gorgeous description.

The walls and roof were

profusely adorned with painting and gilding; the altar was decked with crucifixes, large candlesticks, chalices, and salvers, most of which were gilt, and boquets of beautiful flowers. Behind the altar was a sloping platform of very considerable extent, rising as it receded into a deep oval recess, and covered with a multitude of lighted candles. Pyramids of candles were fixed here and there over the walls, as well as on an iron railing which crossed at the bottom of the platform, to separate it from the body of the church. The officiating priests were three in number, attired in splendid robes of richly figured and embossed silk, of a primrose colour, with massy cords and tassels hanging over their shoulders. Portions of the dress of the principal priest were occasionally changed by his colleagues, and one of them at intervals, removed the spectacles from his nose, with the most ridiculous solemnity. Their persons, of the goodliest diameter, and their round rosy cheeks, contrasted most wonderfully with the scarecrow congregation below the railing. Their smooth shining bullet heads were surrounded with a ring of hair, and one of them resembled strongly the portrait of Louis the 18th. Two or three assistants in white robes attended beside them, and at one corner of the platform, stood a young man closely habited in black, with a candle larger than a walking stick in his hand, bowing, muttering,

and crossing himself, during the whole of the ceremony.

The service was high mass, that is, mass accompanied with singing; and however disgusting in other respects, the vocal music, with the accompaniment of the organ, was exceedingly fine. The melodious voices of a body of females rose from the lower end of the church, where, as I afterwards learned, were the nuns of an adjoining convent, shrouded behind a grating.

After consecrating the wine, in a gilt cup, the senior priest carried it down from the altar, one of the attendants then expanded over his head a large silk umbrella, of a similar texture to the robes, the other two priests followed behind him, and around were the whole body of assistants, carrying enormous wax candles. In this order the wine was paraded down to the bottom of the church, and back again, through the kneeling ranks of the congregation, who crossed themselves most zealously as it passed. By and by the same forin was repeated with the wafers, and part of them administered through the iron grating to the abbess and the nuns. At intervals, silver censers filled with glowing embers were handed to the priests, and clouds of incense were offered before the altar.

I could not help remarking that the priests with all their assumed solemnity and devotion, seemed somewhat at a loss to keep it up. One of them eyed us askance with considerable intentness dur

ing the greater part of the time, and both of the less active ones whispered occasionally to each other, and to the assistants, in a trifling and irreverent manner. The ceremonial itself was far too stiff and fidgetting to be at all imposing; a priest pulling spectacles off another's nose, marching within doors under an umbrella, and shifting from one side to another like an awkward dancer in a minuet, seems a very probable means of exciting disgust, but a very improbable one of cherishing devotion. An indescribable sensation of uneasiness pervaded my mind, during all the time that we continued in this temple of superstition; and I was happy to escape from the sickening smell of the incense, and the smoky glimmering of the candles, to the freshness of the open air and the pure light of heaven.

We were next conducted to a nunnery; but a wrinkled portress, who answered our summons at the porch, told us that no strangers could be admitted during Lent. If all the nuns within resembled her, I thought there was but little need to be very careful in locking them up. By the side of the nunnery door was a kind of small barrel, filling an opening in the wall, and whirling round upon pivots at top and bottom; this is open at one side and fitted with shelves, so that an article may be conveyed out or in by turning it round, without the parties being seen by each other, and some mendicants were waiting in the porch to receive

NUNNERY-VILLA ORTA.

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alms from within, by means of this machine. The old lady before sending us away, gave us to understand, that the sisters made some fine artificial flowers, of which they would be happy to sell us a few.

Mr. D informed us, that seclusion in these nunneries was, in many cases, by no means a voluntary act; but parents who had several daughters, were often accustomed to force one or two of them to take the veil, that they might thus be enabled to give the others a more handsome marriage portion. The daughters of our northern isle may, perhaps, envy the natives of Fayal their ignorance of frost and snow, and all the rigours of our ungenial climate; but how grateful ought they to be, that they enjoy the far greater blessings of personal and religious freedom, and that we have been rescued from the unrelenting tyranny of so demoniacal a superstition.

Villa Orta, although of a showy appearance from the water, is in reality a confused and dirty town. The streets are narrow, crooked, and ill paved, the houses low and gloomy. The buildings are of stone, covered with tiles, and except the churches, in general but one story in height. The windows are covered externally by a projecting lattice, of crossed slips of wood, painted of a dark green colour, which conceals effectually those within. They are, however, capable of being opened outwards on hinges, and we frequently saw the inmates

peeping at us from behind them. One of the largest buildings, consisting of several stories, was formerly the Jesuits' college, but is now occupied by our kind entertainer, Mr. D, as a wine cellar, in which trade he is extensively engaged. The only carriages which I saw, were small clumsy carts drawn by two oxen. These singular machines consist of a bottom of solid boards, tapering out in front into a single shaft, with a few rude pins stuck into it to serve in place of sides ; the wheels are each of a single piece of solid wood with a thin outer edge, and have heavy iron nails hammered into the circumference, as a substitute for rings; they are fixed immovably to the axle, which revolves along with them, within a small box passing under the cart. No mercy is shown to the poor animals which drag them; we saw them urged with heavy blows and loud vociferations, while the wretched cart went wriggling through deep ruts, under the most disproportioned loads.

The Azores are subject to Portugal, and the language of that country is universally spoken. The natives are slender, but well made. The men wear cotton jackets and trowsers, and some who had come from the country with cattle for sale, carried a long staff or pole in their hands. The women are more fantastically attired. Some are completely shrouded in large blue cloaks, somewhat resembling in shape, the red duffles of our native country, but much more ample in their folds ;