To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume I Part 2

Though it be midwinter, the land is gorgeous with blossoms; with glowing rose, fuchsia, and geranium; with snowy datura, jasmine, belladonna, stephanotis, lily, and camelia; with golden bignonia and grevillea; with purple pa.s.sion-creeper; with scarlet coral and poinciana; with blue _jacaranda_ (rosewood), solanum and lavender; and with sight-dazzling bougainvillea of five varieties, in mauve, pink, and orange sheets. Nor have the upper heights been wholly bared. The mountain-flanks are still bushy and tufty with broom, gorse, and furze; with myrtle, bilberry and whortleberry; with laurels; with heaths 20 feet high, and with the imported pine.

We spin round fantastic Garajao, [Footnote: Not the meaningless Garajo, as travellers will write it.] the wart-nosed cliff of 'terns' or 'sea-swallows' (_Sterna hirundo_), by the northern barbarian termed, from its ruddy tints, Brazen Head. Here opens the well-known view perpetuated by every photographer--first the blue bay, then the sheet of white houses gradually rising in the distance. We anchor in the open roadstead fronting the Fennel-field ('Funchal'), concerning which the Spaniard spitefully says--

Donde crece la escola Nace el asno que la roya.

[Footnote:

Wheresoe'er the fennel grows Lives the a.s.s that loves to browse.]

And there, straight before us, lies the city, softly couched against the hill-side that faces the southern sea, and enjoying her 'kayf' in the sinking sun. Her lower zone, though in the Temperates, is sub-tropical: Tuscany is found in the mid-heights, while it is Scotland in the bleak wolds about Pico Ruivo (6,100 feet) and the Paul (Moorland) da Serra. I now see some change since 1865. East of the yellow-washed, brown-bound fort of So Thiago Minor, the island patron, rises a huge white pile, or rather piles, the Lazaretto, with its three-arched bridge spanning the Wady Goncalo Ayres. The fears of the people forbid its being used, although separated from them by a mile of open s.p.a.ce. This over-caution at Madeira, as at Tenerife, often causes great inconvenience to foreign residents; moreover, it is directly opposed to treaty. There is a neat group, meat-market, abattoir, and fish-market--where there is ne'er a flat fish save those who buy--near those dreariest of academic groves, the Praca Academica, at the east end proper, or what an Anglo-Indian would term the 'native town.' Here we see the joint mouth of the torrent-beds Santa Luzia and Joo Gomes which has more than once deluged Funchal. Timid Funchalites are expecting another flood: the first was in 1803, the second in 1842, and thus they suspect a cycle of forty years. [Footnote: The guide-books make every twenty-fifth year a season of unusual rain, the last being 1879-80.] The lately repaired Se (cathedral) in the heart of the ma.s.s is conspicuous for its steeple of _azulejos_, or varnished tiles, and for the ruddy painting of the black basaltic facade, contrasting less violently with the huge splotches of whitewash, the magpie-suit in which the church-architecture of the Madeiras and the Canaries delights. The So Francisco convent, with its skull-lined walls, and the foundations of its proposed successor, the law courts, have disappeared from the s.p.a.ce adjoining the main square; this chief promenade, the Praca da Const.i.tuico, is grown with large magnolias, vinhaticos, or native mahogany (_Persea Indica_), and til-trees (_Oreodaphne foetens_), and has been supplemented by the dwarf flower-garden (Jardim Novo) lately opened to the west. The latter, I regret to say, caused the death of many n.o.ble old trees, including a fine palm; but Portuguese, let me repeat, have scant sympathy with such growth. The waste ground now belonging to the city will be laid out as a large public garden with fountains and band-stands. Finally, that soundly abused 'Tower of Babel,' _alias_ 'Benger's Folly,' built in 1796, has in the evening of its days been utilised by conversion into a signal-tower. So far so good.

But the stump of _caes_, or jetty, which was dashed to pieces more than a score of years ago, remains as it was; The landing-place calls loudly for a T-headed pier of concrete blocks, or a gangway supported upon wooden piles and metal pilasters: one does not remark the want in fine weather; one does bitterly on bad days. There has been no attempt to make a port or even a _debarcadere_ by connecting the basaltic lump Loo (Ilheu) Fort with the Pontinha, the curved scorpion's tail of rock and masonry, Messieurs Blandy's coal stores, to the west. Big s.h.i.+ps must still roll at anchor in a dangerous open roadstead far off sh.o.r.e; and, during wet weather, ladies, well drenched by the surf, must be landed with the aid of a crane in what should be the inner harbour. The broken-down circus near Reid's is to become a theatre, but whence the money is to come no one knows. The leper hospital cannot afford to make up more than nine or ten beds. The jail is in its old disgraceful state, and sadly wants reform: here the minimum of punishment would suffice; I never saw the true criminal face, and many of the knick-knacks bought in Madeira are the work of these starving wretches. The Funchal Club gives periodically a subscription ball, 'to ameliorate, if possible, the condition of the prisoners at the Funchal jail'--asking strangers, in fact, to do the work of Government. The Praca da Rainha, a dwarf walk facing the huge yellow Government House, alias Palacio de So Lourenco, has been grown with mulberries intended for sericulture. Unfortunately, whatever may here be done by one party (the 'ins') is sure to be undone when the 'outs' become 'ins.' There has been no change in the 'Palace,'

except that the quaint portraits of one-eyed Zargo, who has left many descendants in the island, and of the earlier Captains-General, dignitaries who were at once civil and military, have been sent to the Lisbon Exhibition. The queer old views of Machim's landing and of Funchal Bay still amuse visitors. Daily observations for meteorology are here taken at 9 A.M. and 3 and 9 P.M.; the observatory standing eighty feet above sea-level.

As our anchor rattles downwards, two excise boats with the national flag take up their stations to starboard and port; and the boatmen are carefully watched with telescopes from the sh.o.r.e. The wiser Spaniards have made Santa Cruz, Tenerife, a free port. The health-officer presently gives us _pratique_, and we welcome the good 'monopolist,'

Mr. William Reid, and his son. The former, an Ayrs.h.i.+re man, has made himself proprietor of the four chief hostelries. Yates's or Hollway's in the _Entrada da Cidade_, or short avenue running north from the landing-place, has become a quasi-ruinous telegraph-station. Reid's has blossomed into the 'Royal Edinburgh;' it is rather a tavern than an hotel, admitting the 'casuals' from pa.s.sing steamers and men who are not welcome elsewhere. One of these, who called himself a writer for the press, and who waxed insultingly drunk, made our hours bitter; but the owner has a satisfactory and sovereign way of dealing with such brutes. Miles's has become the Carmo, and Schlaff's the 'German.' The fourth, Santa Clara, retains her maiden name; the establishment is somewhat _collet monte_, but I know none in Europe more comfortable. There are many others of the second rank; and the Hotel Central, with its cafe-billiard and estaminet at the city-entrance, is a good inst.i.tution which might be made better.

We throw a few coppers to the diving-boys, who are expert as the Somali savages of Aden, and we quit our water prison in the three-keeled boats,

Magno telluris amore Egressi

'Tellus,' however, is represented at Funchal by chips and pebbles of black basalt like petrified kidneys, stuck on edge, often upon a base of bare rock. They are preferred to the slabs of Trieste and Northern Italy, which here, with the sole exception of the short Rua de Bettencourt, are confined to flights of steps. The surfaces are greased by rags and are polished by the pa.s.sage of 'cars' or coach-sleighs, which irreverents call 'cow-carts;' these vehicles, evidently suggested by the _corsa_, or common sleigh, consist of a black-curtained carriage-body mounted on runners. The queer cobble-pavement, that resembles the mosaics of clams and palm-nuts further south, has sundry advantages. It is said to relieve the horses' back sinews; it is never dusty; the heaviest rain flows off it at once; nor is it bad walking when the kidney-stones are small. The black surface is sometimes diapered with white pebbles, lime from Porto Santo. Very strange is the glare of moonlight filtered through the foliage; the beams seem to fall upon patches of iced water.

We had not even the formality of a visit to the Custom-house: our unopened boxes were expected to pay only a small fee, besides the hire of boat, porters, and sledges. A _cedula interina_, costing 200 reis (11_d_.), was the sole expense for a permit to reside. What a contrast with London and Liverpool, where I have seen a uniform-case and a c.o.c.ked hat-box subjected to the 'perfect politeness' of certain unpleasant officials: where collections of natural history are plundered by paid thieves, [Footnote: When we last landed at Liverpool (May 22), the top tray of my wife's trunk reached us empty, and some of the choicest birds shot by Cameron and myself were stolen. Since the days of Waterton the Liverpudlian custom-house has been a scandal and a national disgrace.] and where I have been obliged to drop my solitary bottle of Syrian raki!

I was hotelled at the 'Royal Edinburgh,' and enjoyed once more the restful calm of a quasi-tropical night, broken only by the Christmas tw.a.n.ging of the machete (which is to the guitar what kit is to fiddle); by the clicking of the pebbles on the sh.o.r.e, and by the gentle murmuring of the waves under the window.

NOTE.--The Madeiran Archipelago consists of five islands disposed in a scalene triangle, whose points are Porto Santo (23 miles, north-east), Madeira (west), and the three Desertas (11 miles, south-east). The Great and Little Piton of the Selvagens, or Salvages (100 miles, south), though belonging to Portugal and to the district of Funchal, are geographically included in the Canarian group. Thus, probably, we may explain the 'Aprositos,' or Inaccessible Island, which Ptolemy

[Footnote: The great Alexandrian is here (iv. 6, ---- 33-4) sadly out of his reckoning. He places the group of six islands adjacent to Libya many degrees too far south (N. lat. 10-16), and a.s.signs one meridian (0 0'

0") to Aprositos, Pluitana (Pluvialia? Hierro?), Caspeiria (Capraria?

Lanzarote?), and another and the same (1 0' 0") to Pintouaria (Nivaria?

Tenerife?), Hera (Junonia? Gomera?), and Canaria.]

includes in his Six Fortunates; and the Isle of SS. Borondon and Maclovius the Welshman (St. Malo). The run from Lizard's Point is laid down at 1,164 miles; from Lisbon, 535; from Cape Cantin, 320; from Mogador (9 40' west long.), 380; and 260 from Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The main island lies between N. lat. 32 49' 44" and 32 37' 18"; the parallel is that of Egypt, of Upper India, of Nankin, and of California. Its longitude is included within 16 39' 30" and 17 16' 38"

west of Greenwich. The extreme length is thus 37-1/2 (usually set down as 33 to 54) miles; the breadth, 12-1/2 (popularly 15-16 1/2); the circ.u.mference, 72; the coast-line, about 110; and the area, 240--nearly the size of Huntingdons.h.i.+re, a little smaller than the Isle of Man, and a quarter larger than the Isle of Wight. Pico Ruivo, the apex of the central volcanic ridge, rises 6,050-6,100 feet, with a slope of 1 in 3.75; the perpetual snow-line being here 11,500. Madeira is supposed to tower from a narrow oceanic trough, ranging between 13,200 and 16,800 feet deep. Of 340 days, there are 263 of north-east winds, 8 of north, 7 of east, and 62 of west. The rainfall averages only 29.82 to 30.62 inches per annum. The over-humidity of the climate arises from its lying in the Guinea Gulf Stream, which bends southward, about the Azores, from its parent the great Gulf Stream, striking the Canaries and flowing along the Guinea sh.o.r.e. (White and Johnson's Guide-Book, and 'Du Climat de Madere,' &c., par A. C. Mouro-Pitta, Montpellier, 1859, the latter ably pleading a special cause.)

CHAPTER III.

A FORTNIGHT AT MADEIRA.

I pa.s.sed Christmas week at the 'Flower of the Wavy Field;' and, in the society of old and new friends, found nothing of that sameness and monotony against which so many, myself included, have whilom declaimed. The truth is that most places breed _ennui_ for an idle man. Nor is the climate of Madeira well made for sedentary purposes: it is apter for one who loves to _flaner_, or, as Victor Hugo has it, _errer songeant_.

Having once described Funchal at some length, I see no reason to repeat the dose; and yet, as Miss Ellen M. Taylor's book shows,

[Footnote: _Madeira: its Scenery, and how to see it._ Stanford, London, 1878. This is an acceptable volume, all the handbooks being out of print. I reviewed it in the _Academy_ July 22, 1882.]

the subject, though old and well-worn, can still bear a successor to the excellent White and Johnson handbook.

[Footnote: Mr. Johnson still survives; not so the well-known Madeiran names Bewick, (Sir Frederick) Pollock, and Lowe (Rev, R. T.) The latter was drowned in 1873, with his wife, in the s.s. _Liberia_, Captain Lowry. The steamer went down in the Bay of Biscay, it is supposed from a collision. I sailed with Captain Lowry (s.s. _Athenian_) in January 1863, when St. George's steeple was rocking over Liverpool: he was nearly washed into the lee scuppers, and a quartermaster was swept overboard during a bad squall. I found him an excellent seaman, and I deeply regretted his death.]

As early as 1827 'The Rambler in Madeira' (Mr. Lyall) proclaimed the theme utterly threadbare, in consequence of 'every traveller opening his quarto (?) with a short notice of it;' and he proceeded at once to indite a fair-sized octavo. Humboldt said something of the same sort in his 'Personal Narrative,' and forthwith wrote the worst description of the capital and the 'Pike' of Tenerife that any traveller has ever written of any place. He confesses to having kept a meagre diary, not intending to publish a mere book of travels, and drew his picture probably from recollection and diminutive note-books.

I found Funchal open-hearted and open-handed as ever; and the pleasure of my stay was marred only by two considerations, both purely personal. Elysian fields and green countries do not agree with all temperaments. Many men are perfectly and causelessly miserable in the damp heats of Western India and the Brazil. We must in their case simply reverse the Wordsworthian dictum,

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. I need hardly say that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: the impressions of that good old time were deep and durable.

Amongst other things, Governor Farrobo indulged his fair friends with a display of the old _jogo de canas_, or running at the ring. The Praca Academica had been rigged out to serve as a tilting-yard, with a central alley of palisading and two 'stands,' grand and little. The purpose was charitable, and the performers were circus-horses, mounted by professionals and amateurs, who thus 'renowned it' before the public and their _damas_. The circlet, hanging to a line, equalled the diameter of a small boy's hat; and when the 'knight' succeeded in bearing it off upon his pole, he rode up to be decorated by the hands of a very charming person with a ribbon-_baudriere_ of Bath dimensions and rainbow colours. Prizes were ba.n.a.l as medals after a modern war, and perhaps for the same purpose--to prevent unchristian envy, hatred, and malice. Almost any trooper in an Anglo-Indian cavalry regiment would have done better; but then he would have couched his bamboo spear properly and would have put out his horse to speed--an idea which seemed to elude the Madeiran mind. The fete ended with a _surprise_ less expensive than that with which the Parisian restaurant astonishes the travelling Britisher. A paper chandelier was suspended between two posts, of course to be knocked down, when out sprang an angry hunch-backed dwarf, who abused and fiercely struck at all straight backs within reach.

Madeira is celebrated for excursions, which, however, are enjoyable only in finest weather. Their grand drawback is inordinate expense; you may visit the whole seaboard of Morocco, and run to Tenerife and return for the sum spent in a week of Madeiran travel. The following tour to the north of the island was marked out for us by the late Mr. Bewick; his readiness to oblige, his extensive local knowledge, and his high scientific attainments caused his loss to be long felt in the Isle of Wood. 'You make on the first day Santa Anna, on the opposite coast, a six to eight hours' stage by horse or hammock, pa.s.sing through the grand scenery of the valleys Metade, Meiometade, and Ribeiro Frio.

[Footnote: Most of these places are given in _Views_ (26) _in the Madeiras, &c._, by the Rev. James Bulwer. London, Rivington, 1829. He also wrote _Rambles in Madeira and in Portugal in _1826.]

The next day takes you to Pico Ruivo, Rothhorn, Puy Rouge, or Red Peak, the loftiest in the island, whose summit commands a view of a hundred hills, and you again night at Santa Anna. The third stage is to the rocky gorge of So Vicente, which abounds in opportunities for neck-breaking. The next is a long day with a necessary guide to the Paul da Serra, the "Marsh of the Wold," and the night is pa.s.sed at Seixal, on the north-west coast, famous for its corniche-road. The fifth day conducts you along-sh.o.r.e to Ponta Delgada, and the last leads from this "Thin Point" through the Grand Curral back to Funchal.'

I mention this excursion that the traveller may carefully avoid it in winter, especially when we attempted the first part, February being the very worst month. After many days of glorious weather the temper of the atmosphere gave way; the mercury fell to 28.5, and we were indulged with a succession of squalls and storms, mists and rain. The elemental rage, it is true, was that of your southern coquette, sharp, but short, and broken by intervals of a loving relapse into caress. In the uplands and on the northern coast, however, it shows the concentrated spleen and gloom of a climate in high European lat.i.tudes.

We contented ourselves with the Caminho do Meio, the highway supposed to bisect the island, and gradually rising to the Rocket Road (_Caminho do Foguete_) with a pleasant slope of 23, or 1 in 2 1/3. These roads are heavy on the three h's--head, heart, and hand. We greatly enjoyed the view from the famous Levada, the watercourse or leat-road of Santa Luzia, with its scatter of n.o.ble _quintas_,

[Footnote: The country-house is called a _quinta_, or fifth, because that is the proportion of produce paid by the tenant to the proprietor.]

St. Lucy's, St. Anne's, Quinta Davies, Palmeira, and Til. Nossa Senhora do Monte, by Englishmen misnamed 'the Convent,' and its break-arm slide-down, in basket-sleighs, is probably as well known, if not better known, to the reader than St. Paul's, City. Here we found sundry votaries prostrating themselves before a dark dwarf 'Lady' with jewelled head and spangled jupe: not a few were crawling on their knees up the cruel cobble-stones of the mount. On the right yawned the 'Little Curral,' as our countrymen call the Curral das Romeiras (of the Pilgrimesses); it is the head of the deluging torrent-bed, Joo Gomes. Well worth seeing is this broken punch-bowl, with its wild steep gap; and, if the traveller want a vertiginous walk, let him wend his way along the mid-height of the huge tongue which protrudes itself from the gorge to the valley-mouth.

Near the refuge-house called the Poizo, some 4,500 feet above sea-level, a road to the right led us to Comacha, where stood Mr. Edward Hollway's summer _quinta_. It occupies a ridge-crest of a transverse rib projected southerly, or seawards, from the central range which, trending east-west, forms the island dorsum. Hence its temperature is 60 (F.) when the conservatory upon the bay shows 72. Below it, 1,800 feet high, and three miles north-east of the city, lies the Palheiro do Ferreiro ('blacksmith's straw-hut'), the property of the once wealthy Carvalhal house. The name of these 'Lords of the Oak-ground' is locally famous. Chronicles mention a certain Count Antonio who flourished, or rather 'larked,' circa A.D. 1500. In those days the land bore giants and heroes, and Madeiran blood had not been polluted by extensive miscegenation with the negro. Anthony, who was feller than More of More Hall, rode with ungirthed saddle over the most dangerous _achadas_ (ledges); a single buffet of this furious knight smashed a wild boar, and he could lift his horse one palm off the ground by holding to a tree branch. The estate has been wilfully wasted by certain of his descendants. Comacha, famous for picnics, is a hamlet rich in seclusion and fine air; it might be utilised by those who, like the novel-heroes of Thackeray and Bulwer, deliberately sit down to vent themselves in a book.

Pico Ruivo was a distressing failure. We saw nothing save a Scotch mist, which wetted us to the bones; and we s.h.i.+vered standing in a slush of snow which would have been quite at home in Upper Norwood. On this topmost peak were found roots of the Madeiran cedar (_Juniperus Oxycedrus_), showing that at one time the whole island was well wooded.

We need not believe in the seven years' fire; but the contrast of the southern coast with the northern, where the forests primaeval of Lauraceae and Myrtaceae still linger, shows the same destructive process which injured Ireland and ruined Iceland. The peculiarity of these uplands, within certain limits, is that the young spring-verdure clothes them before it appears in the lower and warmer levels. Here they catch a suns.h.i.+ne untarnished by watery vapour.

During our short trip and others subsequent many a little village showed us the Madeiran peasant pure and simple. Both s.e.xes are distressingly plain; I saw only one pretty girl amongst them. Froggy faces, dark skins, and wiry hair are the rule; the reason being that in the good old days a gentleman would own some eighty slaves. [Footnote: As early as 1552 the total of African imports amounted to 2,700.] But they are an industrious and reproductive race.

[Footnote: The following note of the census of 1878 was given to me by my kind colleague, Mr. Consul Hayward:--

Habitations Males Females Total Madeira.............28,522 62,900 67,367 130,267 Porto Santo......... 435 874 874 1,748 _______ 132,015

_No. of Persons who can read and write._

Males Females Total Madeira..............................4,454 4,286 8,740 Porto Santo.......................... 77 34 111 ______ 8,851

_No. of Persons who can read but not write._

Males Females Total Madeira.......1,659 2,272 3,931 Porto Santo... 42 60 102 _____ 4,033