The little gardens at Camacha are gay with common flowers: large bushes of white marguerites and trees of the early-flowering red Rhododendron arboreum give colour to the village even in early spring, and in summer it is naturally much more flowery. On every bank and hedgerow grow bushes of hydrangeas, with their flaunting blue blossoms, while great clumps of belladonna lilies transform the whole landscape, and the country seems to blush a beautiful rosy-pink.
The road between the two most popular summer resorts, Camacha and the Mount, runs through pine woods and long stretches of golden gorse to the Pico d’Infante, from where a very fine panorama of the Bay of Funchal is to be seen by turning aside a few yards from the road. Just beyond this point the path strikes the Caminho do Meio, another steep road leading down to the town. Near the eucalyptus and pine groves is the Quinta Bom Successo, one of the most beautiful of the outlying properties, which, from its elevation, escapes the summer heat, while its sheltered and sunny aspect makes it a pleasant residence through the winter months. The large grounds extend to the edge of the ravine, and a view of surpassing loveliness is suddenly brought before one at the very end of the terrace. The river roars and tumbles below, and the ragged cliffs throw deep mysterious shadows, while the more distant hills are wreathed with light transparent mists. The sides of the cliff have been transformed into a wild garden, as many plants have strayed from the garden proper, and have either seeded themselves or been cast over the precipice as discarded plants, where they have taken root and clung to life in some cranny between the stones. Within the grounds a rocky bank is covered with great stretches of the red Aloe arborescens, blue agapanthus and vast clumps of belladonnas, all growing in careless profusion. The garden has long been noted for its orchid-houses, where plants have been brought from all parts of the world, and also for the pine-houses, from which hundreds of pines are cut annually. Showing that, though at a comparatively high altitude, the garden is sheltered and warm, two natives of Burmah, the giant honeysuckle, which in May is wreathed with its strong-scented trumpets and the Burmese rose, both flourish, and in a few years have made astonishingly rapid growth.
The road to the Little Curral leads past a grove of Mimosa cornuta—which is smothered with its fluffy balls of yellow blossoms in early spring—to the valley itself. Every fresh turn of the steep zigzag path opens out fresh views, and at every step a new fern or little wild-flower is to be seen nestling between the damp mossy stones. Down near the bed of the river, which tumbles over great boulders in a roaring torrent after heavy autumn or winter rains, a large colony of arum lilies begin to unfold their pure white flowers in November, and continue in one unceasing succession until the late spring or early summer. The path winds up the opposite hillside, through a group of peasants’ huts, where yapping dogs and begging children for a few minutes mar the harmony and repose of the scene, and then again the path enters another silent valley, until the little village of the Mount is reached. A colony of countless little quintas, which have sprung up under the shelter and protection of the Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte, has of late years become a more favourite summer resort than Camacha. The air may not be quite so pure and cool, but the proximity of the town and the convenience of the funicular railway are, no doubt, responsible for its growing popularity.
The principal villa, the Quinta do Monte, formerly owned by an Englishman, has large grounds, planted with many rare trees and shrubs. The property has changed hands; the house is no longer inhabited, and the garden is falling into decay. As the grounds were always more pleasure-grounds than actual flower-gardens, it has suffered less than a smaller garden, which misses the personal care of its owner. The camellia-trees are an immense size, and have out-grown the little garden centring in a sundial, in which they were, no doubt, originally planted as small shrubs in beds with neat box hedges. Here are to be found tree-ferns, long rows of agapanthus, and a great plantation of mimosa-trees, which is quite a feature in the landscape in early spring, when they are laden with their balls of yellow blossoms.
In every direction in this district large clumps of the foliage of the belladonna lilies are to be seen in winter, on every bank, in every little garden: giving promise of their glories to come in the waning summer months. But in the grounds of Quinta da Cova they are probably to be seen at their very best, as here they have been more collected together, and broad stretches of them carpet the ground in thousands, beneath the chestnut-trees. I remember once hearing a traveller remark, who had passed through Madeira in August, on his way to the Cape, and returned again early in October, that when he first saw the island “it was all blue,” alluding to the effect of the agapanthus and hydrangea blooms, and when he returned it had changed, and was “all pink,” from the masses of belladonna lilies.
CHAPTER VIII
A RAMBLE IN THE HIGHER ALTITUDES
The Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte is the starting-point of many an expedition made by those who have a wish to see more of the beauties of the island than can be done within the restricted area of Funchal. Should the Metade Valley be the point chosen, or the bleak Pico Ariero, with its enchanting views, or should the traveller be bent on a longer tour, and be proposing to make the little village of Santa Anna his headquarters for seeing the beautiful scenery of the north side of the island, the road up to a height of some 4,500 feet will be the same. Gradually the steep path winds its way through the fir woods, which in the early morning while the dew is still on them, exude a delicious aromatic scent, and the bushes of the little red Fuchsia coccinea and Rosa Benghalensis, with its small double pink flowers, and the clumps of belladonnas on the banks, which at first give the landscape the appearance of a ruined garden, are left behind, and the vegetation changes completely.
The pine woods consist chiefly of plantations of Pinus maritima, or pinaster, which have been planted for practical purposes, and have replaced the more beautiful chestnut woods, which were wantonly destroyed. These pines, being of rapid growth, are soon cut down, and provide timber for firewood, garden and vine trellises—in fact, are strictly utilitarian. The roots and stumps are burnt on the ground, and then possibly a crop of some sort is sown before the fresh pine seed is put in. This system has been the means of saving some of the more valuable and beautiful native trees, which at one time were ruthlessly felled; and even the forests in the interior, so necessary for the preservation of the water-sources, were threatened with destruction. Interspersed with the plantations of pine-trees are broad stretches of the common broom, which is sown extensively on the mountain-sides, either for the purpose of being cut down for firing, or to be burnt on the spot every five or seven years to fertilize the ground, and cause it to produce a single crop of wheat or batatas. The twigs and more slender branches are commonly used for making into faggots, and numbers of country-people, especially young girls and children, within reach of Funchal gain a scanty and hard-earned living by bringing daily into the town, often from great distances, bundles of giesta, as the natives call it, to be used for heating ovens and igniting the larger firewood. Doubtless the species was originally introduced into Madeira, though it is proved to have existed there for over 150 years, and now is so extensively diffused that it appears to be perfectly naturalized; in spring it floods the mountain-sides for miles with seas of its golden blossoms. The very fine and delicate basket-work peculiar to Madeira is manufactured from the slender peeled twigs of the broom.