The Caldeiras, or cauldrons of boiling water, situated in a beautiful vale called Furnas, are exceedingly curious. The whole vale is obviously the crater of a volcano. The principal one is a bason of about thirty feet in diameter, in which the water bubbles up with prodigious fury. In various parts of this valley, within the lake, and in the sides of the surrounding mountains, boiling water and steam constantly rush forth, in which the inhabitants dress their yams. In other places,' says Mr. Masson, a person would think that a hundred smiths' bellows were blowing all together.' In the neighbourhood of these hot springs, and close to some cold mineral springs, by which they can be tempered, bathing-houses have been erected for the use of the sick and infirm, who seldom fail to receive considerable relief from them. Considering, indeed, the advantages of climate, productions and proximity to Europe, we are inclined to think that there is scarcely a spot on the globe better calculated for the accommodation of invalids than St. Michael's. Those chilling easterly blasts, which are equally pernicious to the animal and vegetable functions, and frequently destructive to both, are almost unknown. The prevailing winds blow from the south and west; and as in the poet's Elysium,

'Here from the breezy deep the blest inhale The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.' Fayal, next to St. Michael, is most visited by navigators, as from thence is shipped the wine which is produced on the island of Pico, and which amounts to eighteen or twenty thousand pipes annually. Almost the whole produce of the latter island is wine, which supports a population not far short of 30,000. Fayal, which contains not above half that number, is chiefly cultivated with corn, maize and fruits. The capital, before which there is a roadstead for shipping, stands, like Funchal in Madeira, at the a. good foot of an amphitheatre of mountains, finely crested with the various forest trees common to the islands, and with coppices of myrtles, growing with wild luxuriance among the aspins and the ever verdant Faya, from which the island derives its name. This beautiful plant, the only one of the arborescent kind common to these islands and Madeira, is described by Masson in the Hortus Kewensis under the name of Myrica Faya; is mistaken by Forster for a beech, which in fact the name implies in the Portugueze language, and by Adamson, a respectable botanist, for an arbutus, which, by a second mistake, he says the Portugueze call Fayo.

Terceira, the seat of government, is larger than Pico or Fayal, but not much frequented by strangers; it produces the same articles as St. Michael's and Fayal, besides a considerable number of small bullocks, kids, hogs, and sheep, all which are indeed common to the rest. The population is about 25,000 souls. St.

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George, Graciosa, Sta. Maria, Flores, and Corvo are less known than the others; their produce is the same, and their united po pulation about 20,000, making the number of the whole group about 170,000 souls. The inhabitants are in comfortable circumstances, industrious, frugal, and contented. No lazy beggars infest the streets, as in Madeira, and the climate is so fine, and the soil so productive, that provisions are at all times abundant and reasonable.

We have given pretty nearly the substance of all that is known of this little group of islands, and which, short as the distance is from the shores of Europe, amounts not to that degree of information which we possess of the most recent discoveries in the South Sea. It was not therefore without a considerable degree of pleasure, that we took up a volume devoted to the "History of the Azores; a fair and full-sized quarto, hot-pressed, creamcoloured, and dedicated to the Earl of Moira, by Captain T. A. of the Light Dragoons, with a preface by the editor Jos. T. Haydn; and specially addressed, in a series of letters, to a member of the British parliament,' who, among his numerous good qualities, is said to be gifted with that lucid arrangement which, by happily grouping particulars fixes them on the retina of the intellect, and with that elegant copiousness of diction as becomes the leader of a band of patriots.' All these circumstances we considered as claims upon our attention. We confess, however, that we were rather startled at the plan of political philosophy' with which the Captain of Light Dragoons opens his correspondence with this 'leader of a band of patriots." It is nothing less than urging the honour and propriety of making these islands our own; a species of transfer which he does not hesitate to say will not only form a glorious epoch in the history of the British empire,' but if brought to bear by his instrumentality, will transmit to posterity the name of the patriotic senator, as the founder of a new state. And though he seems to entertain but little hope that this profound plan will be prosecuted from any romantic principles of generosity on the part of England,' he thinks an appeal to her interest' may lead to the cution of it, as a wise measure to augment our revenue.' Among the many advantages enumerated, there is one for which the present inhabitants must be very thankful, it is that of making the Azores supply the use of Botany Bay,' an event which the eloquent editor assures us will certainly happen when the beams of liberty and justice, of liberality and happiness, radiating from Britain, shall illuminate these islands.' But in addition to the plea of that convenient system which seizes upon the property of others on the principle of political expediency, the Azoreans (we are told) are impatient of tyranny, and only awaiting

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the signal to throw off the yoke.' If this were true, it would scarcely justify the attempt, we suspect; but unluckily for this profound speculation in political robbery, the worthy captain is totally mistaken. The Portugueze colonists are every where, and here more particularly, attached to the mother country. When Portugal was united to Spain, the Azoreans declared their resolution to preserve their allegiance to their legitimate sovereign Don Antonio, and were only compelled to submit to the Spaniards by main force.

Dismissing therefore the politics of the dragoon officer, we proceed, in the hope of according with his views in the more harmless topics that fall under the heads of history, description, and science; and we do it with more confidence as he very seriously assures sus, that he has been at unusual pains' to preserve the dignity of the historical character,' that 'truth and reason wave their sceptre over his intellect with imperious dominion,' and that his fidelity shall appear in every page.'

This History of the Azores we perceive is conducted on a new principle. It is neither compiled from written. documents, nor from oral tradition, but is entirely executed by himself. Indeed, he had no other resource, 'being,' as he says, cast upon his own observation; and he therefore proudly observes, that his work cannot be obscured by literary lumber, or filled with trash already imposed upon the public;' because,' says he, I have made the most wide and diligent research, and I have not been able to collect or collate a single page on the subject. No traveller, no geographer, no historian has deigned to notice these islands." We are inclined however to think, that had he consulted Ramusio, or Hackluyt, or Harris, or Churchill, or Astley, or the more modern relations of Adanson, Cook, Forster, Masson, &c. he might have collected and collated' a great number of pages. He did indeed look into 'Hawkesworth, Barrow, and other cir cumnavigators! into Guthrie, and other geographers!' also into a large quarto work which he procured from Lord Strangford, but of which he made no use, having discovered it to be the produc tion of a visionary priest:' and he has a mortal antipathy against the whole genus of priests, which, with a taste for arrangement worthy of the great Linnæus himself, he distributes into 'nests of hornets, shoals of locusts, and swarms of drones.' The world therefore, he roundly asserts, before the appearance of his volume, knew nothing more of the Azores than that they extend from 379 to 39° 45 N. lat. and from 25° to 31° West long. :-that they are in the midway between Europe and America, and that they are nine in number.'

It is impossible not to be struck with the bold and lofty stylo in which we are introduced to the view of these islands. St.

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Michael's right a-head; Terceira on the larboard, and St. Mary on the starboard bow, with Pico and Fayal on the larboard quarter." It reminds us of Mr. Shandy's eloquent harangue on death→→ Ægina was behind me, Megara was before, Pyræus on the right hand, Corinth on the left; and we were not much less puzzled than Uncle Toby was, to find out where the Captain of Light Dragoons could have seen all this, till the views of Del Gada and Villa Franca, pilfered from Mr. Read's map of St. Michael's, sug gested to us the certainty of his having had recourse to that or some other chart of the cluster of islands for this description, being morally certain that there is no one point in the Atlantic from which so many of them could be seen even from the poop of a first rate man of war.

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Passing over the ramified pillars of basaltes' which appeared on the beach of St. Michael's, and his obvious calculation' by which it is proved that the naked lava rock is more productive than the richest arable lands,' we are fairly brought to a stand, by an orchard of orange trees, planted in lava in the quinc-qunx manner,' where each tree bore from 40 to 60,000 oranges. The average produce of a full grown tree is from one to five thous sand. A tree belonging to the prior of Del Gada is indeed said to have yielded one year the extraordinary number of 20,000 oranges; but this was looked upon as a prodigy.

In the small vale of Sete Cidades, or seven cities, (which he writes Cete Citades,) are two lakes, the banks of which are pe culiarly adapted to the growth of hemp ;' the quantity cultivated and cured there, we are told, affords employment to thousands in the same page we are informed that there are but half a dozen houses in the whole vale to lodge these thousands-and that the quantity of this article, which might be produced in this little spot, would be sufficient to meet all the demands of the English market!' The Portugueze, it seems, are dead to this advantage, having no relish to live near the banks of a lake, on the surface of which the stars are seen at noon day.' The fact is (for we know the spot) that there are about fifty acres of cultivable land at the bottom of this valley, the remainder is a surface of naked pumice stone or water; but of the fertile soil' of the cultivable part it may be questioned if any one acre produces sufficient grass to summer a goose upon it. A little flax is sown in the crevices of the surrounding rocks, in patches of half a dozen yards, where the soil has been washed down-but as to the hemp, we doubt exceedingly if a single plant exists in the whole of the wes tern islands. No matter the Captain fancied hemp to be grow ing, and would not lose his dissertation on the importance of that article to Great Britain, of its superior quality in St. Michael's to that of any other country: of the size of the plant, which on the

banks of the lakes is stated to be more than ten feet high and three inches in circumference! This fine hemp too furnishes an additional reason for our seizing upon the Azores; for there can be no hesitation in asserting that there are in this island (St. Michael's) one million of acres proper for the purpose (of growing hemp) which, at one-fourth of a ton per acre, the average here, would furnish Great Britain with 250,000 tons of hemp! The island is about 100 miles in circumference,' or, stating its dimensions in a manner less vague, forty miles in length by six in breadth, and consequently, if there be

whole surface contains 240 square many truth in Cocker, the

or 153,600 acres; that is, the surface of the whole island is not quite one-seventh part of that portion of it which our political economist proposes to plant with hemp.

Following our light horseman, in his tour round the island, to the valley of Furnas, our readers will feel considerable disappointment in being told that the handsome monastery, built of lava, and surrounded by lovely gardens, abounding with the most delicious fruit and odoriferous flowers, together with the reverend Padré guardian, and his twelve or thirteen pampered priests of the order of St. Francis, have no substantial existence, but are mere creatures of the brain.' The Caldeiras are well known, but the wonderful whirlpool, whose name he could not learn, and the river, whose waters are of a dingy red,' are also non-entities. The vast columns of boiling water,' so hot as to boil an egg in two minutes,' never exceeded 196° of Fahrenheit's thermometer; and if it impregnated vegetables with the sulphurous acid it contains, and thereby rendered it unfit for the food of man,' the poor people of the neighbourhood would not make use of it as they constantly do.

The iron mines of Pico de Fer, which at some former time he says were worked with considerable success, tilla subterraneous explosion took place and buried the miners and their utensils in the ground,' are not to be questioned, though never heard of by any of the natives; for, says our Dragoon Officer, 'I am indebted to a second explosion which led to the discovery of the tools and implements of the unfortunate miners, for the facts I have here disclosed.'

At Porto Fermosa (Formosa) he takes up his residence with some mendicant monks, whose hospitality he repays by four pages of scurrilous invective, made up of malignity, blasphemy, and falsehood. Every convent, every chapel, every church, has its buckster's-stall, or shop, where a reverend commission-broker constantly attends;'-but why repeat his ribaldry?-At the little village of Formosa there neither is, nor ever was a convent, a a chapel, or a church. Indeed we have a strong suspicion, from the