DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA.
In the year 1344, in the reign of Peter IV. king of Arragon, the island of Madeira, lying in 32 degrees, was discovered, by an Englishman, named Macham, who, sailing from England to Spain with a lady whom he had carried off, was driven to the island by a tempest, and cast anchor in the harbour or bay, now called Machico, after the name of Macham. His mistress being sea-sick, he took her to land, with some of his company, where she died, and the ship drove out to sea. As he had a tender affection for his mistress, he built a chapel or hermitage, which he called “Jesus,” and buried her in it, and inscribed on her tombstone his and her name, and the occasion of their arrival there. In the island are very large trees, of one of which he and his men made a boat, and went to sea in it, and were cast upon the shore of Africa, without sail or oars. The Moors were infinitely surprised at the sight of them, and presented Macham to their king, who sent him and his companions to the king of Castile, as a prodigy or miracle.
In 1395, Henry III. of Castile, by the information of Macham, persuaded some of his mariners to go in search of this island, and of the Canaries.
In 1417, king John II. of Castile, his mother Catherine being then regent, one M. Ruben, of Bracamont, admiral of France, having demanded and obtained of the queen the conquest of the Canaries, with the title of king for a kinsman of his, named M. John Betancourt, he departed from Seville with a good army. And it is affirmed, that the principal motive that engaged him in this enterprise was, to discover the island of Madeira, which Macham had found.
Tomb of Macham’s Anna.
The following elegiac stanzas are founded on the preceding historical fact. Macham, having consigned the body of his beloved mistress to the solitary grave, is supposed to have inscribed on it the following pathetic lines:—
O’er my poor Anna’s lowly grave
No dirge shall sound, no knell shall ring;
But angels, as the high pines wave,
Their half-heard ‘Miserere’ sing!
No flow’rs of transient bloom at eve,
The maidens on the turf shall strew;
Nor sigh, as the sad spot they leave,
Sweets to the sweet a long adieu!
But in this wilderness profound,
O’er her the dove shall build her nest;
And ocean swell with softer sound,
A Requiem to her dream of rest!
Ah! when shall I as quiet be,
When not a friend or human eye
Shall mark, beneath the mossy tree,
The spot where we forgotten lie?
To kiss her name on this cold stone,
Is all that now on earth I crave;
For in this world I am alone—
Oh! lay me with her in the grave.