14
MADEIRA.
furniture of the altar and lateral shrines veryrich in gold, silver, and pearls, and fresh roses were hanging in chaplets and festoons over and around the idols. There is no ceiling, but the roof, formed of unpainted beams of wood, is visible, as in some of our old parish churches in England, and the floor consists of nothing but loose planks, which are continually removed for the purpose of depositing the corpses of the dead below. This vile practice I observed in other churches in the island, and it is wonderful, in such a climate, that it does not destroy the worshippers as it impairs the beauty and solemnity of the place of worship. Before the western door of the cathedral is a parvis or open space, and beyond that, the Terreiro da Se, a very pleasant promenade, under four or five parallel rows of trees, and inclosed by a wall a few feet in height. Some nice houses are situated in the street on either hand, from the balconies of which the ladies looked at the gentlemen below: and in particular there is what the Spaniards call a beaterio or makebelieve nunnery on the north side, the windows of which were literally crammed full of the meek faces of some score probationers for single blessedness. There was not a pretty girl amongst them. Beyond the Terreiro you come to a neat market place, and to a large mass of building, which was formerly a convent of Franciscans, I think; half of it at present is converted into barracks and guardrooms, and