In 1862 we hired rowing and sailing boats to visit the southern coast east and west of Funchal. For the last twelvemonth Mr. Blandy's steam-tug _Falcão_ has carried travellers to and fro: it is a great convenience to the lazy sightseer, who cares only to view the outside of things, and here the outsides are the only things worth viewing. We will begin with the western trip to Paül do Mar, affording a grand prospect of basaltic pillars and geological dykes, and of the three features--rocky, sylvan, and floral. Steaming by the mouth of the wady or ravine Sao João, whose decayed toy forts, S. Lazaro and the palace-battery, are still cumbered with rusty cannon, we pass under the cliff upon whose brow stand some of the best buildings. These are the Princess Dona Maria Amelia's _Hospicio_, or Consumptive Hospital, built on Mr. Lamb's plans and now under management of the French _soeurs_, whose gull wings are conspicuous at Funchal; the Asylo, or Poor-house, opened in 1847 for the tempering of mendicancy; and facing it, in unpleasant proximity, the Portuguese cemetery, decorated as to its entrance with sundry skulls and cross-bones, and showing its tall cypresses to the bay. Here comes the Quinta (Comtesse) Lambert, once occupied by Queen Adelaide. The owner doubled the rent; consequently _Las Angustías_ (the Agonies), as it was called from an old chapel, has been unrented for the last two years. A small pleasaunce overhanging a perpendicular cliff, and commanding a glorious view, shows the Quinta da Vigia, lately bought by Mr. Hollway for 8,000_l_., and let at 500_l_. to 1,000_l_, a year. Nothing more charming than its grounds, which attracted H.I.M. of Austria, and now the charming Countess Tyszkiewicz. Landward it faces the Rua da Imperatriz, which leads to the 'Loo Fields.' The study of basaltic pillars at once begins: Loo Fort is partly built upon them. Beyond Vigia cliff we pass in succession three jagged island-rocks, called 'gurgulhos,' or black-beetles (_curculio_), which, like the opposite foreshore, admirably show the formation. As a rule the columns are quadrangular; I saw but few pentagons and hexagons. We cast a look at a spouter of circular shape, the Forja, and the Forno, a funnel-formed blowing-rock. The cliff is pierced with a multitude of caves, large and small, and their regular arches look as if the ejected matter, as happens with lava, had cooled and solidified above, while still flowing out in a fiery torrent below. Mostly, however, they are the work of wind and water.