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At night the bright fires on board the fishing-canoes make travellers suspect that spears, grains, or harpoons are used. This, however, is not the case; line-fishing is universal, and the lights serve mostly for signals. From Cama di Lobos the huge hill-shoulder to the west, whose face, Cabo Girao, must be ascended by a rough, steep incline. Far easier to view the scene from a boat.
A front view of Cape Girao shows that it is supported on either side, east and west, by buttresses of a darker rock: the eastern dip at an angle of 45 deg., the western range between 20 deg. above and 40 deg. below. The great central upheaval seems to have pushed its way through these older strata, once straight, now inclined.
The most noted persons who went on this expedition were the commendary Gallegos, and Sebastian de Campo, both of Galicia; the commendary Arroya, Roderick Abarca, Micer Girao, Juan de Luxon, Peter Navarro, and Peter Hernandez Coronel, whom the admiral appointed chief alguazil of Hispaniola; Mozen Peter Margarite, a gentleman of Catalonia, Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal, alderman of Baeza, Gorbolan, Lewis de Arriaga, Alonzo Perez Martel, Francis de Zuniga, Alonso Ortiz, Francis de Villalobos, Perefan de Ribera, Melchior Maldonado, and Alonso Malaver.
All are altered soils, as is shown by remains of trees and decayed vegetation. Beyond Cabo Girao the scenery is grand enough, but monotonous in the extreme. The island is girt by a sea-wall, more or less perpendicular; from this coping there is a gentle upslope, the marvellous terracing for cultivation being carried up to the mountain-tops.
Garajao, whose ruddy rocks of volcanic tufa, embedding bits of lava, probably entitled it 'Brazenhead, is worth inspecting from the sea. Possibly the classic term 'Purple Islands' may have arisen from the fiery red hue of the volcanic cliffs seen at the sunset hour. Like Girao, the middle block of Tern Point is horizontally stratified, while the western abutment slopes to the water.
The lion in the path, however, is Cape Girao, which would cost a treasure to 'tunnel' or to cut into a corniche. The next feature is the Ponta da Cruz, a fantastic slice of detached basalt. Here, at the southernmost point of the island, the Descobridores planted a cross, and every boatman doffs his cap to its little iron descendant.
The Tucunas have the singular custom, in common with the Collinas and Mauhes, of treating their young girls, on their showing the first signs of womanhood, as if they had committed some crime. They are sent up to the girao under the smoky and filthy roof, and kept there on very meagre diet, sometimes for a whole month. I heard of one poor girl dying under this treatment.
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