reverie, on the deck of our own beautiful Columbia, sleeping calmly, and confident in her own prowess, on these waters, in full view of this enchanting landscape. And the eye tires not, as one's thoughts, in connection with the olden story of this sunny isle and summer beauty, come over the memory, in recollected legend or truer history. Here has been revolution on revolution. Here the prince to-day has been embarked, in an hour and in secret, for his distant exile. And here the priest has ridden, in his ghostly power, and with undisputed dictate, a superstitious and submissive people; and again, the people have aroused to a sense of their degradation and the imposition of the Franciscan hoards, and expelled them from their isle. And here the nun, for years the inmate of the cloister, and doomed no more to look abroad upon the world, save through a double grating or convent lattice, in the tide of revolutions has been set free, and walked again in liberty and light. But again the restrictions are placed upon her, and she is re-enclosed within the halls of her ancient home.

I indulged myself, for hours, in delightful contemplation of the beautiful scene before me, as seen from the quarter deck of our frigate. Nothing could more calmly sooth the heart, whatever may have been its musings of sadness or of joy, in retracing the past, or in sorrowful or happy anticipation of the future. There are some scenes which we love to treasure among the fadeless things, in the arcana of our choicest memories, to which we recur, when things around, and men more than things, become insipid. I felt assured that the scene before me was one of these. I find myself daily more and more susceptible to the influence of beautiful nature; while she often communes with me, as one who has sympathies kindred to my own. She never upbraids the confiding heart-she never looks with cold suspicion-she has about her nothing that is mean, or low, or unrefined; but hers is an open brow-a warm, and pure, and noble heart—and she has thoughts that are holier than earth elsewhere knows, which she will give, with generous and cordial liberality, to that spirit, which lets the eye rest on her mellowed beauties, with a melting and gushing heart.

Commend me then to her loveliness and proffered sympathies, when the heart feels alone, in its deep and young desolation.

I had fixed the lovely picture of Madeira's green acclivities in my mind, and dwelled upon it with increased and increasing emotion and delight. And thus I felt prepared for my first visit on shore, while I only feared that a nearer view might dissipate the fairy vision, which lay so willingly and distinct among those remembrances which fail not. Our time at the island would be short, and much, it was said, existed on shore to interest the stranger, and was worthy of his observation. I went early the morning succeeding our arrival, and breakfasted, by invitation, with the American consul. This gentleman, ever attentive to the officers of the ship, introduced me to Mr. B., who is said to have large possessions on the island, and to whose courteous and gentlemanly manners I am happy here to bear testimony, in the remembrance of our agreeable visit to Madeira. By Mr. B. I was accompanied to the Reading Rooms; and afterwards, through his kindness, was introduced to another of the English residents, who is supposed to have considerable influence with the Catholic inhabitants of the island. Mr. P., the name of this gentleman, had received an invitation to dine with the Vicar-General, or Bishop of Madeira, at Santa Clara Convent, where the Bishop was to visit, during the day. Mr. P. had induced the vicar to allow him, on this occasion, to introduce some of his friends into the convent, and politely extended his invitation to myself. Four o'clock in the afternoon was the hour appointed for our introduction into the enclosures within the convent walls.

In the mean time I took a ride to the church, high up on the green slant, previously alluded to as Nossa Senhora do Monte, our Lady of the Mount. We procured our horses and attendants. Every thing around us appeared unique, and the mode of our conveyance was quite in character with our circumstances. The road to the mount church, in its ascent of the mountain, is incredibly steep, and as far as the Nossa Senhora do Monte is paved with the blue pebbles of the beach, and basalt from

the mountain. The angle of ascent is frequently twenty degrees. We mounted our horses, and at our side stood our burroqueros, or foot-boys, in their picturesque costume of the island peasantry, and each with his wooden staff, six or seven feet in length. "Nossa Senhora do Monte," we said, and dashed off in full spring as the burroquero swept his staff against the flanks of the horse, and seized the animal by the tail, to be borne along in company with the cavalcade; and every now and then, again riving the sides of the horse, and particularly at the steepest parts of the road, up which fearful acclivities the horses sprung in full canter, with their hoofs clattering over the paved way, with the riders upon their backs and the attendants at their tails. I suffered my companions to advance, while I held in my spirited horse, and to my unbounded amusement, contemplated the comical exhibition of the riders in full speed before me, with their burroqueros at their horses' tails, all on the full jump, ascending the fearful steeps which, in our own land, would have been deemed almost, if not quite, inaccessible. While we thus rushed up the aslant, the clatter of our horses' hoofs often drew the Portuguese brunet to the terraces, ever above us, as the quintas, with their elevated walls and embowered terraces, lined our narrow way, two thirds the distance to the Church of the Mount. Over these walls, in truant festoons falling from the terrace, and filling every crevice in the walls, hung the luxuriant geraniums and multifloras, and rose of every kind, and other flowers, and vines in profusion, trailing down their branches and making our ascending way a path of blossom, and perfume, and flowery beauty.

When we had reached some distance up the mountain ascent, with quintas on each side of the narrow way, we paused at the country seat of Mr. Blandy, who had invited me, during the morning, to visit his quinta, as I rode to the mount.

We turned in from the road to the left, through a gateway, which opened into his grounds, and found ourselves at once among winding avenues of geraniums, and roses, and other flowering shrubs, which, in America, are cherished as choice plants, in flower-pots, and preserved in

green-houses. It is this particularity which delights and surprises the eye. As we turned to the left, we pursued one of these hedged avenues of geraniums, which I took to be of that beautiful species called the Princess Caroline, bearing a large flower, and here, in its luxuriance, growing five feet high, and inlocking its branches so as to form a thick hedge on either side of the pathway. The avenue extended along the high terrace, overlooking the roadside, until it reached the front part of the garden, at which point it commanded the city and harbor and the blended beauties of the glowing scene below. Owing to the steep ascent of the mountain, it becomes necessary to raise high walls for gaining a level for the buildings, and the pleasure grounds around them. The terraces thus formed are numerous, in different parts of the grounds of the quintas, forming levels of made soil for flowerenamelled paths, and trellises for the vine, and for fruittrees and ornamental shrubs, which nature here, with the soil of volcanic ruins, and an atmosphere ever revivifying to produce and sustain in greatest perfection, has lavished, with a luxuriant hand, on this green isle of the sea. We walked through the grounds, every avenue being lined either with geraniums or roses, or other flowering shrubs. The japonica was seen to rise from ten to fifteen feet in height, and spread in like proportion-the hyderanger, in its luxuriance, spreading its branches to a circumference of twenty to thirty feet. All is luxuriance. We marked the coffee tree, now beginning to be successfully cultivated in the island-the pomegranate, decked with its scarlet blossoms the fig, in its green luxuriance-the banana, raising high its long and fan-like leaves. A hundred ornamental flowering trees, high and spreading, decked the grounds; and in this rich season of flowers, one tree, of forest height, attracted and held my admiration. It was wreathed in multifloras, so as to exhibit one complete layer of these clustered roses over every part of the stem and boughs of the tree, exhibiting a rose tower in its magnificence and beauty.

The walk which we first entered extended along the terrace, which rose high above the road, and terminated abruptly in a rectangular summer-house on the terrace.

From this, one contemplates the beauties of the scene before and beneath him, with the ranges of the green hills on either side, and the vineyards, and embowered houses, together with the blue bosom of the harbor, dotted by the vessels of varied and fairy forms, that repose upon its surface, or are seen sailing in the offing.

Here I could have lingered, and mused, and thought, delighted, on crowding subjects, which this fair isle of the Madeiras awakes, and on dearer objects of the land of my home. But we were yet to visit the Nossa Senhora do Monte, and return to the city in time to meet our engagement at four o'clock, that we might not lose the pleasure of our contemplated visit to the convent of Santa Clara. We therefore remounted our horses, and left this lovely quinta for the Church of the Mount, with a secret purpose of again threading the beautiful avenues of Mr. B.'s country seat, which, to-day, was unoccupied by his family.

It will strike the visiter to the Madeiras as a peculiarity, that the country residences here are not found by riding some distance into the interior. On the contrary, all the advantages of country air, and of an escape from the heat of city-walls, is secured by ascending the heights of the mountain, until the temperature desired is gained. Thus a delightful and salubrious atmosphere is found by a half hour's climbing up the steep roads, to these beautiful eyries, where lovers might nestle in their ever-green bowers and flower-enamelled paths; and philosophers become poets; and poets philosophize and be happy. The proprietors of these quintas, while residing in the city, during the cooler parts of the seasons, not unfrequently retire to their mountain seats, when they would invite a party of their friends to partake of the sociability of their free and elegant hospitality, their furthest seats being within a half hour's ride from the points of their business and city houses.

When we had ascended still higher up, to reach the Church of the Mount, we alighted at a flight of steps leading to the artificial level, on which the edifice of the church of Our Lady is situated. We found a number of the younger officers of the Columbia already at the church,