on the head. They carried a long spiked stick, which they used, either to urge on the horse, or to assist themselves in springing up the rocks, clinging to the horse's tail by the other hand.

We gallopped up the steep paved

streets of the town, and then over several ridgy rocks to the west, till we stopped at about five miles, to bait at a small "venda," or wine shop. We then turned up a little valley, and crossing a bridge at its head, rode right up the shoulder of a black precipice, along a little narrow winding ledge. I sat on my horse for a little time, in order to see what the animal really could do, and found it springing up the rocks and clutching hold of the slippery crags, more like a kitten than a horse, till a combination of fear and shame-shame at thus tasking the animal's energies, and fear at the inevitable consequences if they should happen to fail, impelled me to dismount.

From the summit of this ridge, we looked down into a magnificent gorge, coming right out of the interior towards the sea, in the depths of which, several hundred feet below us, ran a rapid brook, now gleaming among the dark precipices, and now hidden by dense foliage. Up this ravine our path now turned. -a narrow track, coasting along the sides of the mountain, and winding gradually deeper and deeper into its recesses. After passing across the bed of a torrent, where our horses again astonished us by the way in which they stepped from stone to stone, and scrambled up smooth sheets of lava, slippery with wet, we came to a neck of land, where a bold spur struck out from the mountain's side, right across the ravine, as if intending to reach to its opposite side. From the neck of this spur, we looked down into a huge circular valley, the bottom of which was 1,500 feet below us, environed by great precipices of black lava and basalt, that led up to bare mountains, the summits of which are more than 5,000 feet above the sea.

Several brooks coming from these mountains leaped down the black sides of the precipices, and hurried their united waters through a very narrow gorge, intervening between the spur on which we stood and the opposite wall of the ravine, up which we had come. If it were not for that gorge the Corral would be a great circular lake. The bottom of the valley consisted of green fields and groves of trees, among which were visible the white walls of a small village, and a little chapel or church.

After standing for a few minutes in wondering admiration of this very

striking scene, our attendants became anxious for us to proceed. "Go onwhere? and how?" we all exclaimed ; whereupon one or two of them rushing forward, disappeared over the face of the precipice at our feet, and the rest urged us to follow them on horseback. "Look before you leap," is an old and a safe adage; so, dismounting, I gave my horse to the burruquero, and peeped over; and finding a mere winding broken ledge, partly of rocky steps, and covered with loose stones, and requiring careful walking for even a man to keep his footing, I declined to trust my neck even to the sure foot of a Madeirese pony, where one false step might send one flying through a thousand feet of clear air, before again alighting on terra firma.

I accordingly led the way on foot, and my example was followed by my shipmates. In going down I often paused to look back overhead, and admire the wonderfully picturesque sight of our party, consisting of a dozen naval officers, thirteen horses, and about twenty guides, all one above another, winding in short turns down the face of the precipice.

Arrived at more level ground, we again galloped forward, frequently stopping to look at the beautiful scenery by which we were surrounded, where the utmost grandeur of outline and feature, and sternness of character in the rocks, were clothed, and concealed, and adorned by all that was lovely and luxuriant in foliage. One huge precipice of black rock I especially remember, that was draped all over by a thick matting of ferns and creepers, behind which a cascade seemed to be trickling down the cliff, and distilling from every leaf of the plants.

Threatening clouds which we had before seen gathering round the heights of the mountains now began to settle down into the valley, and shortly saluted us with a pelting shower; so we set spurs to our little steeds, and galloped up to the chapel, and threw ourselves bodily on the hospitality of the padre, or priest of the valley. He, good man, though a little overwhelmed by the numbers and the noisiness of his guests, did all he could for ussupplied us with a table and benches, and some awfully sour red wine, that seemed as if made from grapes that had been brought up in a fog. Luckily we had brought some bread and meat, and