Amongst other things, Governor Farrobo indulged his fair friends with a display of the old _jogo de canas_, or running at the ring. The Praça Academica had been rigged out to serve as a tilting-yard, with a central alley of palisading and two 'stands,' grand and little. The purpose was charitable, and the performers were circus-horses, mounted by professionals and amateurs, who thus 'renowned it' before the public and their _damas_. The circlet, hanging to a line, equalled the diameter of a small boy's hat; and when the 'knight' succeeded in bearing it off upon his pole, he rode up to be decorated by the hands of a very charming person with a ribbon-_baudrière_ of Bath dimensions and rainbow colours. Prizes were banal as medals after a modern war, and perhaps for the same purpose--to prevent unchristian envy, hatred, and malice. Almost any trooper in an Anglo-Indian cavalry regiment would have done better; but then he would have couched his bamboo spear properly and would have put out his horse to speed--an idea which seemed to elude the Madeiran mind. The fête ended with a _surprise_ less expensive than that with which the Parisian restaurant astonishes the travelling Britisher. A paper chandelier was suspended between two posts, of course to be knocked down, when out sprang an angry hunch-backed dwarf, who abused and fiercely struck at all straight backs within reach. Madeira is celebrated for excursions, which, however, are enjoyable only in finest weather. Their grand drawback is inordinate expense; you may visit the whole seaboard of Morocco, and run to Tenerife and return for the sum spent in a week of Madeiran travel. The following tour to the north of the island was marked out for us by the late Mr. Bewick; his readiness to oblige, his extensive local knowledge, and his high scientific attainments caused his loss to be long felt in the Isle of Wood. 'You make on the first day Santa Anna, on the opposite coast, a six to eight hours' stage by horse or hammock, passing through the grand scenery of the valleys Metade, Meiometade, and Ribeiro Frio. [Footnote: Most of these places are given in _Views_ (26) _in the Madeiras, &c._, by the Rev. James Bulwer. London, Rivington, 1829. He also wrote _Rambles in Madeira and in Portugal in _1826.] The next day takes you to Pico Ruivo, Rothhorn, Puy Rouge, or Red Peak, the loftiest in the island, whose summit commands a view of a hundred hills, and you again night at Santa Anna. The third stage is to the rocky gorge of São Vicente, which abounds in opportunities for neck-breaking. The next is a long day with a necessary guide to the Paül da Serra, the "Marsh of the Wold," and the night is passed at Seixal, on the north-west coast, famous for its corniche-road. The fifth day conducts you along-shore to Ponta Delgada, and the last leads from this "Thin Point" through the Grand Curral back to Funchal.'