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The fortitude and perseverance of the people who,' as Doctor Vincent has justly observed, completed for the world the greatest discovery that navigation has yet to boast of,' must command the admiration of all nations and all ages. It is that perseverance which gives a colour to the argument of their sovereign having procured some previous knowledge that a passage to India did exist round the Cape of Good Hope. This, however, could not have been obtained, as some suppose, from the Moors of Africa, with whom they came in contact after the conquest of Ceuta. The knowledge of the Arabs on the west side of Africa extended no farther than the great desert of Saara, and on the east was limited to Sofala; all beyond these limits was supposed to terminate in the mare tenebrosum.' It appears, indeed, from the account of the voyages of Abu Zeid al Hasan to India and China, in the ninth century, that, from the wreck of an Indiabuilt ship found on the coast of Syria, his countrymen inferred there must be a communication between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, a thing,' says he, quite unknown to those who lived before us; they thought, however, that this communication was round the country of China, and of Sila, the uttermost parts of Turkestan and the country of the Chozars.' (Czars.) It is far more probable, that whatever information the Portugueze possessed, was derived from the Venetian school, at that time the seat of maritime science. We know from Barros, and the fact is corroborated by Candido Lusitano, that Prince Henry procured, with much expense and difficulty, a certain Jacomo of Majorca to teach the art of navigation and also the construction of mathematical instruments and geographical charts, for all of which he was in those days much celebrated; and we also find that in 1444 this prince employed Luiz Cadamosto, a noble Venetian, in prosecuting his discoveries; and a record still remains in the monastery of St. Michael di Murano, at Venice, of Alphonso V. of Portugal having ordered a copy to be made of the famous map of Fra Mauro deposited there, in which Africa is terminated on the south by Cape Diab', and a note inserted, stating the report of a ship from India having passed the extreme point south 2000 miles towards the West and S. W. in the year 1420. The date of this map is 1459, twenty-seven years previous to the voyage of Diaz to the Cape of Good Hope.

No mention, however, of this map is made by the early Portugueze writers; they do not even inform us, whether, in their African discoveries, which commenced in 1415, they were assisted by the compass, though the probability is that they were in possession of this instrument, as in 1418 they discovered Porto Santa, and the following year returned and took possession of the island of

Madeira, the accidental discovery of which they attribute to one Macham, an Englishman, so far back as 1344.

The exact periods in which the several islands forming the clus ter called the Azores were discovered, are not precisely known. The best account that we have met with is given by Candido Lu sitano, in the life of Don Henry of Portugal, written in the Por tugueze language, from which, as far as our knowledge extends, it has never been translated, and consequently is very little known. It is there stated that, in the year 1431, Don Henry directed Francisco Gonzalo Velho Cabral (a gentlemen of good family) *to sail towards the setting sun, and on discovering an island, to return with an account of it. Cabral proceeded in the course directed, and discovered certain rocks which, from their number, and the manner in which they were clustered together, he called the Formigas, or ants, but finding nothing else, returned much disappointed to Don Henry.

The prince, far from being discouraged, dispatched Velho again the following year, assuring him that near the Formigas he would not fail to meet with an island. Some persons,' says Lusitano, * were inclined to attribute the confidence with which the prince spoke, to divine inspiration; but, for my part, I am rather inclined to attribute it to the prince's having received from his brother, Don Pedro, on his return from his travels, a map of the world. Cabral again set sail, and on the 15th August, 1432, fell in with an island which he named Santa Maria. The prince was delight ed at his return, and conferred the lordship of it on the discoverer. St. Mary's had been peopled and cultivated some years, when a runaway negro discovered, from the top of a mountain, land that did not belong to the island; with an account of which he ventured to return to his master. The truth of the story was soon ascertained, and the information speedily communicated to the prince, who found that the thing agreed with his old map.' On the 8th May, 1444, Velho landed on the island and gave it the name of St. Michael.

We do not think it necessary to accompany the author in the successive discoveries of the other islands; they followed as matters of course. We may observe, however, that if any credit is due to Lusitano, Prince Henry must have had in his possession, previously to Cabral's first voyage, a map in which some or all of these islands were marked down; and consequently that they must have been known before the discovery of the Formigas in 1431. Such a map is reported to have been brought by Don Pedro, Henry's brother, from his travels, on which, according to the His toria Genealogica de Real Caza Portugesa, he set out in 1424, and returned in 1428. He visited the courts of the Grand Turk VOL. XI. NO. XXI.

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and the Sultan of Babylon; and from whence he returned to Rome: he thence proceeded to the court of the Emperor Sigismond: visited Hungary, Denmark, and England, where he was invested by Henry VI. with the order of the garter. He was also well received by the Kings of Spain and of Arragon.

Whether he touched at Venice is not mentioned; but if so, he might there have found maps of all the known world up to that period. The earliest however that we know of, is that of Andrea Bianco, deposited in the library of St. Mark, which bears the date of 1436, and on which all the western islands are laid down. It is evident, therefore, that, unless these islands were subsequently inserted on this map, there must have been other maps which contained them, previous to the discovery of any of the islands, excepting Santa Maria, from which Bianco must have copied.

If any documents should remain of Velho's voyage, they could not fail of being highly interesting. The islands themselves, however, possessed no peculiar interest, being without human inhabitants. They are described as abounding with such flocks of hawks that the Açores, or Hawk Islands, were considered as their appropriate appellative. Carnivorous animals are rarely gregarious, and in the absence of all quadrupeds, (and none were found on the islands,) one can hardly discover the inducement for this assemblage. Perhaps, instead of hawks, we may set them down for auks, or Manx puffins, whose crooked bills might have deceiyed the navigator; be this as it may, the name of Açores will remain to them in perpetuity.

All the accounts of these islands from the earliest voyages and travels, down to the present day, are uncommonly jejune and barren. No naturalist, except Masson, and his knowledge was principally confined to botany, has yet visited them with a view of inquiring into their natural history. No geologist to examine the volcanic products of which they are wholly composed, and those remarkable changes that have taken place on their surfaces or in the surrounding part of the ocean, since their discovery, by the agency of subterraean fire; but from their present appearance and the testimonies of various witnesses, we may safely pronounce them to be the most recent act of creation in the western world; and, on this account, the more interesting.

Mr. Masson, in his short but interesting view of St. Michael's, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1777, says the inhabitants have a tradition, that when the island was first discovered there was an extraordinary high peak near the west end; on the second visit it had disappeared. This circumstance is particu Jarly mentioned by Don Henry's biographer. The pilot who car ried Velho to the island was the same who ascertained the truth of the negro's story the preceding year. He had then observed that

there rose a high peaked mountain on the east end and another on the west end of the island. Now, however, one peak only was visible, and he therefore concluded that it was a new island. On approaching the harbour, they ascertained it to be the same they had before visited, but they found it much altered, and the landing place obstructed by fragments of rock. The trees and other wreck floating in the sea, plainly indicated that, in their absence, a violent convulsion of nature had taken place; and it was afterwards found that one of the peaks had completely disappeared, and that valleys and plains occupied its site.

In 1638, a new island rose near St. Michael's, but gradually subsided till it was lost totally. Another was thrown up between Terceira and St. Michael's, in 1720, which also gradually sunk below the surface. Of these new creations we have a very recent instance detailed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1812, by an eye-witness to whom every credit is due. Captain Tillard, of His Majesty's ship Sabrina, on approaching the island of St. Michael on the 12th June, 1811, perceived a large body of smoke on the surface of the sea. He landed at Ponta del Gada; and learning that it was a volcano which had commenced two days before, he rode on the 14th to the N. W. end of the island, in company with Mr. Read, the British consul, from the steep cliff of which it was distant not more than a mile. Out of a circular cloud revolving on the surface like a horizontal wheel, presently there shot forth, in spiral forms, several successive columns of black cinders, ashes, and stones, each of greater velocity than that which preceded it, and overtopping one another till the altitude was as great above the eye of the spectators on the cliff (about 400 yards) as the sea was below it. These columns, on attaining their greatest elevation, burst, like a sky-rocket, into various branches, resembling a group of pines; these forming themselves into festoons of white feathery smoke, in the most beautiful manner imaginable, intermixed with the finest particles of falling ashes which, at one time, assumed the appearance of innumerable plumes of black and white ostrich feathers, surmounting each other: at another, that of the light wavy branches of a weeping willow.' The volcano was now four days old; the depth of the sea, at the spot, thirty fathoms; a point of land began gradually to raise itself above the surface; and in three hours after their arrival, a complete crater was formed, apparently of four or five hundred feet in diameter, and its highest side about twenty.

On the 16th, the eruptions still continuing, Captain Tillard put to sea. On the 4th July, he returned, and found a newly formed island, the highest part of which was about 240 feet above the level of the sea, the depth of which, at 30 or 40 yards from the beach,

was

25 fathoms. The circumference of the island was about a mile. The side of the crater next to St. Michael's had fallen in, and the boiling water was emptying itself into the sea in a stream of about six yards wide, between two causeways. Captain Tillard landed on the narrow beach of black ashes, but found the sides too steep, and indeed too hot to admit of his proceeding more than a few yards up the ascent. He succeeded, however, in reaching the cliff on one side of the opening, and planting the union flag, near which he left a bottle, sealed up, containing a brief account of the date and formation of the island to which he gave the name of Sabrina.*

The whole group of islands, but that of St. Michael in particular, have more of the European character than Madeira. The climate is delightful, possessing that happy temperature which neither relaxes the human frame by an excess of warmth, nor cramps its energies by chilling cold. The greatest heat rarely raises the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer above 78°, and as rarely is it depressed by cold to 60°. The quantity of rain that falls is not more than the temperature and the bibulous nature of a soil mostly consisting of pulverized pumice-stone and other decomposed lavas require, for the preservation and promotion of the various vegetable tribes which flourish here in boundless luxuriance. The orange and the apple, the peach and the fig, the pear and the pomegranate thrive equally well by the side of each other. The plains are divided into corn-fields and pastures, orchards and vineyards, and inclosed with hedge-rows or stone-walls as in England, and the hills are clothed with the erica vulgaris, or common heath; here too we find what is rarely met with out of England, good roads of communication between the several towns on the island. These are Ponta del Gada, containing about 12,000 inhabitants; Ribeira Grande, the same number; and Villa Franca, besides several smaller towns and hamlets, and a number of beautiful villas scattered over the island-the whole population of which has been estimated at 80,000 souls. All the cities, towns, and hamlets are well supplied with streams of clear water trickling down the mountains' sides, which are finely skirted with walnuts, chesnuts, poplars, and other large trees, and with the evergreen myrtle, laurel, and bilberry, called here uva de serra or mountain grape.

The chief produce of the island is fruit, wine, wheat, barley, maize, or Indian corn, pulse of various kinds, yams, roots, and the ordinary vegetables of Europe. There is no harbour for shipping, but an open roadstead, not dangerous, as ships can put to sea from it in all weathers. The only manufactures are of linen, woollen and earthen-ware,

*We understand it has already disappeared,