Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/225

Rh sky. That indescribable atmosphere which blackens the ravines and softens all the other beauties came over the island. The evening star was as large and brilliant as the Koh-i-noor; and the full moon, rising gradually from behind Cape Garajāo, poured its beams down the mountain, and threw its track upon the sea. As we neared Funchal the aromatic smell of the land was wafted toward us, and with it a sound of the tinkling of bells; and a procession of torches wound like a serpent out of a church on a rock overhanging the sea. It was the Blessed Sacrament being carried to a dying man.

Our second boat excursion was to Cape Giram, a cliff some two thousand feet high, with the appearance of having been originally a high hill, cut in two by some convulsion of Nature. There was a lovely waterfall, and its silvery foam absolutely looked artificial, like the cascade of a theatre, as it streamed incessantly down a bed of long grass of a very pretty green, which it seemed to have made for itself to course down. I had no idea of the height; but having suddenly exclaimed to Richard, who was my maître-d'armes, "I wish I had brought my pistols with me, I should like to pick off those two gulls," to my horror, our boatman hailed somebody, and a small voice echoed back. The "gulls" were two Portuguese peasants gathering herbs for their cow.

Our last expedition, and best, was to Pico Arriere, the second highest point in the island. We had wished very much to ascend the highest, but that involved the six days' excursion, which we could not do; so we