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To the Gold Coast for Gold

R >> Richard F. Burton >> To the Gold Coast for Gold






CHAPTER III.

A FORTNIGHT AT MADEIRA.

I passed Christmas week at the 'Flower of the Wavy Field;' and, in the
society of old and new friends, found nothing of that sameness and
monotony against which so many, myself included, have whilom
declaimed. The truth is that most places breed _ennui_ for an idle
man. Nor is the climate of Madeira well made for sedentary purposes: it
is apter for one who loves to _flâner_, or, as Victor Hugo has it,
_errer songeant_.

Having once described Funchal at some length, I see no reason to repeat
the dose; and yet, as Miss Ellen M. Taylor's book shows,

[Footnote: _Madeira: its Scenery, and how to see it._ Stanford,
London, 1878. This is an acceptable volume, all the handbooks being out
of print. I reviewed it in the _Academy_ July 22, 1882.]

the subject, though old and well-worn, can still bear a successor to the
excellent White and Johnson handbook.

[Footnote: Mr. Johnson still survives; not so the well-known Madeiran
names Bewick, (Sir Frederick) Pollock, and Lowe (Rev, R. T.) The latter
was drowned in 1873, with his wife, in the s.s. _Liberia_, Captain
Lowry. The steamer went down in the Bay of Biscay, it is supposed from a
collision. I sailed with Captain Lowry (s.s. _Athenian_) in January
1863, when St. George's steeple was rocking over Liverpool: he was
nearly washed into the lee scuppers, and a quartermaster was swept
overboard during a bad squall. I found him an excellent seaman, and I
deeply regretted his death.]

As early as 1827 'The Rambler in Madeira' (Mr. Lyall) proclaimed the
theme utterly threadbare, in consequence of 'every traveller opening
his quarto (?) with a short notice of it;' and he proceeded at once to
indite a fair-sized octavo. Humboldt said something of the same sort in
his 'Personal Narrative,' and forthwith wrote the worst description of
the capital and the 'Pike' of Tenerife that any traveller has ever
written of any place. He confesses to having kept a meagre diary, not
intending to publish a mere book of travels, and drew his picture
probably from recollection and diminutive note-books.

I found Funchal open-hearted and open-handed as ever; and the pleasure
of my stay was marred only by two considerations, both purely
personal. Elysian fields and green countries do not agree with all
temperaments. Many men are perfectly and causelessly miserable in the
damp heats of Western India and the Brazil. We must in their case simply
reverse the Wordsworthian dictum,

Not melancholy--no, for it is green.

They are perfectly happy in the Arabian desert, and even in Tenerife,
where others feel as if living perpetually on the verge of high fever.

To this 'little misery' were added the displeasures of memory. Our last
long visit was in 1863, when the Conde de Farrobo ruled the land, and
when the late Lord Brownlow kept open house at the beautiful Vigia. I
need hardly say that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: the impressions of
that good old time were deep and durable.

Amongst other things, Governor Farrobo indulged his fair friends with a
display of the old _jogo de canas_, or running at the ring. The
Praça Academica had been rigged out to serve as a tilting-yard, with a
central alley of palisading and two 'stands,' grand and little. The
purpose was charitable, and the performers were circus-horses, mounted
by professionals and amateurs, who thus 'renowned it' before the public
and their _damas_. The circlet, hanging to a line, equalled the
diameter of a small boy's hat; and when the 'knight' succeeded in
bearing it off upon his pole, he rode up to be decorated by the hands of
a very charming person with a ribbon-_baudrière_ of Bath dimensions
and rainbow colours. Prizes were banal as medals after a modern war, and
perhaps for the same purpose--to prevent unchristian envy, hatred, and
malice. Almost any trooper in an Anglo-Indian cavalry regiment would
have done better; but then he would have couched his bamboo spear
properly and would have put out his horse to speed--an idea which seemed
to elude the Madeiran mind. The fête ended with a _surprise_ less
expensive than that with which the Parisian restaurant astonishes the
travelling Britisher. A paper chandelier was suspended between two
posts, of course to be knocked down, when out sprang an angry
hunch-backed dwarf, who abused and fiercely struck at all straight backs
within reach.

Madeira is celebrated for excursions, which, however, are enjoyable only
in finest weather. Their grand drawback is inordinate expense; you may
visit the whole seaboard of Morocco, and run to Tenerife and return for
the sum spent in a week of Madeiran travel. The following tour to the
north of the island was marked out for us by the late Mr. Bewick; his
readiness to oblige, his extensive local knowledge, and his high
scientific attainments caused his loss to be long felt in the Isle of
Wood. 'You make on the first day Santa Anna, on the opposite coast, a
six to eight hours' stage by horse or hammock, passing through the grand
scenery of the valleys Metade, Meiometade, and Ribeiro Frio.

[Footnote: Most of these places are given in _Views_ (26) _in the
Madeiras, &c._, by the Rev. James Bulwer. London, Rivington, 1829. He
also wrote _Rambles in Madeira and in Portugal in _1826.]

The next day takes you to Pico Ruivo, Rothhorn, Puy Rouge, or Red Peak,
the loftiest in the island, whose summit commands a view of a hundred
hills, and you again night at Santa Anna. The third stage is to the
rocky gorge of São Vicente, which abounds in opportunities for
neck-breaking. The next is a long day with a necessary guide to the
Paül da Serra, the "Marsh of the Wold," and the night is passed at
Seixal, on the north-west coast, famous for its corniche-road. The
fifth day conducts you along-shore to Ponta Delgada, and the last leads
from this "Thin Point" through the Grand Curral back to Funchal.'

I mention this excursion that the traveller may carefully avoid it in
winter, especially when we attempted the first part, February being the
very worst month. After many days of glorious weather the temper of the
atmosphere gave way; the mercury fell to 28.5, and we were indulged with
a succession of squalls and storms, mists and rain. The elemental rage,
it is true, was that of your southern coquette, sharp, but short, and
broken by intervals of a loving relapse into caress. In the uplands and
on the northern coast, however, it shows the concentrated spleen and
gloom of a climate in high European latitudes.

We contented ourselves with the Caminho do Meio, the highway supposed to
bisect the island, and gradually rising to the Rocket Road (_Caminho
do Foguete_) with a pleasant slope of 23°, or 1 in 2 1/3. These roads
are heavy on the three h's--head, heart, and hand. We greatly enjoyed
the view from the famous Levada, the watercourse or leat-road of Santa
Luzia, with its scatter of noble _quintas_,

[Footnote: The country-house is called a _quinta_, or fifth,
because that is the proportion of produce paid by the tenant to the
proprietor.]

St. Lucy's, St. Anne's, Quinta Davies, Palmeira, and Til. Nossa Senhora
do Monte, by Englishmen misnamed 'the Convent,' and its break-arm
slide-down, in basket-sleighs, is probably as well known, if not better
known, to the reader than St. Paul's, City. Here we found sundry
votaries prostrating themselves before a dark dwarf 'Lady' with jewelled
head and spangled jupe: not a few were crawling on their knees up the
cruel cobble-stones of the mount. On the right yawned the 'Little
Curral,' as our countrymen call the Curral das Romeiras (of the
Pilgrimesses); it is the head of the deluging torrent-bed, João
Gomes. Well worth seeing is this broken punch-bowl, with its wild steep
gap; and, if the traveller want a vertiginous walk, let him wend his way
along the mid-height of the huge tongue which protrudes itself from the
gorge to the valley-mouth.

Near the refuge-house called the Poizo, some 4,500 feet above sea-level,
a road to the right led us to Comacha, where stood Mr. Edward Hollway's
summer _quinta_. It occupies a ridge-crest of a transverse rib
projected southerly, or seawards, from the central range which, trending
east-west, forms the island dorsum. Hence its temperature is 60° (F.)
when the conservatory upon the bay shows 72°. Below it, 1,800 feet high,
and three miles north-east of the city, lies the Palheiro do Ferreiro
('blacksmith's straw-hut'), the property of the once wealthy Carvalhal
house. The name of these 'Lords of the Oak-ground' is locally
famous. Chronicles mention a certain Count Antonio who flourished, or
rather 'larked,' circa A.D. 1500. In those days the land bore giants and
heroes, and Madeiran blood had not been polluted by extensive
miscegenation with the negro. Anthony, who was feller than More of More
Hall, rode with ungirthed saddle over the most dangerous _achadas_
(ledges); a single buffet of this furious knight smashed a wild boar,
and he could lift his horse one palm off the ground by holding to a tree
branch. The estate has been wilfully wasted by certain of his
descendants. Comacha, famous for picnics, is a hamlet rich in seclusion
and fine air; it might be utilised by those who, like the novel-heroes
of Thackeray and Bulwer, deliberately sit down to vent themselves in a
book.

Pico Ruivo was a distressing failure. We saw nothing save a Scotch mist,
which wetted us to the bones; and we shivered standing in a slush of
snow which would have been quite at home in Upper Norwood. On this
topmost peak were found roots of the Madeiran cedar (_Juniperus
Oxycedrus_), showing that at one time the whole island was well
wooded.

We need not believe in the seven years' fire; but the contrast of the
southern coast with the northern, where the forests primaeval of
Lauraceae and Myrtaceae still linger, shows the same destructive process
which injured Ireland and ruined Iceland. The peculiarity of these
uplands, within certain limits, is that the young spring-verdure clothes
them before it appears in the lower and warmer levels. Here they catch a
sunshine untarnished by watery vapour.

During our short trip and others subsequent many a little village showed
us the Madeiran peasant pure and simple. Both sexes are distressingly
plain; I saw only one pretty girl amongst them. Froggy faces, dark
skins, and wiry hair are the rule; the reason being that in the good old
days a gentleman would own some eighty slaves. [Footnote: As early as
1552 the total of African imports amounted to 2,700.] But they are an
industrious and reproductive race.

[Footnote: The following note of the census of 1878 was given to me by
my kind colleague, Mr. Consul Hayward:--

Habitations Males Females Total
Madeira.............28,522 62,900 67,367 130,267
Porto Santo......... 435 874 874 1,748
_______
132,015

_No. of Persons who can read and write._

Males Females Total
Madeira..............................4,454 4,286 8,740
Porto Santo.......................... 77 34 111
______
8,851

_No. of Persons who can read but not write._

Males Females Total
Madeira.......1,659 2,272 3,931
Porto Santo... 42 60 102
_____
4,033

Miss Taylor (_Madeira_, p. 58) reduces to 33,000--evidently a
misprint--this population about four times as dense as that of
Portugal.]

Many Madeirans highly distinguished themselves in the Dutch-Brazilian
wars, especially the 'Castriota Lusitano.' His name is unknown; he
changed it when he left his islet home, the townlet Santa Cruz. These
islanders were the model 'navvies' of the age before steam: Albuquerque
applied for Madeirans when he formed the barbarous project of diverting
the Nile to the Red Sea. Their descendants are beggars from the cradle;
but they beg with a good grace, and not with a curse or an insult like
the European 'asker' when refused: moreover, the mendicant pest is not
now over-prevalent. In the towns they cheat and pilfer; they gamble in
the streets; they drink hard on Saturdays and Sundays, and at times they
murder one another. Liquor is cheap; a bottle of _aguardente_ or
_caxaça_ (new raw rum) costs only fivepence, and the second
distillation ninepence. I heard of one assault upon an English girl, but
strangers are mostly safe amongst them. Their extreme civility,
docility, and good temper, except when spoilt by foreigners, makes it a
pleasure to deal with them. They touch their hats with a frank smile,
not the Spanish scowl near Gibraltar, or of Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The
men are comparatively noiseless; a bawling voice startles you like a
pistol-shot. I rarely heard a crying child or a scolding woman offering
'eau bénite à la Xantippe;' even the cocks and hens tied to old shoes
cackle with reserve. The climate tames everything from Dom to
donkey. Except in January and February it is still, intensely still--the
very leaves seem to hang motionless. This softness shows itself
especially in the language, which has none of the abruptness of European
Portuguese. The sound is a drawling singsong; the articulation is
peculiar, and the vocabulary is in some points confined to the Island.

The country people, an active, agile, unmuscular race, mostly preserve
the old national dress. Some men still wear, and both sexes once wore,
the ridiculous _carapuça_, or funnel-cap with a rat-tail for a
tassel. The rest of the toilet consists of homespun cottons, shirts and
knickerbockers, with buff shoes or boots broad-soled and heelless. The
traveller who prefers walking should always use this _chaussure_,
and the 'little girl in topboots' is still a standing joke. The women
affect parti-coloured petticoats of home-made baize or woollen stuff,
dyed blue, scarlet, brown, or orange; a scalloped cape of the same
material bound with some contrasting hue; and a white or coloured
head-kerchief, sometimes topped by the _carapuça_, but rarely by
the vulgar 'billycock' of the Canaries. In the villages crimson shawls
and capes are general, and they cover the head like mantillas.

The peasant's cot is of the simplest, and those in the plantations
suggest African huts. Even the best houses, except when copied from the
English, are scantily furnished; and little beyond a roof is absolutely
wanted. The home of the _cazeiro_, or peasant tenant practically
irremovable, is whitewashed and thatched, the straw forming a crest
along the ridge. It covers only one room, converted by a curtain into
'but' and 'ben.' A parental bed, a rickety table, and two or three
stools or settles compose the necessaries; the ornaments are the saints
hanging to the walls, and for windows there are shutters with a sliding
panel. The feeding apparatus consists of a kind of quern for grinding
corn, especially maize,

[Foonote: The word is of doubtful origin, generally derived from the
Haytian _mahiz_. But in northern Europe _mayse_ (Irish _maise_)
bread, and the Old High German _maz_ (Hind. _mans_) means meat]

which, however, is now too dear for general use; sundry vegetable
baskets, and an iron pot for boiling fish and porridge, arums
(_Inhame_), and koko (_Colocasia esculenta_). They have some
peculiar dishes, such as the _bolo de mel_, a ginger cake eaten at
Christmas, and the famous _carne de vinho e alhos_ (meat of wine
and garlic). The latter is made by marinating pork in vinegar with
garlic and the herb called _oragão_ (origanum, or wild marjoram);
it is eaten broiled, and even Englishmen learn to appreciate a dish
which is said to _conversar_. The stewed fowl with rice is also
national. As everywhere in Portugal, _bacalháo_,

[Footnote: Brevoort derives the word from _baculus_, the stick
which keeps the fish open; others from the German _boloh_, fish. In
1498 Seb. Cabot speaks of 'great fishes which the natives call
Baccalaos.' He thus makes the word 'Indian;' whereas Dr. Kohl, when
noticing the cod-fisheries of Europe, declares that in Germany it is
Backljau. Mr. O. Crawford (_Portugal, Old and New._ London:
C. Kegan Paul, 1880) rightly notes that 'bacalháo' applies equally to
the fresh fish and the dried fish.]

or dried cod-fish, cooked with garlic or onions, is deservedly a
favourite: it contains more nourishment than beef. There is superior
originality amongst the _doces_ (sweetmeats) for which Madeira was
once world-famous; and in the _queques_ (cakes), such as
lagrimas-cakes, cocoanut-cakes, and _rabanadas_, the Moorish
'rabanat,' slabs of wheat bread soaked in milk, fried in olive oil, and
spread with honey. The drink is water, or, at best, _agua-pé_, the
last straining of the grape. Many peasants, who use no stimulant during
the day, will drink on first rising a dram _para espantar o Diabo_
(to frighten the Devil), as do the Congoese _paramatar o bicho_ (to
kill the worm).

Here cleanliness is _not_ next to godliness. People bathe only in
hot weather--the rule of man and the lower mammalia. A quick and
intelligent race they are, like the Spaniards and Bedawi Arabs, a
contradiction in religious matters: the Madeiran believes in little or
nothing, yet he hates a _Calvinista_ like the very fiend. They have
lost, as the census shows, something of their extreme ignorance, and
have abated their worst superstitions since the expulsion of the Jesuits
by Pombal (1759), and the reforms of 1820, 1828, and 1835. In the latter
year Dom Pedro suppressed monkeries and nunneries by disallowing masses,
and by pensioning the holy tenantry with 9 dols. per mensem, afterwards,
reduced to 5 dols. In 1863 the bishop, Dom Patricio Xavier de Moura, did
his best to abolish the pretty _refocaria_ (the hearth-lighter),
who, as Griraldus hath it, extinguished more virtue than she lit fires;
and now the rectory is seldom gladdened by the presence of noisy little
nephews and nieces. The popular morals, using the word in its limited
sense, were peculiar. The number of _espostos que não se sabe quem,
são seus pais_ (fatherless foundlings) outnumbered those born _de
legitimo matrimonio_; and few of the gudewives prided themselves upon
absolute fidelity. This flaw, which in England would poison all domestic
affection, was not looked upon in a serious light by the islandry. The
priesthood used to lament the degeneracy of the age and sigh for the
fine times of _foros e fogos_, the rights and fires of an
_auto-da-fé_. The shepherds have now learned to move with the times
and to secure the respect of their sheep. Imagine being directed to
Paradise by a reverend man who gravely asks you where and what Hanover
is.

Another important change is being brought about by the emigrant. During
the last few years the old rule has been relaxed, and whole families
have wandered abroad in search of fortune. Few Madeirans in these days
ship for the Brazil, once the land of their predilection. They prefer
Cape Town, Honolulu, the Antilles, and especially Demerara; and now the
'Demerarista' holds the position of the 'Brasileiro' in Portugal and the
'Indio' or 'Indiano' of the Canaries: in time he will buy up half the
island.

In 1862 we hired rowing and sailing boats to visit the southern coast
east and west of Funchal. For the last twelvemonth Mr. Blandy's
steam-tug _Falcão_ has carried travellers to and fro: it is a great
convenience to the lazy sightseer, who cares only to view the outside of
things, and here the outsides are the only things worth viewing.

We will begin with the western trip to Paül do Mar, affording a grand
prospect of basaltic pillars and geological dykes, and of the three
features--rocky, sylvan, and floral. Steaming by the mouth of the wady
or ravine Sao João, whose decayed toy forts, S. Lazaro and the
palace-battery, are still cumbered with rusty cannon, we pass under the
cliff upon whose brow stand some of the best buildings. These are the
Princess Dona Maria Amelia's _Hospicio_, or Consumptive Hospital,
built on Mr. Lamb's plans and now under management of the French
_soeurs_, whose gull wings are conspicuous at Funchal; the Asylo,
or Poor-house, opened in 1847 for the tempering of mendicancy; and
facing it, in unpleasant proximity, the Portuguese cemetery, decorated
as to its entrance with sundry skulls and cross-bones, and showing its
tall cypresses to the bay. Here comes the Quinta (Comtesse) Lambert,
once occupied by Queen Adelaide. The owner doubled the rent;
consequently _Las Angustías_ (the Agonies), as it was called from
an old chapel, has been unrented for the last two years. A small
pleasaunce overhanging a perpendicular cliff, and commanding a glorious
view, shows the Quinta da Vigia, lately bought by Mr. Hollway for
8,000_l_., and let at 500_l_. to 1,000_l_, a year. Nothing more
charming than its grounds, which attracted H.I.M. of Austria, and
now the charming Countess Tyszkiewicz. Landward it faces the Rua
da Imperatriz, which leads to the 'Loo Fields.'

The study of basaltic pillars at once begins: Loo Fort is partly built
upon them. Beyond Vigia cliff we pass in succession three jagged
island-rocks, called 'gurgulhos,' or black-beetles (_curculio_),
which, like the opposite foreshore, admirably show the formation. As a
rule the columns are quadrangular; I saw but few pentagons and
hexagons. We cast a look at a spouter of circular shape, the Forja, and
the Forno, a funnel-formed blowing-rock. The cliff is pierced with a
multitude of caves, large and small, and their regular arches look as if
the ejected matter, as happens with lava, had cooled and solidified
above, while still flowing out in a fiery torrent below. Mostly,
however, they are the work of wind and water.

Then comes the old Gurgulho Fort--a dwarf square, partly thatched and
converted into a private dwelling. It lies below Signal Hill, with its
dwarf ruined tower, a lumpy parasitic crater whose western slopes have
been ruined by disforesting. Between the two runs the New Road, which
owes its being to the grape-famine of 1852. It is the 'Rotten Row' of
Funchal, where horses tread the earth instead of skating and sliding
over the greased pebbles; and where fair amazons charge upon you like
Indian irregular cavalry. Five miles long, it is the only level line of
any extent in Madeira, and it wants but one thing--prolongation. The
lion in the path, however, is Cape Girâo, which would cost a treasure to
'tunnel' or to cut into a corniche.

The next feature is the Ponta da Cruz, a fantastic slice of detached
basalt. Here, at the southernmost point of the island, the Descobridores
planted a cross, and every boatman doffs his cap to its little iron
descendant. Beyond it comes the Praia Formosa, a long line of shingle
washed down by a deep ravine. All these brooks have the same origin, and
their extent increases the importance of the wady. In 1566 the French
pirates under De Montluc, miscalled heretics (_hereges Ugnotas_)
landed here, as, indeed, every enemy should. The colour of 'Fair Reach'
is ashen grey, scolloped with cinder-black where the creamy foam breaks:
for beauty it wants only golden sands, and for use a few bathing
machines.

The next notable feature is the Ribeira dos Soccorridos ('River of the
Rescued'), where two of the Zargo's lads were with difficulty saved from
the violent stream then flowing. It is now provided with a long
bridge-causeway of three arches, approached by a chapel, Nossa Senhora
das Victorias, whose tiled and pillared porch reminds one of
Istria. This bed is the drain of the Grand Curral, called by the people
'Das Freiras,' because the holy women here took refuge from the
plundering French 'Lutherans.' The favourite picnic-ground is reached in
three hours from Funchal by two roads, both winding amongst the
pap-shaped hillocks which denote parasitic cones, and both abutting upon
the ravine-side, east and west. The latter, skirting the Pico dos Bodes
(of he-goats), a tall cone seen from near Funchal, and sentinelling the
great gap, is the joy-for-ever of midshipmites. To the horror of the
burriqueiro, or syce, they gallop hired screws, high-heeled as their
grandams, over paths at which an English stag would look twice; and for
a dollar they secure as much chance of a broken limb, if not of 'going
to pot with a young lady' (Captain Basil Hall's phrase), as reasonable
beings can expect.

The Grand Curral is the central vent of a volcano originally submarine,
and, like the Peak of Tenerife, of the age miocene. Fossils of that
epoch have been found upon the crater-walls of both. Subsequent
movements capped it with subaerial lavas and conglomerates; and wind and
weather, causing constant degradation, deepened the bowl and almost
obliterated signs of igneous action. This is general throughout Madeira;
the only craters still noticed by guide-books are the Lagos (Lake) de
Santo Antonio da Serra, east of Funchal and west of Machico, 500 feet
across by 150 deep; and, secondly, the Fanal to the north-west, about
5,000 feet above sea-level. The Curral floor, smooth and bald, is cut by
a silvery line of unsunned rivulet which at times must swell to a
torrent; and little white cots like egg-shells are scattered around the
normal parish-church, Nossa Senhora do Livramento. The basin-walls, some
2,000 feet high and pinnacled by the loftiest peaks in the island, are
profusely dyked and thickly and darkly forested; and in the bright blue
air, flecked with woolpack, Manta, the buzzard, and frequent kestrels
pass to and fro like flies.

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