Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/224

192 enchanting shadows on the mountain-sides and precipices, to the "dim religious light" of the sunset hour, when the lamp is replenished? For the sun is setting, and bathes the sea and coast in a glorious light, deepens the shade of the ravines, and shows off the dark, luxuriant foliage.

I can only venture upon describing a few of the excursions we were able to make during our stay at Madeira.

We started one fine morning in a boat with four oars and rowed from Funchal, coasting along near the cliff to Machico, which is twelve miles. Our men were chatty and communicative, and informed us that the devil came there at night when they were out fishing (I suppose originally the ingenious device of a smuggler); and their superstition was genuine. We had two hours of rough walking, when we arrived at Machico, and marched through the town with a hundred followers, all clamouring for money. We rejoined our boat at 4 p.m., in the greatest clatter of talk and laugh I ever heard. Our sailors, elated by two shillings'-worth of bad wine, were very chatty and vocal. We put up a sail, but there was not breeze enough to fill it. We chatted and read alternately; watched the beautiful hour that struggles between day and night—beautiful to the happy, and much to be dreaded to the desolate. The setting sun bathed the dark basalt and red tufa cliffs in his red and purple glory. The straggling white town glittered in the clear and brilliant light, with its dark green background. The mountain-edges were sharp against the clear, soft