But being quickly weary of this excessive cold Place, and drawn up again, we continued our Descent from the Mountains by the fame Passage we went up the Day before, and so about five in the Evening arrived at _Oratava_, from whence we set forth; our Faces were so red and sore that to cool them we were forced to wash and bathe them in whites of Eggs: The whole Height of the _Pico_ in Perpendicular is vulgarly esteemed to be two Miles and an half. No Trees, Herbs nor Shrubs did we find in all the Passage, but Pines, and among the whiter Sands a kind of Broom being a bushy Plant: It is the Opinion of some ingenious Persons who have lived twenty Years upon the Place, that the whole Island being a Soil mightily impregnated with Brimstone, did in former Times take Fire, and blow up all or near all at the same Time; and that many Mountains of huge Stones calcined and burnt, which appear all over this Island, especially in the South-West Part of it, were cast up and raised out of the Bowels of the Earth at the Time of that general Conflagration; and that the greatest Quantity of this _Sulphur_ lying about the Center of the Island raised up the Pico to that Height at which it now is seen; which appears by the Situation of those Rocks that lye three or four Miles round the Bottom of the _Pico_, and in such Order one above another almost to the _Sugar-Loaf_, as it is called, as if the whole ground swelling and rising up together by the Ascension of the Brimstone, the Torrents and Rivers of it did with a sudden Eruption roul and tumble them down from the rest of the Rocks; especially to the South-West, where from the Top of the _Pico_ to the Sea coast lie huge Heaps of these burnt Rocks one under another, and there still remain the very Tracks of the Brimstone Rivers as they ran over this Quarter, of the Island which Hath so wasted the Ground, beyond Recovery, that nothing can be made to grow there but Broom. * * * * * BOOKS _Printed and Sold by_ John Lever, _Bookseller, Stationer, and Printseller, at_ Little Moorgate, _next to_ London Wall, _near_ Moorfields.