Richard Francis Burton

“ Madeira is reputedly dangerous also for typhoid affections, for paralysis, and for apoplexy. There is still another change to come. The valley north of the beautiful and ever maligned 'Dead Sea' of Palestine, where the old Knights Templar had their sugar-mills and indigo-manufactories, has peculiar merits. Lying some 1,350 feet below the Mediterranean, it enables a man to live with a quarter of a lung: you may run till your legs fail with fatigue, but you can no more get out of breath than you can sink in the saline waters of Lake Asphaltites. ”

“ Now, however, the national taste has changed; the supply of Madeira not sufficing for the demand, the class called boticarios (apothecaries) brought rivals into the market; and extensive imitation's with apples, loquats (Japanese medlars) , and other frauds, brandied to make the stuff keep, plastered or doctored with Paris-plaster to correct over-acidity, and coloured and sweetened with burnt sugar and with boiled 'must' (mosto) to mock the Madeira flavour, gave the island-produce a bad name. Again, the revolution in the wine-trade of 1860-61 brought with it certain Continental ideas. ”

“ The population is heavily taxed, and would willingly 'pronounce' if it could only find a head. The produce, instead of being spent upon the island, is transmitted to Lisbon: surely a portion of it might be diverted from bureaucratic pockets and converted into an emigration fund. It is sad to think that a single stroke of the Ministerial pen would set all right and give new life to the lovely island, and yet that the pen remains idle.
And a parting word of praise for Madeira. ”

“ But Madeira is not 'played out;' au contraire, she is one of those 'obligatory points' for commerce which cannot but prosper as the world progresses. The increasing traffic of the West African coast will make men resort to her for comforts and luxuries, for climate and repose. And when the Gold Mines shall be worked as they should be this island may fairly look forward to catch many a drop of the golden shower. ”

“ After the 'gadding vine' had disappeared the people returned to their old amours, the sugar-cane, whose five loaves, disposed crosswise, gave the island her heraldic cognisance. Madeira first cultivated sugar in the western hemisphere and passed it on to the New World. Yet the cane was always worked under difficulties. Space is limited: the upper extreme of cultivation on the southern side may be estimated at 1,000 feet. The crop exhausts the soil; the plant requires water, and it demands what it can rarely obtain in quantity--manure. Again, machinery is expensive and adventure is small. ”

“ Men with small fixed incomes have little to thank us for; we make things dear, and we benefit only the working men. Bourgeois exactions have driven both French ships and American whalers to Tenerife; and many of them would do the same with the English and German residents and visitors of Funchal. Not a few have noble and historic names, whose owners are fallen into extreme poverty. ”

“ Madeira then rose in the world, and a host of medical residents sounded her praises, till Mentone was written up and proved a powerful rival. And the climate of the hot-damp category was found to suit, mainly if not only, that tubercular cachexy and those, bronchial affections and lung-lesions in which the viscus would suffer from the over-excitement of an exceedingly dry air like the light invigorating medium of Tenerife or Thebes. ”

“ When heat greatly exceeds moisture, the wines may be mild to mouth and nose, yet they are exceedingly potent; witness the vino d'oro of the Libanus.
At Funchal I also tasted a very neat wine, a vin de pays with the island flavour and not old enough to become spirituous. If the vine be again grown in these parts, its produce will be drunk in England under some such form. But Madeira has at last found her 'manifest destiny:' she will be an orchard to Northern Europe and (like the England of the future) a kitchen-garden to the West African Coast, especially the Gold Mines. ”

“ It might be worth while to apply electricity in the form used to destroy fusel-oil. Lastly, the wine made for the market is a brand or a blend, not a 'vintage-wine.' At any of the armazems, or stores, you can taste the wines of '70, '75, '76, and so forth, of A 1 quality; and you can learn their place as well as their date of birth. But these are mixed when wine of a particular kind is required and the produce becomes artificial. What is now wanted is a thin light wine, red or white, with the Madeira flavour, and this will be the drink of the future. ”

“ Moreover, Anglo-African officials are gradually learning that it is best to leave their 'wives and wees' at Madeira; and the coming mines of the Gold Coast will greatly add to the numbers. For the economist Funchal and its environs present peculiar advantages. The dearness of coin appears in the cheapness of houses and premises. Estates which cost 5,000l. to 15,000l. a generation ago have been sold to 'Demerarists' for one-tenth that sum. 'Palmeira,' for instance, was built for 42,000l., and was bought for 4,000l. A family can live quietly, even keeping ponies, for 500l. ”

“ The lips must not smile; but, when occasion calls for it, they may display a saintly joy. The eyebrows must not be raised too high towards the hair-roots; nor should one be elevated while the other is depressed. ”

“ Our countrymen are not over-popular in Portugal or in Madeira; such mortal insults as those offered by Byron, to name only the corypheus, will rankle and can never be forgotten. In this island strangers, especially Englishmen, have a bad practice of not calling upon the two governors, civil and military. ”

“ Otherwise they will grow up yellow and languid, without energy or industry, and with no object in life but to live.
Madeira has at once gained credit for comfort and has lost reputation as a sanatorium, a subject upon which fashion is peculiarly fickle. During the last century the Faculty sent its incurables to Lisbon and Montpellier despite the mistral and the fatal vent de bise. The latter town then lodged some 300 English families of invalids, presently reduced to a few economists and wine-merchants. ”

“ Manure also is rare and dear, and so is water, which, by the by, is sadly wasted in Madeira for want of reservoirs. Consequently the peasants smoke tobacco from the Azores.
The Casa Funchalense, north of the Cathedral, is the chief depôt for island-growths. It sells 'Escuros' (dark brands) of 20 reis, or 1d., and 50 reis, according to size. The 'Claros,' which seem to be the same leaf steamed, fetch from 40 to 100 reis. A small half-ounce of very weak and poor-flavoured pipe-tobacco also is worth 1d. ”

“ Tobacco has been tried with some success, though the results do not equal those of the Canaries; there, however, the atmosphere is too dry, here it is not. The estanco (monopoly) and the chronic debt to those who farm the import-tax long compelled the public to pay dear for a poor article. Home-growth was forbidden till late years; now it is encouraged, and rate-payers contribute a small additional sum. Hitherto, however, results have not been over-favourable, because, I believe, the tobacco-beds have been unhappily placed. ”

“ Residents and invalids suppress tiffin and dine at 2 to 3 P.M. In fact, as on board ship, people eat because they have nothing else to do; and English life does not admit of the sensible French hours--déjeuner à la fourchette at 11 A.M. and dinner after sunset.
The first walk through Funchal shows that it has not improved during the last score of years, and to be stationary in these days is equivalent to being retrograde. It received two heavy blows--in 1852 the vine-disease ”

“ The proportion of alcoholism is peremptorily determined by climate--that is, the comparative ratio of sun and rain. In Europe, for instance, light wines cannot be produced without 'liquor,' as the trade calls aqua pura, by latitudes lower than Germany and Southern France. ”

“ The voice should be at times tremolando, and the tone periodically 'sing-song.' Finally, the eyes are ordered to wander indiscriminately, and with all pudicity, over the whole flock, and never to be fixed upon a pretty lamb. ”

“ The body should be borne upright, but not stuck up, and when the congregation is addressed the chest is slightly advanced. The dorsal region must never face the Sacrament; this would be turning one's back, as it were, upon the Deity. The elbow may not rest upon the cushion. ”

“ The circus of lumber has been transferred from under the Peak Fort to near the sea; it mostly lacks men and horses. The Germans have a tolerable lending library; and the public bibliotheca in the Town House, near the Jesuit church, is rich in old volumes, mostly collected from religious houses. ”

“ They will enjoy good hotels, comfortable tables d'hôte, and beef that does not resemble horseflesh or unsalted junk. Nor is there any better place wherein to rest and recruit after hard service in the tropics. ”

“ The fair sex appeared only at 'functions,' at church, and at the Sunday promenade in the Place. The moderns dress better than their parents, who affected the most violent colours, an exceedingly pink pink upon a remarkably green green ”

“ Yet it may, I think, look for a better future when the Land Bill Law system, extending to England and Scotland, will cover the continent with colonies of British rentiers who rejoice in large families and small incomes. ”

“ The moist heat is admirably adapted for old age, and I doubt not that it greatly prolongs life. Youth, English youth, cannot thrive in this subtropical air; there are certain advantages for education at Funchal ”

“ His two surviving sons have worked hard and advertised on a large scale; they issue a yearly circular, and the result is improved enquiry. Till late years the world was not aware that the Madeiran vine has again produced Madeira wine ”