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Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and painful advances, we finally reached the vigia, the mules thoroughly blown, but the Teniente and the instruments safe. The latter were speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so important an influence as a basis for our future operations, satisfactorily made.
The beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the vigia, as I have said, was a wondering spectator.
Not melancholy no, for it is green. They are perfectly happy in the Arabian desert, and even in Tenerife, where others feel as if living perpetually on the verge of high fever. To this 'little misery' were added the displeasures of memory. Our last long visit was in 1863, when the Conde de Farrobo ruled the land, and when the late Lord Brownlow kept open house at the beautiful Vigia.
Towards evening we passed Vigia and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost incessantly around the horizon an appropriate greeting on the threshold of a country lying close under the equator!
A small pleasaunce overhanging a perpendicular cliff, and commanding a glorious view, shows the Quinta da Vigia, lately bought by Mr. Hollway for 8,000l., and let at 500l. to 1,000l, 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.
It is well remembered that, twenty years ago, there existed an island, more than a mile in width, to the northeast of the entrance of the Bay of Vigia, which has now entirely disappeared.
Incapable of judgment, menaced by the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the Hesperides beneath his keel vigias innumerable. I don't know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. 'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic! What was that, now?" "Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster.
By strangers these new come people were named Galas, signifying banished men on account of their having actually been banished by the king of Tenacarii. Vigia Rajah died without children, and left the crown to his brother, in whole lineage it continued for 900 years.
Much might be said of Ceylon, but we can only make room for a short account of that famous island . About 500 years before the time of our Saviour, the heathen king of Tenacarii, who ruled over a great part of the east, banished his son and heir Vigia Rajah, for the wickedness and depravity of his conduct.
The mountain had two summits: one comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay, the ash-heap of the volcano proper, on which the vigia is erected, and whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a dozen horsemen.