THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA.
From a late account of that Island published in London.
The climate of the island is excellent, being between the extremes of heat and cold; indeed the climate and soil are such, that the fruits of the earth are yielded with very little trouble in their cultivation, which, from the negligence of the inhabitants, is highly essential.
Nearly every kind of European vegetable production is to be met with here, to which may be added the sweet potato and yam. The same may be said of fruits, and with care might be produced most of the tropical ones. The oranges, lemons, and figs, are remarkably fine: peaches, nectarines, apricots &c. are very abundant.
The hills are covered with very large chesnut and walnut trees; the former producing the finest fruit of its kind in the world, and forming one source of sustenance to the hardy peasantry.
The island is formed of one immense hill or mountain, running from east to west, affording views beautifully romantic, abounding with fine springs of the purest water in the universe; while verdure and fertility cover the most unpromising situations. Pico Ruivo is five thousand one hundred feet high.
The city of Funchal is very delightfully situated at the foot of this lofty range of mountains, on the south side of the island; which forms a kind of amphitheatre, and has a beautiful appearance from the shipping as you approach it, the environs abounding with vineyards, generally in the most luxuriant state; and in the midst of the green foliage of the vine, orange, lemon, pomegranate, bannanas, myrtle, cypress, cedar, &c. are numerous villas belonging to the gentry, or to the British merchants, which, being quite white, add greatly to the beauty of the scene.
Funchal is the emporium of the island; it contains about twenty thousand inhabitants, (the population of the whole island is one hundred thousand souls,) and is the residence of a governor, bishop, corrigidor, juiz da fora and other public functionaries. It is a very irregular built town; the streets are generally narrow and crooked, having no foot paths, and are badly paved; but it is quite the reverse of Lisbon, being extremely clean. The old houses are ill built; but they have lately much improved in architecture, for the modern buildings are generally handsome, and are invariably built with stone, plastered over and whitewashed: most of the houses of the gentry are stuccoed inside, many of them are very elegant, and they are for the most part handsomely furnished in the English style.
The residence of the governor is called the palace of Fort St. Lawrence; it is a large ancient building: a few years since, it was greatly improved by the addition of a new suit of apartments, built under the direction of an English gentlemen, which are elegant and commodious.
Funchal has several handsome churches, the altar pieces of which are highly ornamented with paintings, silver lamps, and railings, together with richly carved and gilt figures, &c.
There are, on the island, about twelve hundred secular priests, governed by a dean and chapter, with a bishop at their head.
Funchal towards the sea side, is protected by a parapet wall, properly called the musketry parapet: the fortifications consist of a castle erected upon a steep rock, on the west side of the harbour, and is within a few yards of the shore; it is very ancient, and mounts nine guns of different calibre. This fort returns the salute of the different vessels of war, anchoring in the roads; and the castle serves for a state prison.
There is one small vegetable and fruit market, but the cattle, beef, and fish markets, are miserable.
The prisons are ill constructed, badly governed, and insecure. They are altogether a disgrace to the island.
All the towns and villages, of which there are several, are invariably situated on the sea coast.
The country is too uneven for wheel carriages, except just in the town and its vicinity; the mode of travelling, therefore, is on horseback, or on mules, and in palanquins or hammocks.
The native inhabitants of Madeira are commonly of a middling stature, well limbed, and of a darker complexion than the inhabitants of the colder climates of Europe, possessing a warmth of feeling with more volatile humour than is usual in the phlegmatic constitutions of people of more northern countries, they are courteous in their dispositions, and are very polite in their manners among themselves, as well as towards strangers. The females display great taste in adorning their hair, the blackness of which corresponds with their dark expressive eyes, and gives them a very interesting appearance; they are almost universally distinguished for the whiteness of their teeth, the smallness of their feet, and their finely turned ancles.
The convulsive state of Europe, for so many years, occasioned such an increased demand for the wines of Madeira, that they have, in consequence, advanced to nearly treble the price at which they were sold at the commencement of the French revolution. The cause is removed, but the effect is still continued, by the impolicy of the British merchants, who out-bid each other in their purchases from the land proprietors and wine-jobbers: this rise in the price of wine has produced an increase of income to the landholders, and thus (to use the language of one of their own writers) many now live in splendour, whose parents were content with the simple manners of their neighbours on the opposite coast of Barbary.—Both sexes dress now in the highest style of English fashion: while most of the principle families have their card and music parties, routes, balls, &c.
There is no imprisonment for debt, and condign punishment is never inflicted in Madeira; for certain crimes the criminal is sometimes banished to the Cape de Verds, and when the crime is death, according to the Portuguese law, the felon is sent prisoner to Lisbon, there to await his fate.
Many of the natives are possessed of a turn for poetry, and almost the whole of them are rhymesters.
The islanders have a great taste for music, and are very graceful dancers.
The highest gratifications of the natives are the church festivals, and religious processions; their avidity for these spectacles is so great, that they come from all parts of the Island to see them: although it is constantly a repetition of the same thing; the streets are crowded with the delighted multitude, and the windows of the houses filled with the senhoras, who assemble there full dressed to see and be seen.
It is the custom to bury their dead within twenty-four hours after their demise; they carry the body in an open bier to the place of the interment, with the face and arms exposed to full view, attended by a concourse of priests and friars, chaunting a funeral dirge (that is when the deceased leaves money to pay for it, otherwise, no penny no pater-noster;) then follow the friends of the departed, and a motley tribe of beggars bearing lighted torches, although it should be at mid-day. When the body is consigned to the grave, a quantity of lime and vinegar is thrown in to consume it, in order to make room for others, as they always bury within the church. Relatives do not accompany the funerals, being supposed to be too much affected by their loss. Widows of rank do not cross the threshold for twelve months after the death of their Caro Sposos.
The dress of the peasantry is very simple, consisting of a shirt and drawers of linen of their own manufacture, the knee-bands of the latter and collar of the former are worn both open, a pair of loose light goat-skin boots, which, with a small blue cloth cap, of a conical shape turned up with red, completes their dress; although they have a blue cloth jacket, but it is generally thrown over one shoulder, being seldom worn. They are very civil when they meet a stranger; they take off their cap, and "hope the Lord will prosper him;" and when they encounter one another, they stand cap in hand, though under a perpendicular sun, till they have satisfied each other as to the welfare of their wives, children, relatives, acquaintances, cattle, domestic animals, and so on: there is then a good deal of ceremony in settling the important question who shall first put his cap on again. They are very muscular, and are capable of undergoing incredible fatigue.
A more desirable spot for the asthmatic or consumptive, uniting such numerous advantages cannot be found; the town of Funchal being situated in a valley open only to the south, while it is completely defended by the mountains rising behind, from those northern blasts, which in other situations too often prove fatal in cases of decline; and the temperature of the atmosphere is very little subject to change, the thermometer being seldom higher than from 75 to 78 in summer, and rarely below 65 in winter; indeed, the climate is so favourable for invalids, that were it resorted to before the disease becomes too long confirmed, it would seldom fail in restoring their health; but it is to be regretted that this resource is often deterred till it is too late for any hopes of recovery, and when the patient has scarcely strength to undergo the fatigues of the voyage.
When the Island was first colonized, prince Henry had the sugar transplanted hither from Sicily; and, at one time, there were forty sugar mills on the Island, that article then forming the staple commodity; now there is only one mill remaining, at which little sugar is made, but that little is excellent, and has a scent like the violet.
Instead of the cane the vine is now cultivated, the produce of which is well known and esteemed all over the world: the vines run on trellises of cane work, about three feet from the ground, and the grape is usually fit for making into wine at the beginning of September, when they are obliged to tie up all the dogs, to prevent their getting at the grapes, of which they are very fond. Great quantities are destroyed by rats, lizards, and wasps.
The wine-press is a wooden trough, about six feet square, and two feet deep, over which is a large clumsy lever. When the trough is nearly filled, about half a dozen peasants bare-legged, get in, and, with their feet, press out the precious juice; after which the husks and stalks are collected in a head, and pressed with the lever: this last pressing produces the strongest and choicest wine. The best wine is produced on the south side of the Island, and, when first made, is as deep coloured as Port: it ferments for about six weeks after it is made. It is computed that about twenty thousand pipes are made annually, of which about two thirds are exported, principally to Great Britain, and British colonies, and the remainder is consumed on the Island.
There are many different descriptions of grapes; the large sized, and which is merely a table grape, and is not made into wine, is about the size of a muscle plum, and the bunches are so large as sometimes to weigh twenty pounds.
The wines shipped from Madeira, are classed Tinta, or Madeira Burgundy, Malmsey, Sersial, and simple plain Madeira; the three first thirty pounds per pipe dearer than the latter, which is sixty pounds per pipe of 110 gallons, free on board. This high price is occasioned by the want of unanimity among the English merchants, or indeed a want of good faith towards each other, for they appear occasionally to rouse from their lethargy, meet at their consul's, and agree to give only certain prices for the wines at the press; but, immediately after, each out-bids the other, and the wine-jobber laughs in his sleeve, and profits by their folly.—Were a dozen of the principal wine shippers to be unanimous, they might, with ease, reduce the wines at the press one third of the present exorbitant prices, and could, of course, make a similar reduction in the shipping prices, when they would consequently have larger orders: but what can scarcely be credited is, that when they had what they term a factorial meeting to affix the shipping prices for 1819, all but two of the sapient assembly were for raising the price 8l. per pipe; and when these two proved to a demonstration that such conduct would only induce the wine-jobbers to make a similar rise, and merely add to their coffers, already overflowing with the effect of the merchants' past follies; the meeting still deemed it necessary to adjourn for a few days, before they would allow themselves to be convinced.
No foreign wine is allowed to be imported, not even a few dozen of Port for private use, although it is the production of the mother country: this is being strict indeed, yet it is justifiable, as a very few years since a discovery was made of an attempt to smuggle into the Island a number of pipes of wine from the Islands of Fayal and Tenneriffe; and had not the most rigid methods been adopted, the wine of Madeira would have lost its reputation, as no one who imported wine from thence could have been certain of having it genuine: consequently the wines were seized, and the heads of the casks were knocked out in the public marketplace, which overflowed with the contents: the boats that landed it were confiscated, and the smuggler condemned to transportation, or to pay to the crown, in addition to losing the wine, twice its amount.
The Island is well supplied with good beef, mutton, poultry, and some wild pidgeons, quails, partridges, snipes, woodcocks, wild rabbits, &c. The Atlantic furnishes the Island with abundance of excellent jew fish, john dory, pike, mullet, hake, mackeral, pilchards, turtle, cray fish, crabs, shrimps, limpets, &c. They have a breed of small but handsome and serviceable horses.
Most of the commercial characters on the Island are English; and among them are some respectable long established houses, possessing considerable capitals: there are about twenty different firms, and as many families. The total number of British subjects in Madeira, including women, children, clerks, and servants, amounts to one hundred; but they are too haughty, too jealous, and too envious of of each other, to be very sociable.