At the foot of the mountain we changed from the slowly moving sleds to the car of a cog-wheel railway, which carried us up the steep incline. The speed of the car was not much greater than that of the ox-team. As we ascended, scenes of beauty opened around us. Cottages built on terraces were covered with blooming bouguain-villea or climbing roses. Patches of cultivated land were filled with sugar cane, banana plants, and orange trees. Palms and cacti appeared in many varieties. Flowers bloomed on every side. Geraniums, fuschias, and heliotropes were of enormous size. Camelias, lilies, and nasturtiums grew in profusion. Children from the suburban cottages ran alongside the moving car, merrily casting roses, heliotropes, geraniums, and camelias through the open windows into our laps, and the tourists, pleased with the floral offerings, in return tossed pennies to the running children.
When we alighted from the car, young peddlers, some bright-faced and clean, others ugly and dirty, offered flowers and trinkets for sale and beggars asked for money. But our pennies were exhausted and we were glad that peddlers and paupers were not permitted to follow us into the hotel grounds.
ON THE PIER WE BOUGHT FLOWERS.
"Here you may lunch," said the guide, as we entered a hotel on the mountain, "and get pure Madeira wine. The wine which is made in this island was at one time its most noted production; but some thirty years ago insects and disease so infested the vines that many vineyards were destroyed and the quantity of wine now made is not so large as in former years."
After having luncheon and tasting the well known wine in its purity on a broad piazza overlooking a beautiful tropical garden, we wandered through an interesting old church and convent near by, and then strolled around a mountain pathway from which, as the guide said, "views most grand" might be seen. As we advanced on our way we looked down from the height upon many continually changing scenes of picturesque beauty. Now there appeared a vista through a wooded ravine of striking grandeur, now a view of a rocky gorge penetrating from the ocean, and again a wide panorama of city, harbor, and ocean.
THE SLIDE IS TWO MILES IN LENGTH
Our return to the city was in a conveyance indeed unique. The descent of the mountain in sleds from the summit to the city below, through narrow lanes paved with small stones worn and slippery from years of service, was an experience long to be remembered. Our sled, without any means of propulsion but our own weight, glided rapidly down the hill over the smooth surface of the pavement like a toboggan on an icy slide. It was controlled by two men, who, sometimes running alongside, sometimes clinging to the runners, regulated the speed and guided the sled around corners by means of ropes attached to its sides.
"That was a wild and exciting ride," exclaimed one of the ladies who had been tightly holding to her seat during the descent. "What is the distance from the summit?"