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To the Gold Coast for Gold

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




The principal _passetemps_ at Madeira consists of eating, drinking,
and smoking; it is the life of a horse in a loose box, where the animal
eats _pour passer le temps_. After early tea and toast there is
breakfast à la fourchette_ at nine; an equally heavy lunch, or rather
an early dinner (No. 1), appears at 1 to 2 P.M.; afternoon tea follows,
and a second dinner at 6 to 7. Residents and invalids suppress tiffin
and dine at 2 to 3 P.M. In fact, as on board ship, people eat because
they have nothing else to do; and English life does not admit of the
sensible French hours--_déjeuner à la fourchette_ at 11 A.M. and
dinner after sunset.

The first walk through Funchal shows that it has not improved during the
last score of years, and to be stationary in these days is equivalent to
being retrograde. It received two heavy blows--in 1852 the vine-disease;
and, since that time, a gradual decline of reputation as a
sanatorium. Yet it may, I think, look for a better future when the Land
Bill Law system, extending to England and Scotland, will cover the
continent with colonies of British _rentiers_ who rejoice in large
families and small incomes. Moreover, Anglo-African officials are
gradually learning that it is best to leave their 'wives and wees' at
Madeira; and the coming mines of the Gold Coast will greatly add to the
numbers. For the economist Funchal and its environs present peculiar
advantages. The dearness of coin appears in the cheapness of houses and
premises. Estates which cost 5,000_l_. to 15,000_l_. a generation
ago have been sold to 'Demerarists' for one-tenth that
sum. 'Palmeira,' for instance, was built for 42,000_l_., and was
bought for 4,000_l_. A family can live quietly, even keeping
ponies, for 500_l_. per annum; and it is something to find a place
four to seven days' sail from England inhabitable, to a certain extent
all the year round. The mean annual temperature is 67.3 degrees; that of
summer varies from 70 degrees to 85 degrees, and in winter it rarely
falls below 50 degrees to 60 degrees. The range, which is the most
important consideration, averages 9 degrees, with extremes of 5 degrees
to 35 degrees. The moist heat is admirably adapted for old age, and I
doubt not that it greatly prolongs life. Youth, English youth, cannot
thrive in this subtropical air; there are certain advantages for
education at Funchal; but children are sent north, as from Anglo-India,
to be reared. Otherwise they will grow up yellow and languid, without
energy or industry, and with no object in life but to live.

Madeira has at once gained credit for comfort and has lost reputation as
a sanatorium, a subject upon which fashion is peculiarly fickle. During
the last century the Faculty sent its incurables to Lisbon and
Montpellier despite the _mistral_ and the fatal _vent de
bise_. The latter town then lodged some 300 English families of
invalids, presently reduced to a few economists and wine-merchants.
Succeeded Nice and Pisa, one of the most wearying and relaxing
of 'sick bays;' and Pau in the Pyrenees, of which the native
Béarnais said that the year has eight months of winter and four of
inferno. Madeira then rose in the world, and a host of medical residents
sounded her praises, till Mentone was written up and proved a powerful
rival. And the climate of the hot-damp category was found to suit,
mainly if not only, that tubercular cachexy and those, bronchial
affections and lung-lesions in which the viscus would suffer from the
over-excitement of an exceedingly dry air like the light invigorating
medium of Tenerife or Thebes. Lastly, when phthisis was determined to be
a disease of debility, of anæmia, of organic exhaustion, and of
defective nutrition, cases fitted for Madeira were greatly limited. Here
instruments deceive us as to humidity. The exceeding dampness is shown
by the rusting of iron and the tarnishing of steel almost as effectually
as upon the West African coast. Yet Mr. Vivian's observations, assuming
100 to be saturation, made Torquay 76 and Funchal 73. [Footnote: Others
make the mean humidity of Funchal 76, and remark that in the healthiest
and most pleasant climates the figures range between 70 and
80]. Moreover it was found out that consumption, as well as intermittent
fevers, are common on the island, so common, indeed, as to require an
especial hospital for the poorer classes, although the people declare
them to have been imported by the stranger. I may here observe that
while amongst all the nations of Southern Europe great precautions are
taken against the contagion of true phthisis, English medicos seem to
ignore it. A Pisan housekeeper will even repaper the rooms after the
death of a consumptive patient. At Funchal sufferers in every stage of
the disease live in the same house and even in the same rooms.

Then came the discovery that for consumptives dry cold is a medium
superior to damp heat. Invalids were sent to the Tyrol, to the Engadine,
to Canada, and even to Iceland, where phthisis is absolutely unknown,
and where a diet of oleaginous fish is like feeding upon cod-liver or
shark-liver oil. The air as well as the diet proved a tonic, and
patients escaped the frequent cough, catarrh, influenza, and neuralgia
which are so troublesome at Funchal. Here, too, the invalid must be
accompanied by a 'prudent and watchful friend,' or friends, and the
companions will surely suffer. I know few climates so bad and none worse
for those fecund causes of suffering in Europe, liver-affections
('mucous fevers'), diarrhoeas, and dysenteries; for nervous complaints,
tic douloureux, and neuralgia, or for rheumatism and lumbago. Asthma is
one of the disorders which shows the most peculiar forms, and must be
treated in the most various ways: here some sufferers are benefitted,
others are not. Madeira is reputedly dangerous also for typhoid
affections, for paralysis, and for apoplexy. There is still another
change to come. The valley north of the beautiful and ever maligned
'Dead Sea' of Palestine, where the old Knights Templar had their
sugar-mills and indigo-manufactories, has peculiar merits. Lying some
1,350 feet below the Mediterranean, it enables a man to live with a
quarter of a lung: you may run till your legs fail with fatigue, but you
can no more get out of breath than you can sink in the saline waters of
Lake Asphaltites. When a railway from Jafa to Jerusalem shall civilise
the 'Holy Land,' I expect great things from the sites about the Jordan
embouchure.

After the 'gadding vine' had disappeared the people returned to their
old amours, the sugar-cane, whose five loaves, disposed crosswise, gave
the island her heraldic cognisance. Madeira first cultivated sugar in
the western hemisphere and passed it on to the New World. Yet the cane
was always worked under difficulties. Space is limited: the upper
extreme of cultivation on the southern side may be estimated at 1,000
feet. The crop exhausts the soil; the plant requires water, and it
demands what it can rarely obtain in quantity--manure. Again, machinery
is expensive and adventure is small. Jamaica and her slave-labour soon
reduced the mills from one hundred and fifty to three, and now five. My
hospitable friend, Mr. William Hinton, is the only islander who works
sugar successfully at the _Torreão_. The large rival mill with the
tall regulation smoke-stack near the left mouth of the Ribeira de São'
João, though inscribed 'Omnia vincit improbus labor,' and though
provided with the most expensive modern appliances, is understood not to
be a success for the Companhia Fabril d'Assucar.

Here sugar-working in the present day requires for bare existence high
protective duties. The Government, however, has had the common sense,
and the Madeirans patriotic feeling enough, to defend their industry
from certain ruinous vagaries, by taxing imported growths 80 reis
(4_d_.) per kilo. A hard-grit free-trader would abolish this
abomination and ruin half the island. And here I would remark that in
England the world has seen for the first time a wealthy and commercial,
a great and generous nation proclaim, and take pride in proclaiming, the
most immoral doctrine. 'Free Trade,' so called, I presume, because it is
practically the reverse of free or fair trade, openly abjures public
spirit and the chief obligation of the citizen--to think of his
neighbour as well as himself, and not to let charity end, as it often
begins, at home. 'Buy cheap and sell dear' is the law delivered by its
prophets, the whole duty of 'the merchant and the man.' When its
theorists ask me the favourite question, 'Would you not buy in the
cheapest market?' I reply, 'Yes, but my idea of cheapness is not yours:
I want the best, no matter what its price, because it will prove
cheapest in the end.' How long these Free-trade fads and fooleries will
last no one can say; but they can hardly endure till that millennium
when the world accepts the doctrine, and when Free Trade becomes free
trade and fair trade.

As regards _petite industrie_ in Madeira, there is a considerable
traffic in 'products of native industry,' sold to steamer-passengers.
The list gives jewellery and marquetry or inlaid woodwork;
feather-flowers, straw hats, lace and embroidery, the latter an
important item; boots and shoes of unblackened leather; sweetmeats,
especially guava-cheese; wax-fruits, soap-berry bracelets, and 'Job's
tears;' costumes in wood and clay; basketry, and the well-known wicker
chairs, tables, and sofas. The cooperage is admirable; I have nowhere
seen better-made casks. The handsomest shops, as we might expect, are
the apothecaries'; and, here, as elsewhere, they thrive by charging a
sixpence for what cost them a halfpenny.

An enterprising Englishman lately imported sheep from home. The native
mutton was described in 1842 as 'strong in flavour and lean in
condition;' in fact, very little superior to that of Trieste. Now it is
remarkably good, and will be better. Silk, I have said, has not been
fairly tried, and the same is the case with ginger. Cotton suffered
terribly from the worm. Chinchona propagated from cuttings, not from the
seed, did well. Dr. Grabham [Footnote: _The Climate and Resources of
Madeira_. By Michael C. Grabham, M.D., F.R.G.S., F.R.C.P. London;
Churchill, 1870.] tells us that the coffee-berry ripens and yields a
beverage locally thought superior to that of the imported kinds. It has
become almost extinct in consequence of protracted blights: the island
air is far too damp. Tea did not succeed. [Footnote: Page 189, _Du
Climat de Madère, etc_., par C. A. Mourão Pitta, Montpellier, 1859.]
Cochineal also proved a failure. The true Mexican cactus (_Opuntia
Tuna_) was brought to supplant the tree-like and lean-leafed native
growth; but there is too much wind and rain for the insects, and the
people prefer to eat the figs or 'prickly pears.' Bananas grow well, and
a large quantity is now exported for the English market. But the climate
does not agree with European fruits and vegetables; strawberries and
French beans are equally flavourless. I remarked the same in the
glorious valley of the Lower Congo: it must result from some telluric or
atmospheric condition which we cannot yet appreciate.

Tobacco has been tried with some success, though the results do not
equal those of the Canaries; there, however, the atmosphere is too dry,
here it is not. The _estanco_ (monopoly) and the chronic debt to
those who farm the import-tax long compelled the public to pay dear for
a poor article. Home-growth was forbidden till late years; now it is
encouraged, and rate-payers contribute a small additional sum. Hitherto,
however, results have not been over-favourable, because, I believe, the
tobacco-beds have been unhappily placed. Rich valley-soils and
sea-slopes, as at Cuban Vuelta de Abajo and Syrian Latakia, are the
proper habitats of the 'holy herb.' Here it is planted in the high dry
grounds about the 'Peak Fort' and the uplands east of the city. Manure
also is rare and dear, and so is water, which, by the by, is sadly
wasted in Madeira for want of reservoirs. Consequently the peasants
smoke tobacco from the Azores.

The Casa Funchalense, north of the Cathedral, is the chief depôt for
island-growths. It sells 'Escuros' (dark brands) of 20 reis, or
1_d_., and 50 reis, according to size. The 'Claros,' which seem to
be the same leaf steamed, fetch from 40 to 100 reis. A small half-ounce
of very weak and poor-flavoured pipe-tobacco also is worth 1_d_.

An influential planter, Senhor João de Salles Caldeira, kindly sent to
Mr. John Blandy some specimens of his nicotiana for me to test in
Africa. The leaf-tobaccos, all grown between 1879 and 1881, at Magdalena
in the parish of St. Antonio, were of three kinds. The Havano was far
too short for the trade; the Bahiano, also dark, was longer; and the
so-called 'North-American' was still longer, light-coloured and well
tied in prick-shape. The negro verdict was, 'Left, a lilly he be foine,'
meaning they want but little to be excellent. The Gold Coast prefers
yellow Virginia, whose invoice price is 7_d_. per lb. The traders
are now introducing Kentucky, which, landed from Yankee ships, costs
6_d_. But, here as elsewhere, it is difficult to bring about any
such change.

There were two qualities of Madeiran _charutos_ (cigars): one long
Claro which smoked very mild, and a short Escuro, which tasted a trifle
bitter. The blacks complained that they were too new; and I should rank
them with the average produce of Brazilian Bahia. A papered
_cigarilha_, clad in an outer leaf of tobacco, was exceptionally
good. The _cígarros_ (cigarettes), neatly bound in bundles of
twenty-five, were of three kinds, _fortes_ (strong),
_entre-fortes_, and _fracos_ (mild). All were excellent and
full of flavour; they did not sicken during the voyage, and I should
rank them with the far-famed Bragança of the Brazil.

The most successful of these small speculations is that of
Mr. E. Hollway. Assisted by an able gardener from Saint Michael, Azores,
where the pineapple made a little fortune for Ponta Delgada, he has
converted Mount Pleasant, his father's house and grounds on the Caminho
do Meio, into one huge pinery. The Madeiran sun does all the work of
English fires and flues; but the glass must be whitewashed; otherwise,
being badly made, with bubbles and flaws, it would burn holes in the
plants. The best temperature for the hot-houses is about 90° F.: it will
rise after midday to 140°, and fall at night to 65°. The species
preferred are, in order of merit, the Cayena, the black Jamaica, and the
Brazilian Abacaxi. The largest of Mr. Hollway's produce weighed 20
lbs.--pumpkin size. Those of 12 lbs. and 15 lbs. are common, but the
market prefers 8 lbs. His highest price was 2_l_., and he easily
obtains from 10_s_. to 15_s_. In one greenhouse we saw 2,500
plants potted and bedded; the total numbers more than double that
figure. The proprietor has a steam-saw, makes his own boxes, and packs
his pines with dry leaves of maize and plantain. He is also cultivating
a dwarf banana, too short to be wind-wrung. His ground will grow
anything: the wild asparagus, which in Istria rises knee-high, here
becomes a tall woody shrub.

And now of the wine which once delighted the world, and which has not
yet become 'food for the antiquary.' To begin with, a few dates and
figures are necessary. In 1852, that terrible year for France, the
Oïdium fungus attacked the vine, and soon reduced to 2,000 the normal
yearly production of 20,000 and even 22,000 pipes.

[Footnote: Between 1792 and 1827 the yearly average was 20,000.
In 1813 it was 22,000.
" 1814 " 14,000.
" 1816 " 15,000.

In 1816 it was 12,000.
" 1818 " 18,000.
" 1825 " 14,000.

It then decreased to an average of 7,000 till the oïdium-year
(Miss E. M, Taylor, p. 74).]

The finest growths suffered first, as animals of the highest blood
succumb the soonest to epidemics. When I wrote in 1863 the grape was
being replanted, chiefly the white _verdelho_, the Tuscan
_verdea_. In 1873 the devastating Phylloxera appeared, and before
1881 it had ruined two of the finest southern districts. The following
numerals show the rapid decline of yield:--6,000 pipes in 1878, 5,000 in
1879, 3,000 in 1880, and 2,000 in 1881. There are still in store some
30,000 pipes, each=92 gallons (forty-five dozen); and a single firm,
Messrs. Blandy Brothers, own 3,000. Mr. Charles R. Blandy, the late head
of the house, bought up all the _must_ grown since 1863; but he did
not care to sell. This did much harm to the trade, by baulking the
demand and by teaching the public to do without it. His two surviving
sons have worked hard and advertised on a large scale; they issue a
yearly circular, and the result is improved enquiry. Till late years the
world was not aware that the Madeiran vine has again produced Madeira
wine; and a Dutch admiral, amongst others, was surprised to hear that
all was not made at Cettes. I give below Messrs. Blandy's trade-prices,
to which some 20 per cent, must be added for retail.

[Footnote: Sound light medium Madeiras from 26s. to 32s. per dozen,
packed and delivered in London; light, golden, delicate, 36_s_.;
tawny Tinta, also called 'Madeira Burgundy,' a red wine mixing well with
water, 40_s_.; fine old dry Verdelho, 48_s_.; rich soft old
Bual, not unlike Amontillado, 54_s_.; very fine dry old Sercial
(the Riesling grape), 56_s_.; and the same for highly-flavoured
soft old Malmsey, 'Malvasia Candida,' corrupted from 'Candia' because
supposed to have been imported from that island in 1445. 'Grand Old Oama
de Lobos' is worth 70_s_., and the best Old Preserve wine
86_s_. For wines very old in bottle there are special quotations.]

The lowest price free on board is 23_l_, and the values rise from
40_l_. at four years old to 1OO_l_. at ten years old.

'Madeira' was most popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
especially at the Court of Francois I. Shakespeare in 'Henry IV.' makes
drouthy Jack sell his soul on Good Friday for a cup of Madeira and a
cold capon's leg. Mr. H. Vizetelly, whose professional work should be
read by all who would master the subject, marvels why and how this
'magnificent wine' went out of fashion. The causes are many, all easy to
trace. Men not yet very old remember the day when England had no _vino
de pasto_ fit to be drunk at meals; when they found only ports,
sherries, and loaded clarets; and when they sighed in vain for light
Rhine or Bordeaux growths, good _ordinaire_ being to drink what
bread is to food.

[Footnote: This, however, is a mere individual opinion. I have lately
read a book recommending strong and well-brandied wines as preventing
the crave for pure alcohol.]

Now, however, the national taste has changed; the supply of Madeira not
sufficing for the demand, the class called _boticarios_
(apothecaries) brought rivals into the market; and extensive imitation's
with apples, loquats (Japanese medlars), and other frauds, brandied to
make the stuff keep, plastered or doctored with Paris-plaster to correct
over-acidity, and coloured and sweetened with burnt sugar and with
boiled 'must' (_mosto_) to mock the Madeira flavour, gave the
island-produce a bad name. Again, the revolution in the wine-trade of
1860-61 brought with it certain Continental ideas. In France a glass of
Madeira follows soup, and in Austria it is drunk in liqueur-glasses like
Tokay.

[Footnote: 'Madeira' is the island modification of the Cyprus and the
Candia (?) grape. 'Tokay' comes from the Languedoc muscatel, and
'Constantia' from Burgundy, like most of the Rhine-wines.]

The island wine must change once more to suit public taste. At present
it ships at the average strength of 18°-25° per cent, of 'proof spirit,'
which consists of alcohol and water in equal proportions. For that
purpose each pipe is dosed with a gallon or two of Porto Santo or São
Vicente brandy. This can do no harm; the addition is homogeneous and
chemically combines with the grape-juice; but when potato-spirit and
cane-rum are substituted for alcohol distilled from wine, the result is
bad. The vintage is rarely ripened by time, whose unrivalled work is
imperfectly done in the _estufa_ or flue-stove, the old fumarium,
or in the _sertio_ (apotheca), an attic whose glass roofing admits
the sun. The voyage to the East Indies was a clumsy contrivance for the
same purpose; and now the merchants are beginning to destroy the germs
of fermentation not by mere heat, but by the strainer extensively used
in Jerez. The press shown to me was one of Messrs. Johnson and Co.,
which passes the liquor through eighteen thick cottons supported by iron
plates. It might be worth while to apply electricity in the form used to
destroy fusel-oil. Lastly, the wine made for the market is a brand or a
blend, not a 'vintage-wine.' At any of the _armazems_, or stores,
you can taste the wines of '70, '75, '76, and so forth, of A 1 quality;
and you can learn their place as well as their date of birth. But these
are mixed when wine of a particular kind is required and the produce
becomes artificial. What is now wanted is a thin light wine, red or
white, with the Madeira flavour, and this will be the drink of the
future. The now-forgotten _tisane de Madère_ and the 'rain-water
Madeira,' made for the American markets, a soft, delicate, and
straw-coloured beverage, must be the models.

I sampled the new wines carefully; and, with due remembrance of the
peaches in 'Gil Blas,' I came to the conclusion that they are no longer
what they were. The wine is tainted with sulphur in its odorous union
with hydrogen. It is unduly saccharine, fermenting irregularly and
insufficiently. For years the plant has constantly been treated against
oidium with antiseptics, which destroy the spores and germ-growths; and
we can hardly expect a first-rate yield from a chronically-diseased
stock. Still the drink is rich and highly flavoured; and, under many
circumstances, it answers better than any kind of sherry. No more
satisfactory refreshment on a small scale than a biscuit and a glass of
Bual. Moreover, the palate requires variety, and here finds it in a
harmless form. But as a daily drink Madeira should be avoided: even in
the island I should prefer French Bordeaux, not English claret, with an
occasional change to Burgundy. Meanwhile, 'London particular' is a fact,
and the supply will probably exceed the demand of the present
generation.

I also carefully sampled the wines of the north coast, which had not, as
in Funchal, been subjected to doctoring by stove, by spirits, and by
blend. They are lighter than the southern; but, if unbrandied, some soon
turn sour, and others by keeping get strong and heady. The proportion of
alcoholism is peremptorily determined by climate--that is, the
comparative ratio of sun and rain. In Europe, for instance, light wines
cannot be produced without 'liquor,' as the trade calls _aqua
pura_, by latitudes lower than Germany and Southern France. When heat
greatly exceeds moisture, the wines may be mild to mouth and nose, yet
they are exceedingly potent; witness the _vino d'oro_ of the
Libanus.

At Funchal I also tasted a very neat wine, a _vin de pays_ with the
island flavour and not old enough to become spirituous. If the vine be
again grown in these parts, its produce will be drunk in England under
some such form. But Madeira has at last found her 'manifest destiny:'
she will be an orchard to Northern Europe and (like the England of the
future) a kitchen-garden to the West African Coast, especially the Gold
Mines.

My sojourn at the Isle of Wood and its 'lotus-eating' (which means
double dinners) came to an end on Sunday, January 8, the
s.s. _Senegal_ Captain W. L. Keene, bringing my long-expected
friend Cameron, of African fame. The last day passed pleasantly enough
in introducing him to various admirers; and we ate at Santa Clara a
final dinner, perfectly conscious that we were not likely to see its
like for many a month. We were followed to the beach by a choice band of
well-wishers--Baron Adelin de Vercour, Colonel H. W. Keays Young, and
Dr. Struthers--who determined upon accompanying us to Tenerife. The
night was black as it well could be, and the white surf rattled the
clicking pebbles, as we climbed into the shore-boat with broad
cheek-pieces, and were pulled off shipwards. On board we found
Mr. William Reid, junior, who had carefully lodged our numerous
impediments; and, at 10 P.M., we weighed for Tenerife.

I must not leave the Isle of Wood, which has so often given me
hospitality, without expressing a hearty wish that the Portuguese
'Government,' now rhyming with 'impediment,' will do its duty by
her. The Canaries and their free ports, which are different from 'free
trade,' have set the best example; and they have made great progress
while the Madeiras have stood still, or rather have retrograded. The
Funchal custom-house is a pest; the import charges are so excessive that
visitors never import, and for landing a single parcel the ship must pay
high port-charges where no port exists. The population is heavily taxed,
and would willingly 'pronounce' if it could only find a head. The
produce, instead of being spent upon the island, is transmitted to
Lisbon: surely a portion of it might be diverted from bureaucratic
pockets and converted into an emigration fund. It is sad to think that a
single stroke of the Ministerial pen would set all right and give new
life to the lovely island, and yet that the pen remains idle.

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