Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1813 edition. Excerpt: ... LETTER VII. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF ST. MIGUEL, OR ST. MICHAEL. AS I purpose describing the islands in detail, accordingly as I visited them, I shall now suppress all general argument, and give my correspondence the nature and character of a narrative. This mode will be productive of facility to me, and of a clear and permanent light to you and to the public, whose pleasure and information is the sole object of my desire, and pride of my employment. Three years have nearly elapsed since I first visited the Azores. The circumstance was accidental. I was on my passage home from South America, after a departure of forty days, when land was discovered, almost in every direction, from our quarter-deck. The ship's reckoning justly told them to be the Western Islands. They appeared in sight thus: --St. Michael's right-ahead; Terceira on the larboard, and St. Mary on the starboard, bow; with Pico and Fayal on the larboard quarter. I no sooner beheld this gratifying sight--gratifying to me, who was exhausted by a long voyage, and with a constitution shaken by a residence of several months immediately under the line, than I resolved to put into St. Michael's, and, after visiting the islands, and recovering my health, return to England by some other opportunity. Having communicated this intention to the captain of the vessel I was in, he shaped his course for the end of St. Michael's, and, after a run of seven hours along the southern coast, cast anchor in the open road-stead of the City of Ponta Delgada. I cannot say that the observations I had to make, on first viewing the northern extremity of the island, were by any means favourable; no; nothing appeared but mountains of a stupendous height and bulk, and of a nature and...
