MADEIRA.
21
I called upon the Governor, Dom Manoel de Portugal, who has the credit of being a bastardslip of some one of the royal family. He is a little prim gentleman, and talks French besides his vernacular. The government-house is much blocked up, but there are two very fine state rooms in it, and from the windows there is a lovely view of the sea. But the great sight of Madeira, perhaps one of the great sights of the world, is the awful Corral. Those who have travelled know how vexatious it is to feel our utter inability to convey to a third person an image of the things which have struck ourselves with admiration; I felt this, and I feel it now in all its painfulness, yet I must say, in a few words, what the Corral is. I rode sixteen miles into the interior of the island; the road was a steep or gentle ascent the whole way, at first winding under traceries of vines and amongst avenues of oranges, but latterly broken and wild, and barely distinguishable in the fallen leaves under the groves of trees. At length we came out at the bottom of a valley, on one side of which was a luxuriant carpet of heaths and furze, on the other a low wood, and the ends closed up with mountains covered with a short grass, and impeded with countless masses of granite and other stones lying about in singular confusion. Our way lay over this hilly down, and hard work it was to make any progress, though our mules did their utmost to pick out