Richard Francis Burton

“ The lower levels are everywhere dotted with white farmhouses and brown villages. The colours of the wall are the grey of basalt, the purple of volcanic conglomerates, and the bright reds and yellows of tufas. Here and there, however, a thread of water pouring from the summit, or bursting from the flank, fills a cavity which it has worn and turned for itself; and from this reservoir the industrious peasant has diverted sufficient to irrigate his dwarf terraced plots of cane, bananas, yams, or other vegetables ”

“ Beyond the Squire's is the hotel, approached by a shady avenue: it is the most comfortable in the island after the four of Funchal.
[11]
Santa Cruz has a regular spring-season; and the few residents of the capital frequent it to enjoy the sea-breeze, which to-day (April 23) blows a trifle too fresh.
We then pass the Ponta da Queimada, whose layers of basalt are deeply caverned, and we open the Bay of Machico. The site, a broad, green and riant valley, with a high background, is softer and gayer than that of Funchal. ”

“ It is the 'Rotten Row' of Funchal, where horses tread the earth instead of skating and sliding over the greased pebbles; and where fair amazons charge upon you like Indian irregular cavalry. Five miles long, it is the only level line of any extent in Madeira, and it wants but one thing--prolongation. The lion in the path, however, is Cape Girâo, which would cost a treasure to 'tunnel' or to cut into a corniche. ”

“ Passing the deep ravine, Ribeiro Fundo, and the Ponta da Galéra, with its rooky spur, we sighted Jardim do Mar, a village on a mound of débris with black walls of dry stone defending the terraces from surf and spray. The furthest point, where we halted half an hour, is 'Paül do Mar' (Swamp of the Sea) , apparently a misnomer. It is the port of the Fajãa da Ovelha (Ewe's landslip) , whose white tenements we see perched on the estreito, or tall horizon-slope. The large harbour-town is backed by a waterfall which may prove disastrous to it ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 flâner, or, as Victor Hugo has it, errer songeant.
Having once described Funchal at some length, I see no reason to repeat the dose ”

“ The Grand Curral is the central vent of a volcano originally submarine, and, like the Peak of Tenerife, of the age miocene. Fossils of that epoch have been found upon the crater-walls of both. Subsequent movements capped it with subaerial lavas and conglomerates; and wind and weather, causing constant degradation, deepened the bowl and almost obliterated signs of igneous action. This is general throughout Madeira; the only craters still noticed by guide-books are the Lagos (Lake) de Santo Antonio da Serra, east of Funchal and west of Machico, 500 feet across by 150 deep ”

“ The layers of the more modern formation--lavas and scoriae--are horizontal; sheets of sub-columnar, compact basalt have been spread upon and have crushed down to paper-thickness their beds of bright red tufa, here and there white with a saline effervescence. Of such distinct superimpositions we counted in one place five; there may have been many more. All are altered soils, as is shown by remains of trees and decayed vegetation.
Beyond Cabo Girão the scenery is grand enough, but monotonous in the extreme. The island is girt by a sea-wall, more or less perpendicular ”

“ Other places are built upon heaps of débris washed down from the heights, which hold out no promise of not falling again. The huts scattered amidst the cultivation remind one of nothing but Africa. In some places, too, a soft layer of tufa has been hollowed for man's abode, suggesting, like the caves, a fine old smuggling-trade. ”

“ 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 sunshine untarnished by watery vapour.
During our short trip and others subsequent many a little village showed us the Madeiran peasant pure and simple. Both sexes 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. [5] But they are an industrious and reproductive race. ”

“ The priesthood used to lament the degeneracy of the age and sigh for the fine times of foros e fogos, the rights and fires of an auto-da-fé. The shepherds have now learned to move with the times and to secure the respect of their sheep. Imagine being directed to Paradise by a reverend man who gravely asks you where and what Hanover is. ”

“ These islanders were the model 'navvies' of the age before steam: Albuquerque applied for Madeirans when he formed the barbarous project of diverting the Nile to the Red Sea. Their descendants are beggars from the cradle; but they beg with a good grace, and not with a curse or an insult like the European 'asker' when refused: moreover, the mendicant pest is not now over-prevalent. In the towns they cheat and pilfer; they gamble in the streets; they drink hard on Saturdays and Sundays, and at times they murder one another. Liquor is cheap ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are also quarrymen who extract cantaria-slabs for sills and copings from the four square apertures which look afar like mortice-holes; and a fine marbled stone, white, blue, and ruddy, has been taken from this part of the cliff-face. Finally, there is a little knot of tiny huts which sticks like a wasp-nest to the very foot of the huge wall.
Seen from the deep indigo-blue water, that turns leek-green in the shallows, Cape Girão ('they turn') is a grand study of volcanic dykes. They are of all sizes, from a rope to a cable multiplied a thousandfold ”

“ The sound is a drawling singsong; the articulation is peculiar, and the vocabulary is in some points confined to the Island.
The country people, an active, agile, unmuscular race, mostly preserve the old national dress. Some men still wear, and both sexes once wore, the ridiculous carapuça, or funnel-cap with a rat-tail for a tassel. The rest of the toilet consists of homespun cottons, shirts and knickerbockers, with buff shoes or boots broad-soled and heelless. The traveller who prefers walking should always use this chaussure, and the 'little girl in topboots' is still a standing joke. ”

“ I rarely heard a crying child or a scolding woman offering 'eau bénite à la Xantippe;' even the cocks and hens tied to old shoes cackle with reserve. The climate tames everything from Dom to donkey. Except in January and February it is still, intensely still--the very leaves seem to hang motionless. ”

“ They prefer Cape Town, Honolulu, the Antilles, and especially Demerara; and now the 'Demerarista' holds the position of the 'Brasileiro' in Portugal and the 'Indio' or 'Indiano' of the Canaries: in time he will buy up half the island.
In 1862 we hired rowing and sailing boats to visit the southern coast east and west of Funchal. For the last twelvemonth Mr. Blandy's steam-tug Falcão has carried travellers to and fro: it is a great convenience to the lazy sightseer, who cares only to view the outside of things, and here the outsides are the only things worth viewing. ”

“ The peasant's cot is of the simplest, and those in the plantations suggest African huts. Even the best houses, except when copied from the English, are scantily furnished; and little beyond a roof is absolutely wanted. The home of the cazeiro, or peasant tenant practically irremovable, is whitewashed and thatched, the straw forming a crest along the ridge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ People bathe only in hot weather--the rule of man and the lower mammalia. A quick and intelligent race they are, like the Spaniards and Bedawi Arabs, a contradiction in religious matters: the Madeiran believes in little or nothing, yet he hates a Calvinista like the very fiend. ”

“ Deserta Grande has midway precipices 2,000 feet high, bisected by a lateral valley, where the chief landing is. Finally, Cu de Bugio (as Cordeyro terms it) is in plan a long thin strip, and in elevation a miniature of its big brother, with the additions of sundry jags and peaks.
The group is too windy for cereals, but it grows spontaneously orchil and barilla (Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum) , burnt for soda. Few strangers visit it, and many old residents have never attempted the excursion. ”

“ The prosperous little fishing-village, formerly the capital of the Tristam, lies as usual upon a wady, the S. Gonsales, and consists of a beach, an Alameda, a church with a square tower, and some good houses. ”

“ Tunny-fishing, wine-making, and sugar-boiling have made it, from a 'miserable place,' a wealthy townlet whose tall white houses would not disgrace a city; two manufactories show their craft by heaps of bagasse, or trash ”