I spent the greater part of the next day in walking about the town and visiting different people. There is a very pretty little theatre, in which operas are excellently performed. I took a quiet walk along the seacoast to the north of the town. The centre of the island consists of a great platform, surrounded by old broken basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping seawards. The central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams of lava, is of an oval shape, thirteen geographical miles across, in the line of its shorter axis. From our elevated position we enjoyed an excellent view over the island. The country on this side appears pretty well cultivated, being divided into fields and studded with farmhouses. One great cause of its prosperity is the excellent state of the roads. Close by, a grand ravine has been worn to a depth of about 500 feet through the slightly inclined streams of lava, which have flowed from the central platform. We passed through pleasant gardens, and fine fields of sugarcane growing amidst huge blocks of lava. The circumstance which surprised me most was its quite noiseless step. This island, the forbidding aspect of which has been so often described, rises abruptly like a huge black castle from the ocean. At this season, the land moistened by constant showers, produces a singularly bright green pasture, which lower and lower down, gradually fades away and at last disappears. In latitude 16 degs. Weepingwillows are common on the banks of the rivulets, and the hedges are made of the blackberry, producing its wellknown fruit. There is so little level or useful land, that it seems surprising how so many people, about 5000, can subsist here. My guide was an elderly man, who had been a goatherd when a boy, and knew every step amongst the rocks. He was of a race many times crossed, and although with a dusky skin, he had not the disagreeable expression of a mulatto. He was a very civil, quiet old man, and such appears the character of the greater number of the lower classes.