The cattle are fed on
beans and lupines. Firewood is obtained from the opposite island of
Pico, five miles off, and from the _Caldeira_ or Crater, a pit five
miles round and fifteen hundred feet deep, at the summit of Fayal,
whence great fagots are brought upon the heads of men and girls. It is
an oversight in the "New American Cyclopaedia" to say of Fayal that "the
chief object of agriculture is the vine," because there are not a half
dozen vineyards on the island, the soil being unsuitable; but there
are extensive vineyards on Pico, and these are owned almost wholly by
proprietors resident in Fayal.
There is a succession of crops of vegetables throughout the year; peas
are green in January, which is, indeed, said to be the most verdant
month of the twelve, the fields in summer becoming parched and yellow.
The mercury usually ranges from 50 deg. to 80 deg., winter and summer; but
we were there during an unusually cool season, and it went down to 45 deg..
This was regarded as very severe by the thinly clad Fayalese, and I
sometimes went into cottages and found the children lying in bed to keep
warm. Yet roses, geraniums, and callas bloomed out of doors all the
time, and great trees of red camellia, which they cut as we cut roses.
Superb scarlet banana-flowers decked our Christmas-Tree. Deciduous trees
lose their leaves in winter there, however, and exotic plants retain the
habits they brought with them, with one singular exception.
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