[Footnote 5:  This is perhaps an error for 2000, as the larger quantity would amount to 10,000 tons.—­E.]

Santa Maria, twelve leagues S. of San Michael, is ten or twelve leagues in circumference, its only trade being in earthen ware, with which the inhabitants supply the other islands.  It also produces plenty of all manner of provisions for its own inhabitants.  The island of Gratiosa, seven or eight leagues N.N.W. of Tercera, is only about five or six leagues in circumference, but abounds in provisions of all sorts. St George, eight or nine leagues N.W. of Tercera, is twelve leagues in length by two or three in breadth.  This is a wild mountainous country, producing very little woad.  The inhabitants subsist by cultivating the ground and keeping cattle, and export considerable quantities of cedar to Tercera. Fayal, seven German leagues S.S.W. of St George, is seventeen or eighteen leagues in circumference, and is the best of the Acores, after Tercera and San Michael.  This island has plenty of woad, with abundance of fish, cattle, and other commodities, which are exported to Tercera and the other islands.  Its chief town is called Villa Dorta.  Most of the inhabitants of this island are descended from Flemings, but now speak the Portuguese language; yet they continue to love the Flemings, and use all strangers kindly.

Three leagues S.E. of Fayal is the island of Pico, so called from a peaked mountain, which some believe to be higher than the Peak of Teneriffe.  The inhabitants cultivate the soil, and have plenty of cattle and other provisions, growing also better wine than in any other island of the Acores.  This island is about fifteen leagues in circumference.  Seventy leagues W.N.W. from Tercera is the island of Flores, and to the N. of it lies Corvo, the former about seven, and the latter not above two or three leagues in circumference.  They both produce woad, especially Flores, which also abounds in provisions.  The winds at all these islands are so strong, and the air so piercing, especially at Tercera, that they in a short time spoil and consume the stones of the houses, and even iron.[6] They have a kind of stone, however, that is found within high-water mark, which resists the air better than the other sorts, and of which the fronts of their houses are generally built.

[Footnote 6:  This effect on the iron is obviously occasioned by the muriatic acid in the sea spray; and were it not that the author expressly says they have no lime, one would be apt to believe that the stones so affected were limestone.  There are, however, some cilicious sand-stones, in which the grit, or particles of sand, are cemented together by a calcareous infiltration, which may be the case in these islands.—­E.]