At about six o'clock in the evening of the 31st of July, 1821, after having saluted His Majesty, George IV., who at that moment went on board the Royal George yacht, to proceed to Dublin,—we sailed in the Doris, a 42 gun frigate, for South America. After touching at Plymouth, and revisiting all the wonders of the break-water and new watering place, we sailed afresh, but when off Ushant, were driven back to Falmouth by a heavy gale of wind. There we remained till the 11th of August, when, with colours half-mast high, on account of the death of Queen Caroline, we finally left the channel, and on the 18th about noon came in sight of Porto Santo.
We passed it on the side where the town founded by Don Henry of Portugal, on the first discovery of the island, is situated, and regretted much that it was too late in the day to go in very near it. The land is high and rocky, but near the town there is a good deal of verdure, and higher up on the land, extensive woods; a considerable quantity of wine is made there, which, being a little manufactured at Funchal, passes for true Madeira. As usual in Portuguese colonial towns, the church and convent are very conspicuous. When we passed Porto Santo, and the Desertas, and anchored in Funchal roads, I was disappointed at the calmness of my own feelings, looking at these distant islands with as little emotion as if I had passed a headland in the channel. Well do I remember, when I first saw Funchal twelve years ago, the joyous eagerness with which I feasted my eyes upon the first foreign country I had ever approached, the curiosity to see every stone and tree of the new land, which kept my spirits in a kind of happy fever.
"Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy haunts of long lost hours,
Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flow'rs." Rogers.
Now I look on them tamely, or at best only as parts of the lovely landscape, which, just at sunset, the time we anchored, was particularly beautiful. Surely the few years added to my age have not done this? May I not rather hope, that having seen lands whose monuments are all history, and whose associations are all poetry, I have a higher taste, and more discriminating eye? One object never palls—that ocean where the Almighty "Glasses himself in tempests," or over which the gentle wings of peace seem to brood. The feeling that there was a change, however, either in the scene or in me, was so strong, that I ran to my cabin and sought out a sketch I had made in 1809. I compared it with the town. Every point of the hill, every house was the same, and again Nossa Senhora da Monte, with her brilliant white towers shining from on high through the evening cloud, seemed to sanctify the scene, while a few rough voices from the shore and the neighbouring ships chaunted the Ave Maria.
Early in the morning of the 19th, we took a large party of the midshipmen on shore to enjoy the young pleasure of walking on a foreign land. To them it was new to see the palm, the cypress, and the yucca, together with the maize, banana, and sugar-cane, surrounded by vineyards, while the pine and chesnut clothe the hills. We mounted the boys on mules, and rode up to the little parish church, generally mistaken for a convent, called Nossa Senhora da Monte. My maid and I went in a bad sort of palankeen, though convenient for these roads, which are the worst I have seen; however, the view made up for the difficulty of getting to it. The sea with the Desertas bounded the prospect: below us lay the roadstead and shipping, the town and gardens, and the hill clothed with vineyards and trees of every climate, which deck the ashy tufa, or compact basalt of which the whole island seems to be composed. Purchas, who like Bowles, believes the story of the discovery of Madeira by the Englishman Masham and his dying mistress, says, that shortly after that event, the woods having taken fire burned so fiercely, that the inhabitants were forced out to sea to escape from the flames. The woods, however, are again pretty thick, and some inferior mahogany among it is used for furniture. The pine is too soft for most purposes. In the gardens we found a large blue hydrangea very common: the fuschia is the usual hedge. Mixed with that splendid shrub, aloes, prickly pear, euphorbia, and cactus, serve for the coarser fences; and these strange vegetables, together with innumerable lizards and insects, tell us we are nearing the tropics.
We spent a very happy day at the hospitable country house of Mr. Wardrope, and our cavalcade to the town at night was delightful. The boys, mounted as before, together with several gentlemen who had joined us at Mr. W.'s, enjoyed the novelty of riding home by torch-light; and as we wound down the hill, the voices of the muleteers answering each other, or encouraging their beasts with a kind of rude song, completed the scene. The evening was fine, and the star-light lovely: we embarked in two shore boats at the custom-house gate, and, after being duly hailed by the guard-boat, a strange machine mounting one old rusty 6 lb. carronade, we reached the ship in very good time.
20th. We walked a good deal about the town, and entered the cathedral with some feelings of reverence, for a part of it at least was built by Don Henry of Portugal, who founded and endowed the college adjoining. The interior of the church is in some parts gaudy, and there is a silver rail of some value. The ceiling is of cedar, richly carved, and reminds me of some of the old churches at Venice, which present a style half Gothic half Saracenic. Near the church a public garden has lately been formed, and some curious exotic trees placed there with great success.
In rambling about the town, we naturally enquired for the chapel of skulls, the ugliness of which had shocked us when here formerly, and were not sorry to find that that hideous monument of bad taste is falling fast to ruin. I cannot imagine how such fantastic horrors can ever have been sanctified, but so it is; and the Indian fakir who fastens a real skull round his neck, the Roman pilgrim who hangs a model of one to his rosary, and the friar who decks his oratory with a thousand of them, are one and all acted upon either by the same real superstition, or spiritual vanity, craving to distinguish itself even by disgusting peculiarities.
Of late years superstition has been used as an instrument of no small power in revolutions of every kind. Even here it has played its part. A small chapel, dedicated to St. Sebastian, had been removed by the Portuguese government in order to erect a market-place, where all articles of daily consumption were to be sold, a small tax being levied on the holders of stands. This innovation was of course disagreeable to the people, and on the night of the revolution, in November last, some of their leading orators accused the market-place of having, by rudely thrusting out St. Sebastian, occasioned the failure of the vineyards, and threatened the ruin of the island. The market-place was instantly devoted; it was down in a few seconds, and a chapel to St. Sebastian begun. Men, women, and children worked all night, and the walls were raised to at least two-thirds of the intended height; but day brought weariness, and perhaps the morning breeze chilled the fever of enthusiasm. The voluntary labourers worked no more, and no subscription adequate to the hire of workmen to complete it has yet been raised: so that the new St. Sebastian's stands roofless, and the officiating priest performs his masses with no other canopy than the heavens.
Other and better consequences have, however, arisen from the revolution of November. The grievances of the inhabitants of Madeira were severe. The sons of the best families were seized arbitrarily, and sent to serve in the armies of Europe or Brazil: scarcely any article, however necessary, or however coarse, was permitted to be manufactured; the very torches, made of twisted grass and resin, so necessary for travelling these mountain roads after sunset, were all sent from Lisbon, and every species of cultivation, but that of the grape, discountenanced. Thus situated, every class joined heart and hand in the revolution: deputies were sent to the Cortes; petitions respecting the state of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, were presented; and many, perhaps most, of the grievances were redressed, or at least much lightened.