we rested our man and beasts.

In the mean time we looked into the church, where a large silver lantern is shown, the gift of a native, who, after emigrating to the Brazils, returned a rich man, and presented the church of Cedros with this lamp. It is costly and clumsy,-but its being of silver seemed, in the eyes of the person showing it, to compensate for any want of taste in shape. Had the giver gone to the church of the Jesuits' college for his models, he could not have erred. Italy could not have furnished him with better.

After loitering about the village for some little time, looking over the grave-yard wall at a pompous fussy turkey-cock, who strutted over the graves and gobble-gobbled with much importance, and thinking how inappropriate a bird he was to be in such a plàce,—we were touched on the elbow by a man with a bunch of keys in his hand, who, with an air of grave politeness, requested we would come to his house, which was near, and have some wine and refreshments. We thanked him, and declined. But he was so importunate, that, for the sake of peace, we followed him by the church-door to his cottage. His wife was sitting in her window working.

AMUSING FINESSE.

21

She welcomed us and bade us be seated, with as much self-composure and easy civility as any other well-bred person would have done; and, her husband being the sexton of the church, and keeper of the keys, she began to talk about the lamp and other matters, while he handed down biscuits and wine, and pressed us to smoke. After we had sat some little time, thinking how civil and disinterestedly attentive the people were, some signs passed between husband and wife on our rising to go, and suddenly, from a door behind, a sickly child and elderly woman appeared.

"That gentleman is a doctor?" said the sexton to me, pointing to one of our party, who was a medical man.

"Yes," I answered.

"And we have no surgeon here," he added, taking hold of the child by the shoulders, and showing its chest, which was unnaturally large.

All in the room then came round to listen to the questions of the physician. The pallid child was prescribed for,-the old woman came in for her share, the lugubrious sexton himself begged a prescription, and the quiet wife, who had sat so unmoved in the window, came forward, when all

22

BUCKETS AND POTTERY.

was done, to describe some symptom of her own. We left in great good humour, much amused at their clever finesse.

The women, the cattle, poultry, and children, shunned us in our ride round Fayal, as if strangers were seldom seen there; but the cottages of the poor had less the appearance of poverty about them than in the villages of St. Michael's, where the people are less shy.

The red pottery used for water-carrying in St. Michael's is wanting here, and in its place conical buckets of a clumsy construction are made use of. I shall not soon forget the pleasure experienced in seeing the first water-pitcher when we landed on that island. It was on the head of a woman, thinly clad in loose linen; her petticoat and shawl clung to her figure, and fell over it in folds, like the drapery on a statue. She passed lightly across the top of a street, and was out of sight in an instant. One bright spot upon the wet pitcher twinkled in the sun,- her hand was just raised to steady her burden, and nothing but her single arm and naked feet was to be seen. She walked erect and fearlessly along, with unconscious grace, until, stooping with her pitcher, she turned into her small cottage. In place of

GENTLEMAN FARMER.

23

these vessels, which are as classical in shape as an antique urn, the people here use a wooden bucket with a broad bottom and narrow mouth, made on a plan of the vulgarest utility.

The breed of cattle in Fayal, though small, is particularly good. We noticed between Cedros and Horta some cows, which, in beauty of shape and sleekness of skin, it would be difficult to match even in England.

66

Passing through several plantations of Fayas, as we approached the city, we met some few persons coming out for an evening ride. One of these was a type of a class of small proprietors in the islands, who rank a little lower than the "morgados," and probably answer to that class who are called with us gentlemen farmers." He was finely dressed in shabby clothes, with a military cap, long mustachios; and wore one lanky silver spur strapped to his right boot. His semitheatrical half-military manner, and showy longtailed piebald, reminded us of one of Astley's men, airing a saddled circus horse; the pannel commonly used here, being somewhat similar to the padded saddle, on which the genus Ducrow perform their feats of horsemanship. He bowed well, and clattering and slipping over the stony

24

OUTSKIRTS OF HORTA.

road, as the horse ambled down the hill, was

speedily gone.

The next people we met were a man and his wife, jogging out on an airing. The man was mounted on a high bay horse, like a faded mourning-coach horse, turned rusty by age and long exposure to the sun; the wife under a wide umbrella, spread to keep her from occasional slight showers, sat sideways on a quiet black ass, which kept a-head, bustling and jerking along when it expected to be outstripped. The man and his wife having passed, and bows having been properly exchanged, there followed a few men and women, with wood and baskets balanced. on their heads; and presently we were among the houses and cottages on the outskirts of the city; and, descending a short hill, we came once more into the forlorn streets of Horta, which the heavy rain, that still remained in large puddles in the streets, had swept of all living objects save an occasional cur. The night was coming on apace, and we were not sorry to halt once more at our inn door. We found our fiddle-faddle landlord with his cheerful face, in a state of the greatest possible excitement and flurry about a festival in which he was to act a prominent part;