In the beginning of October the malady gradually began to decrease, the last case which happened on the island occurring at Funchal, on the 16th December, 1856. It appears, from official reports, that out of a population of 102,837 souls, 7041 fell victims to the epidemic; other statements, that seem not less reliable, even raise the number of fatal cases to a much larger figure. A variety of local circumstances tended to heighten the fearful violence of the epidemic: the great distress among the people, arising from the deficiency of the vintages during several years; the potato disease, which occurred in the summer of 1856, and deprived the population, whilst suffering from other calamities, of one of their most important means of sustenance; and finally, to bring misfortunes to a climax, even that source of gain was dried up which the people derived from the temporary residence of numerous wealthy families. Terrified by the reports which were in circulation as to the ravages caused by the cholera at Madeira, hundreds altered their original plan of passing the winter there, and even resident strangers, horror-stricken, left the island, which had been so suddenly converted from a paradise into a burial-ground. The loss arising from the latter cause is estimated at £20,000, an immense sum at a time when pestilence and famine were raging so fiercely. The British Government, as well as English philanthropists in general, deserve the highest praise for the liberality with which they promptly and generously hastened to the assistance of the sufferers. Soon as intelligence of the great distress arrived in London, two steamers of war, the Salamander and Hesper, with provisions, medicine, clothing, bedding, and money, were despatched to Funchal, where the former arrived on the 18th and the latter on the 31st of October, 1856. This assistance essentially contributed to the rapid extinction of the epidemic, as it sufficed to relieve the more pressing wants.[29] Considerable contributions arrived also from the United States; and, according to public statements, the relief that came from foreign countries amounted to £8895.

[29] Old chronicles report that Madeira has been visited by a pestilential disease, that raged within the years 1521 to 1535. But the cholera was never in the island before the year 1856. The yellow fever is altogether unknown.

The commerce of the island was, as a matter of course, seriously affected by such a train of calamities. The principal exports had hitherto consisted of wine, cattle, fruit, and wicker-work; the first and most important of these articles—wine—had, as already stated, all but entirely disappeared from the list for several years, the small quantities still exported being merely the remnants of old stocks.

According to custom-house registers, the entire value of the produce exported in 1851 amounted to £164,960, of which £96,950 were shipped in English, £26,500 in American, and £16,650 in Portuguese vessels. The exports of 1855 were only £95,470, and in 1855, when the wine export had entirely ceased, the value did not exceed £2400!

The imports were of a more numerous and varied description; calico, cotton and woollen goods, hardware, spices and provisions from England; timber, salt meat, and other articles from the United States; grain from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; and sugar, coffee, oil, rice, and other colonial produce from Lisbon and the Portuguese settlements. The commerce is almost entirely in the hands of the English,[30] whose liberality during the cholera epidemic has much raised them in the estimation of the inhabitants.

[30] Three-fifths of the 50,000 tons annually imported are English manufactures.

The absence of a regular banking establishment is much felt by the trading community, particularly in times of temporary distress. Singularly enough there are few Portuguese coins to be met with, and even these are not liked by the inhabitants. The moneys chiefly in circulation are English and American gold and silver coins, French five-franc pieces, and Spanish dollars. The sailing vessels in the roads of Funchal are mostly under English and American flags. The steamers which keep up the intercourse between Europe and the Brazils call regularly at Funchal for mails and passengers,[31] and a steam-packet arrives regularly every fortnight on its way from Europe to South America.

[31] An English coal depôt has been established in Funchal since 1848.

The trade carried on under ordinary circumstances is, as we have seen, by no means inconsiderable, and by proper management might enable the people to extricate themselves from their present depressed position; but though not exactly lazy, they are entirely deficient in the energy requisite for effectively improving their condition. Whenever they have enough of yams and potatoes, they no longer think of exerting themselves or of acquiring a more comfortable or independent mode of existence. Neither in Ireland, nor in the Silesian mountains, nor even amongst the Indians in North or South America, have we witnessed such a degree of poverty and wretchedness as we beheld among the labouring classes in the mountainous districts of this island. On entering a village, shoals of haggard-looking beggars covered with rags were seen, whose features indicated their unhealthy way of living, and an utter lack of the most common necessaries of life. The calamities of the last five years have certainly contributed to this excess of misery, and a traveller who visited Madeira twenty years ago, may have carried away with him quite a different impression of its inhabitants.

The race inhabiting the island, notwithstanding some favourable exceptions, is rather unprepossessing and decrepit, owing to the elements of which it is composed. The first settlers, as already stated, belonged by no means to the better classes of Portugal, but consisted of a motley assemblage of ruffians, who came to the newly-discovered island merely in search of adventure. The admixture which afterwards took place with the black race imported from Africa, materially contributed to deteriorate the people both physically and morally. Though there is not one single pure negro in the whole island, yet the features of a considerable proportion of the inhabitants denote their African descent. In the population of Punta da Sol, a village on the west side of the island, the negro type is said to be exhibited in its strongest character.