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LEA VES FROM A
MADEIRA GARDEN

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

RIVER

ETC.

NORWAT

LEAVES FROM A
MADEIRA GARDEN

By CHARLES THOMAS-STANFORD, f.s.a.
WITH SIXTEEN FULI-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMX

Secotid Edition

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

/V\ I (oT 6lo

1^ -) 1 0

TO THE

MEMBERS OF THE LI BR ART
ASSOCUriON

19E7722

PREFACE

PERHAPS no apology is needed for
this trivial story of an uneventful
winter in an inconsiderable island.
Madeira has indeed been long a
household word in Great Britain. Its generous
wine has played an important part in producing
the hereditary goutiness of the nation ; and
its genial climate is remembered in many
families as having mitigated the sufferings of
an invalid relation. It is perhaps less generally
known that its mountain scenery is not sur-
passed in beauty, that much of the finest
vegetation of the world flourishes and flowers
there during the winter months, and that the
gardens in and around Funchal are, for brilliance
and charm, scarcely to be matched elsewhere.
It is possible that in these days of widespread
delight in gardening it may interest some to
read of the life, largely horticultural, of a

vii ^3

Preface

voluntary exile in this most favoured climate ;
and to draw some picture from it of a wealth of
vegetation, unknown in Europe, to be met with
at a distance of three and a half days' steaming
from Southampton. I have made no attempt
to produce a handbook to, or systematic account
of, Madeira. This has already been done by
the late Mr. Yate Johnson far better than I
could aspire to do it. I have confined myself
to somewhat inconsequent, and I fear sometimes
irrelevant, jottings on many subjects, and if I
have stated my own opinion rather freely on
some controversial topics, I hope I have not
trodden upon any one's corns. This hope
applies especially to the remarks I have made
with reference to what I consider the failings
and mistakes of the Portuguese Government,
especially in its fiscal system. For our kind
hosts the Portuguese people here, for my
Portuguese friends, acquaintances, and servants,
I feel little but liking and respect ; and what I
have said is less than is commonly said among
themselves by those whose education and
knowledge of the world make them competent
to judge.

Many books have been written in English

viii

Preface

about Madeira. This is not surprising, as for
more than two centuries the island has been the
resort of our countrymen for business, health,
or pleasure, and was for a short period under
"^he British flag. Most of these books are
serious works, written by scientific men, and
dealing with the climate, the meteorology, the
flora, and other natural features. Of the rest,
many have been produced by casual visitors,
who, on the strength of a stay of a few weeks
and a perusal of previous authorities, have felt
qualified to enlighten the public. Such persons
sometimes have an irritating trick of writing
about well-known places with an air of having
discovered them. The following pages do not
fall into either class. I do not assume to
impart any information of value ; and as it has
been my good fortune to pass many winters in
the island, I cannot plead ignorance as an
excuse for my shortcomings and mistakes.

C. T.-S.

PAGE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE RETURN

The return — Situation of Madeira — Some essential facts —
Tourists — Communications ancient and modern — Bay
of Funchal — View of the town — Conditions of life —
Excessive State regulation — Exchange — "The Inno-
cents Abroad " — The British flag — The man who
talked nothing but Madeira ..... i

CHAPTER n

FUNCHAL AND ITS GARDENS

The gardens of Madeira — Mr. W. Robinson's views —
Terraced formation — Wealth of vegetation — Soil —
Temperature — Plants in flower — Aims in gardening
— The town of Funchal — Lack of modern improve-
ments— Old-world charm — Religion and proselytism
— Cleanly aspect — The strangers' quarter — Onx S^iiinta
— A picnic — List of Christmas flowers . . .19

CHAPTER HI
TOWN AND COUNTRY DELIGHTS

Fireworks and the New Year — The Casino — Roulette —
Systems — Morality and gambling — The mountains —
Levadas — An Excursion — Monte — Running cars —
Ribeiro Frio — Metade valley — Ancient disregard of
mountain scener}' — Modern cult of mountains — Ma-
deira's volcanic origin ...... 42

Contents

CHAPTER IV

THE GARDEN IN MID-WINTER page

The creation of a garden — Rapid growth — Absence of
lawns — Climbing plants — Orchids — Over-watering —
Ignorance of gardeners — A Russian episode — Per-
quisites — Our gardeners — Good manners of lower
classes — The servants' view — Botanical names of plants
— Florists' names — The weather .... 62

CHAPTER V

PLAGUE AND RIOT

Sanitary shortcomings — Plague scare — A dubious epidemic
— Lazaretto sacked — Serious outlook — Rioting — Ar-
rival of cruiser — A real epidemic — Extraordinary
proceedings — A medical hero — A noble lady — The
epidemic stayed — A comfortable theory . . .82

CHAPTER VI

POLITICS AND SOCIAL CHANGES

Murder of Dom Carlos — The policy of hushing-up — Portu-
guese politics — Franco, Reformer and Dictator — His
failure — Madeira and the murders — The outlook —
Portuguese society — Social changes — Abolition ot
entail — Landlord and tenant — Genealogy — Historic
families — A seventeenth-century visitor — His experi-
ences and views — Napoleon Bonaparte ... 9^

CHAPTER VII
LAND AND SEA

A mountain S^uinta — Varieties of climate — Rarity of serious
crime — Ignorance and terror — Superstitions — Pigs and
the evil eye — Valuable recipes — Witches — Pagan
survivals — Vows — Wrecks — Freebooters — Naval inci-
dents— The Canary Isles — A romance of the sea — A
clerical stowaway — A very steep road — Camacha . 121

xii

Contents

CHAPTER VIII
TAXES MONOPOLIES POVERTY page

State interference with trade — Exports discouraged — Taxing
to death — Regulation of milling — Sugar cultivation
and manufacture — An extreme instance of Protection
— Its drawbacks and dangers — Restrictive import
duties — Their evil effects — Profits from visitors and
shipping — Population and poverty — A German bubble 146

CHAPTER IX

THE GARDEN IN SPRING

The flowers of March — Brilliant climbers — A rock garden ;
a record of failure — Fruits — The banana — A plague
of ants — Butterflies — Birds — Cutting sugar-cane —
Vines — The wine-trade — Its brilliant past — Ferns
— Their habitat . . . . . . .165

CHAPTER X

ANTIQUITIES

Absence of any indications of early habitation — The
chroniclers — How history is made — The Canary Isles
— Their aboriginal inhabitants — The Salvages — Ser-
torius — Cathedral of Funchal — Town architecture —
Sugar cultivation and the slave-trade — Opportunities
of the collector — Furniture, plate, china — A legend of
Chippendale — Books and duties — Curiosities of cata-
loguing— A poetaster . . . . . .186

CHAPTER XI
THE NORTH SIDE

Difficulties of travel — A journey to Sta. Anna — The central
passes — A precipitous coast — Crops and industry —
Island of Porto Santo — Columbus — The journey west-
ward— 'A charming village — The angelus — A valley
and a mountain-pass — A curious chapel — A coast
path — The mountain plateau ..... 206

xiii

Contents

CHAPTER XII

HOLY-DAYS AND HOLIDAYS page

The observance of Holy Week — Processions — Orderly
crowds — Our parish procession — Sympathy of Church
and people — The Church and population — Sentimental
attraction of the Church — English pessimism — Portu-
guese ministerial crisis — Courtship and marriage —
Street music — Account of the processions of Funchal . 228

CHAPTER XIII

MOUNTAINS AND ISLANDS

The central mountains — The Grand Curral — A mountain
road — Significance of The Road — Its antiquity and
permanence — Pioneering in Africa — Pico Arriero —
The cloud-belt — Absence of sport — The wild goats
of the Desertas — Weird scenery — Seals — A captive —
A dash for freedom . . . . . -251

CHAPTER XIV
THE GARDEN IN ITS GLORY

Brilliant flower-display — Absence of well-defined seasons
— Its consequences — Roses — Bignonia — Wistaria —
Datura — Moonlight nights — The starry heavens —
Some gardens of Funchal — Fonnalists and naturalists
— The pergola — Its uses — Garden paths — Cobble-
stones— Garden masonry — Passion for symmetry , z6i

CHAPTER XV

DEPARTURE

An uneventful winter — The German Company — German
visitors — Increase of English visitors — Tariff Reform
possibilities — Mr. Chamberlain's visit to Madeira —
The time of departure — Lost opportunities — The
pleasures of memory — Tunny-fishing — The love of
places — Farewell . . . . • • .281

xiv .-^

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

I. Datura Frontispiece

2. Papyrus

3. Cypress and Daisies

. 36

4. The Central Range

. 56

5. Snow on the Hills

6, A Peep of the Port

112

7. Wreck of the Packet Brig "Dart" .

• 134

Frojn an Old Print

8. The Camacha Road . . .

• 144

9. Cutting the Sugar-Cane ....

• 152

10. The Pride of Madeira ....

. 166

II. Bananas ........

. 178

12. A Fountain

196

13. The North Coast

. 210

14. Road near Boa Ventura ....

. 224

From a Sketch by Chevalier

15. The Desertas

. 258

16. Wistaria

. 266

LEA VES FROM A
MADEIRA GARDEN

mti^^im^^

LEAVES FROM A
MADEIRA GARDEN

Chapter I— DECEMBER

The Return

"Short retirement urges sweet return.'" — Milton

THE Return has ever been a moving
incident. From Homer to Hardy
it has continually afforded scope
for '* invention." If to youth the
joy of the first visit with its smack of discovery
and exploration is more intense, to the mature
perhaps the sober pleasure of coming back to
the well-known and the well-tried makes a
stronger appeal. And if the return is an
annual affair, if it is a matter of " flying, flying
south " like the swallows, to elude the rigors of
winter in the soft luxury of an Atlantic island,
what it loses in excitement it yet may gain in a
renewal of interest. As our steamer drifts

I B

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

slowly to her anchorage in the bay of Funchal
amid the pearly radiance of the Madeira morn-
ing, we enjoy an easy confidence that our short
absence will have brought no startling change
in a land of slow and little change. But in
small matters there is much to stimulate our
curiosity. He who cultivates the soil, whether
for pleasure or profit, need never be dull ; and
if he is the possessor of a garden in this favoured
isle of the sea, he will surely find that much
has happened therein during his absence to
revive a never-failing wonder at the vigor and
variety of vegetable life.

It is not my purpose to lay stress on details
which may be found in guide-books, but it may
be convenient to mention that Madeira is an
island of volcanic origin, situate, not in the
Mediterranean as some of my English friends
suppose, but in the Atlantic, 600 miles S.W. of
Gibraltar, and 360 miles from the African coast ;
that, putting aside the more or less vague tradi-
tions of previous visits, it was discovered and
colonized by the Portuguese (the *' Portugals "
our Elizabethan ancestors called them) about
1420 ; that politically it is now a province, and
not a colony, of Portugal ; that it is about 2)S

Tlie Return

miles long by 1 5 miles in width, of extremely
mountainous and picturesque surface ; that its
inhabitants are of Portuguese race, with some
admixture of Moorish and negro blood ; and
that from it came the rich wine so beloved by
our ancestors, and still drunk in Russia, Sweden,
France and other countries less dominated by
gout than ours. " II y a — beaucoup de — vin de
Madere — ici, — n'est ce pas ? " said, with great
deliberation, an English admiral, in a laudable
effort to make conversation during a recent
official call from the Governor. And so there
is, although much of the wine so labelled in
Europe knows not its supposed birthplace ; but
with the loss of the English market the wine
trade is shorn of its former glory. Yet it still
provides a living for numerous English families
which form a permanent element in the cosmo-
politan society of the place. Years ago Madeira's
soft and genial air was regarded as a suitable
"cure" for consumptive patients, but the island
has more recently been abandoned by them
for the High Alps and the deserts of South
Africa and Colorado. It is now the winter
resort of many foreigners who are unable
to find so equable and gracious a climate in

Leaves from a Bladeira Garden

Europe, and it is visited by an ever-increasing
number of tourists, American, English, and
German.

From the United States especially come
these invading hordes, conveyed in giant
steamers of the White Star, the Hamburg-
American and other lines. These vessels arrive
with bands playing and flags flying in their
temporary character of pleasure ships ; and if
ships have feelings, one may suppose them to
be a little ashamed of their job. Their passen-
gers, hundreds and hundreds at a time, descend
on the town, buy thousands of post-cards made
in Germany, chafi^er and haggle with the vendors
of embroidery and wicker-work, which are local
productions, and of various curiosities specially
imported for their benefit ; and lo ! to-morrow
they are gone — to invade Gibraltar and Naples,
Cairo and Jerusalem, in similar fashion ; and
peace will reign until the next swarm appears.
Of the real charm of the island these visitors
see and learn nothing ; of its flowery and scent-
laden gardens, the wild grandeur of its mountain
gorges, its hillsides aglow with broom and gorse,
few can carry away any impression whatever.
Perhaps the young lady who could only recall

The Beturn

Rome as the place where she bought those
black silk stockings is a not uncommon type.

But if this ignorance is their loss, it is our
gain. These casual visitors touch but the fringe
and leave the garment undefiled. Outside the
limited range of their experience — the ascent
by railway to the Mount Church ; the "running-
cars " in which they tobogganed down ; the
hotels where they raided the food of more
regular guests ; the Casino where they lost their
money — outside these they know not Madeira,
and Madeira knows them not. Not yet is it
time for Pierre Loti to add to " La Mort du
Caire" and "La Mort de Philae" a threnody
on " La Mort de Madere." Let us give thanks
that there is " nothino: to see."

Truly in ways and means of communication
the world has changed even more rapidly than
in other things. If we go back to the hand-
books of sixty or seventy years ago, we find it
stated that the most convenient method of
reaching Madeira was by the comfortable mail
service of packet brigs, of about 250 tons
burden, which might take anything from six
days to six weeks on the passage. Nowadays
we are accustomed to leave Southampton in a

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

boat of ten or twelve thousand tons on a
Saturday evening, and to arrive here with
more than the punctuality of most express
trains at dawn on the following Wednesday ;
and we are disposed to grumble because even
to achieve this our steamer does not put forth
her full strength.

The precision of the mail service by sea
is a thing to wonder at, and, like most other
wonderful things, is commonly taken as a matter
of course. But it occasionally receives an un-
conscious tribute. Some vears ago I was
leaving Capetown, and the boat was several
hours late in starting in consequence of some
delay on the Johannesburg railway. An irate
Scotsman was pacing the deck and exclaiming,
" Confound it ! I shall miss my train for
Edinburgh." One's thoughts reverted to the
convenient packet brig.

The foil of even a three or four days' voyage
serves to enhance the beauty of the approach to
Funchal. To that majority of mankind which
regards the very name of the Bay of Biscay
with apprehension, finds little to admire in the
mirk and monotony of the North Atlantic,
and has too often suffered worse things than

The Beturn

monotony in its passage, the hill-encircled bay
with the town spreading outwards and upwards
its varied lines of picturesque houses, and its
wealth of sub-tropical greenery, seems verily
an enchanted haven of rest and refreshment.

*' Who would not turn him from the barren sea,
And rest his weary eyes on the green land, and thee ? "

We who know it well are aware that the
coup cfa-il from the sea, delightful as it is,
reveals little of the more intimate beauties
which await us. The houses risins: one above
another are foreshortened as we see them, and
give no hint of the garden luxuriance in which
many of them are embowered. We can trace
the roads which fan-like ascend the hills from
the town, but wc cannot see the brilliant
creepers and shrubs which here and there over-
hang the walls that line them — the Poinsettia,
the Bignonia, the Plumbago, the Datura, which
at this season must be in full flower. Yet even
from the sea we can discern that the great mass
of Bougainvillea which clothes with a raiment
of purple the cliff below an ancient fort that
dominates (or once dominated) the town is
vigorous as ever, though not yet come to its

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

full glory of colour. The hills above look
almost flat in the brilliant morning light. But
we know that their surface is broken into
countless ridges and vales, which invite an
exploration that is never finished ; and that
certain shoulders of rock are concealing from
us grim ravines girdled with giant precipices.
And we know, too, that the peaks which en-
close them are but the prelude to loftier peaks
behind, and that beyond them again lies a very
fairyland of beauty, the wild, forest-clad glens,
the verdant and fertile lowlands, the awful sea-
cliffs of the northern shore.

And so amid the turmoil of arrival at a
Southern port — the clamour of the diving
boys, and the importunity of touts and traders
— we return once more to our winter home.
It is but eight months since we left it, and our
intervening experiences — the green lawns and
immemorial elms of our Sussex homestead ;
those glorious nights by the Norwegian salmon-
river ; the routine of English life ; the haste
of travel on English roads ; the bustle of Picca-
dilly and the pageant of the Boulevards — all
these seem to fade into a dreamland of the
past, and to yield place naturally to the one

The Beturn

thing which is real, this Lotos-land of the
South, " plac'd far amid the melancholy main."
The great mountain wall which for the last
hour or two before our arrival we have been
circumnavigating, the main range which runs
from east to west of the island, is an effectual
barrier against the northerly winds which pre-
vail in winter. On the north side of the island
the winter climate is wet and windy, but Fun-
chal faces the south and the sun. With the
thermometer never falling within fifteen degrees
of freezing-point, we seem, and are, very remote
from the misery of London in the grip of a
freezing fog. And when we consider the des-
perate struggle for life under such circumstances
we may be pardoned for feeling something of
the suave man magno of Lucretius, so aptly
paraphrased by Mr. Mallock ;

" When storms blow loud, 'tis sweet to watch at ease
From shore, the sailor labouring with the seas :
Because the sense, not that such pains are his,
But that they are not ours, must always please."

And although it is true that we are withdraw-
ing ourselves for a season from the life of our
own time and our own people, it is yet possible
that while we " pace serene the porches of the

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

light," we may reap some advantage in a more
detached view of facts, policies, and tendencies,
than if we were in the thick of the fray.

It is not only from the blasts of the northern
winter that the expanse of ocean and the
mountain barrier seclude us. We have passed
completely from the conditions of modern
social life as we know it. With a labour-
ing class utterly illiterate, and Incapable of
organization or of expressing its wants and
grievances otherwise than by open revolt against
authority ; with a government conducted by,
and perhaps I may say not indifferent to the
interests of, that small portion of the population
which can read and write ; the political and
social problems which arise here are quite other
than those with which we are concerned.
Over-population there may be, but it is con-
siderably mitigated by emigration ; " unemploy-
ment," in the sense that those who want work
and wages cannot find them, is among a people
almost entirely agricultural not a burning
question ; poverty is doubtless widespread, but
with cold unknown and hunger easily appeased
its consequences are far less severe than in less
fortunate climes. Such difficulties and dangers

The Beturn

as occur, and, as I believe, much of the poverty
which exists, arise from the excessive claim of
the State to be the arbiter of commercial affairs ;
to stimulate one industry to a feverish life,
and to throttle another to death ; to decide
what commodities shall be bought and sold,
and by whom, and to regulate the price.
These pretensions produce not only a highly
artificial condition of trade, but a strangely
resigned habit of mind among natives and
foreign residents alike ; you cannot kick against
the pricks. There is, indeed, one blessed
mitigation of excessive State regulation ; the
State seems to expend its energy in making
laws, and to shrink from the trouble of
enforcing them.

To the mere sojourner in the island for
pleasure and not for profit, these matters will
be rather of passing interest than of import-
ance. He will find the stringency of rules
readily softened in his favour by the politeness
of those officials with whom he comes in
contact ; and if, accustomed to the rapidity
of English methods, he chafes at having to
stand in a queue at the post office, he will later
come to wonder at the precision with which

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

a large business is conducted by an inadequate
staff.

It is easy for a foreigner to be censorious,
to be too ready to blame a country he visits
for ignoring what his own sets store by. There
is another side ; and an Englishman may
assuredly learn something here. He will find
that all classes, high and low alike, will treat
him with a courtesy which he may look for in
vain at home ; that life may be agreeable with
much less fuss over its machinery than he is
accustomed to make ; that if unpleasant things
must be done, the art of doing them pleasantly
is worth cultivating ; perhaps even — but this
is heresy — that the habit of never doing to-day
what you can put off till to-morrow has
sometimes not only aesthetic but practical
advantages.

A speculative interest is added to the financial
side of life here by the fluctuations in the
exchange. The unit of Portuguese currency
is the m, an imaginary coin of very small value
— as I write about 5400 rets are the equivalent
of the Eno:lish sovereign. There is a certain
convenience in expressing all financial amounts
in the terms of such a diminutive unit, for

The Eeturn

example a gift of a florin towards a charitable
object sounds very much better when it is
described as " five hundred," and the man who
has won a couple of sovereigns at the Casino
may gain a fictitious eclat as the winner of
" ten thousand." But it may cause misappre-
hension among strangers. Readers of Mark
Twain will recall that certain of the " Innocents
Abroad" dined at an hotel at Fayal at the
Azores, and that when the landlord brought his
bill the giver of the feast exclaimed, " Twenty-
one thousand seven hundred reis ! The suffer-
ing Moses ! — there ain't money enough in the
ship to pay that bill 1 Go — leave me to my
misery, boys ; I am a ruined community."
Then the shadow of a desperate resolve settled
upon his countenance and he rose up and said,
" Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll
never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and
fifty dollars, sir, and it's all you'll get — I'll
swim in blood, before I'll pay a cent more."
On the discovery that the bill was for a fraction
over twenty-one dollars, happiness reigned
again — and more refreshments were ordered.
At par the pound sterling is considered to be
worth 4500 reis. Up to about twenty years

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

ago this rate was more or less maintained.
Then the rei began to decline in value, until in
1898 as many as 8700 reis were obtainable for
an English sovereign. Some mysterious
operations for the improvement of Portuguese
finances were then undertaken, and the exchange
declined in the course of the next ten years to
nearly par. It has since risen again. As we
pay the wages of our servants, gardeners and
labourers, and for everything produced locally,
in Portuguese currency, the number of reis we
get for each of our sovereigns becomes a matter
of interest. To the exporter, of wine for
instance, it must be a consideration of the
greatest moment. He buys his raw material,
his grape juice and his spirit, and pays for his
labour in the local currency ; his finished
product he sells in the markets of Europe for
sovereigns or francs or marks, without reference
to the state of the Portuguese exchange. It is
a wonder if he sleeps o' nights.

Madeira has had more than one narrow
escape of becoming part of the British Empire.
When negotiations were proceeding for the
marriage of Catharine of Braganza with
Charles II., it is said that the Queen-Mother,

The Beturn

who was desperately anxious for the conclusion
of the match, was prepared to cede Madeira,
as well as Bombay, Tangier, and a large sum
of money, as her daughter's dowry. The story
runs that the clerk was actually instructed to
include the island in the contract, but that he
omitted it, either from carelessness or from
patriotic intent. If the latter, he deserves to
be honoured as a national hero, splendide mendax.
In 1807, during the Napoleonic wars, a
British force of 4000 men under General
Beresford occupied the island. The principal
inhabitants signed a declaration, and took an
oath " to bear true allegiance and fealty to His
Majesty King George III. and his heirs and
successors as long as the island should be held
by his said Majesty or his heirs, in conformity
to the terms of the capitulation made and
signed on the 26th of December, 1807, whereby
the island and dependencies were delivered over
to his said Majesty." The island was restored
to Portugal the following year, but was gar-
risoned by British troops until the general
peace of 18 14. Our Portuguese friends do not
always bear in mind that it is the friendship of
Great Britain which has secured, and still

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

secures, them in the possession of their oversea
dependencies.

We may amuse ourselves by speculating as
to the present condition of Madeira if it had
remained British. It would doubtless be an
important naval coaling station, and regarded
as one of the outposts of the empire which are
necessary to its existence. Its outward aspect
would certainly be different ; roads would have
been made, sanitation would have received due
attention, and an excellent water supply would
have been installed. It would be very much
like everywhere else, and some of the special
charm of its particularity would be lost. If the
outward appearance were changed, much more
changed would be the inward working of things.
Extravagant customs duties would have dis-
appeared ; a more intelligent fiscal system
would assuredly have produced great commer-
cial and agricultural prosperity, and a consider-
able export trade would have been developed.
The presence of British officials and British
troops would help to bring a larger number of
visitors. On the other hand, a certain dulness
generally follows the British flag, and British con-
ventional morality would be unable to tolerate

The Beturn

the amusements of the Casino, which now
depends on British support, and is undoubtedly
a great attraction. Perhaps our conclusion may-
be that while for the native population, and
especially for the working classes, British con-
trol would be an inestimable advantage, from a
visitor's point of view it would be regrettable.
But such speculations are as idle as those which
concern Cleopatra's nose.

It may be that in these pages I am incurring
the reproach of the Senor Acciauoli, a native
of this island, who married his kinswoman,
daughter and heiress of the Marquis Acciauoli
of Florence, and was known in Italy as the
man who talked nothing but Madeira. Horace
Mann wrote concerning him to Horace Walpole,
and Walpole replied : " You have no notion
how I laughed at the man that * talks nothing
but Madeira.' I told it to my Lady Pomfret,
concluding it would divert her too, and forget-
ting that she repines when she should laugh,
and reasons when she should be diverted. She
asked gravely what language that was ! ' That
Madeira being subject to an European prince,
to be sure they talked some European dialect 1 *
The grave personage ! It was of a piece with

17 c

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

her saying ' that Swift would have written
better if he had never written ludicrously.' "

But to talk nothing but Madeira is my
purpose on setting out ; I talk a European
dialect, yet I fear that in my occasional lapses
from the serious I may merit the censure of my
Lady Pomfret's successors in criticism.

Chapter U— DECEMBER

FUNCHAL AND ITS GaRDENS

"Infinite riches in a little room." — Marlowe.

^HE island of Madeira," says Mr.
W. Robinson in his " English
Flower Garden" — that sacred
volume of the amateur — " is
very instructive in the variety of its gardens ;
every one I remember was distinct, and this
was owing to the owners being free to do as
the ground invited them, instead of following
any fixed idea as to style, or leaving it to men
who are ready with similar plans for all sorts of
positions. In France, England, or Germany,
this could never happen because, owing to the
conformity about style and the use of book
plans, we can usually tell beforehand what sort
of garden we are to see." And he further
speaks of " real gardens varied and full of
beautiful colour, yet without any trace of the
barren monotony characteristic of gardens at

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

home. The generally picturesque nature of
the ground, the presence of graceful fruit and
other trees, and the absence of any pretentious
attempt to conform the whole to a set idea,
lead to the simple and picturesque garden."

When every allowance is made for his well-
known preferences, Mr. W. Robinson seems to
strike the right note. Of the best and most
characteristic Madeira gardens it may be said that
they have grown rather than been made. Those
v/hich have been consciously created are perhaps
the least successful. The villas which surround
the town, and in many cases have now been
swallowed up by it — Quintas is their local
name — were originally country houses sur-
rounded rather by small farms than gardens.
A square plot in front of the house, with a
level surface secured by retaining walls, often
on the hillsides of considerable height, and cut
up into beds of rather fantastic shape — such is
the beginning from which most of the existing
gardens have been gradually evolved. The
main condition governing this evolution is that
level, or even undulating, ground is rare, and
that the hillsides surrounding the town are,
wherever possible, terraced. These terraces,

Fanchal and its Gardens

upheld by rough or cemented stone walls, are
devoted to the operations of the fazenda —
the farm or vegetable garden — and chiefly
occupied by sugar-cane, banana trees, or vines.
The first step In the extension of the garden is
to annex a piece of the fazenda, to uproot the
canes or bananas, and to devote the ground
to the cultivation of flowers. This generally
necessitates the building of a flight of steps and
the laying out of paths. And so a new feature
is created, unlike anything which existed before,
and probably unlike anything in any other
garden. There are generally fresh fields waiting
to be conquered, and so the process goes on,
"as the ground invites us," until a considerable
garden has been created, a garden rich in variety
and surprise ; a garden of walls hung with
heliotrope and mesembryanthemum and trailing
geranium, of pergolas covered with roses and
the brilliant climbing plants of the South
American forests, perhaps of ponds crowded
with water-lily and papyrus ; a garden of fruit
trees, the peach, the mango, the loquat, and
the custard-apple ; of palms and tree-ferns, and
bamboos.

Such gardens, of which there are many, have

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

for the most part been made by Englishmen
resident here. The Portuguese are great and
successful growers of specimen plants in pots,
but they seem to have little aptitude or inclina-
tion for the cultivation of extensive gardens.
A result of this is that there is no tradition of
gardening among the working classes, and that
the professional gardener in our English sense
is almost unknown. One has to do one's best
with labourers, strong, willing, and hard-working,
but with only the labourer's limited knowledge.

The soil is of volcanic origin, rich, dark,
often reddish in colour, containing no lime. It
becomes very sticky after rain ; in dry weather
it cakes and does not easily become converted
into dust. This absence of dust renders the
atmosphere in Madeira quite different from
that of North and South Africa, and is no
doubt very beneficial to persons with weak
chests and throats.

The range of temperature, whether daily or
annual, is remarkably small. It is quite common
for the variation not to exceed ten degrees
Fahrenheit in the twenty-four hours ; and my
registering thermometer, placed in a well-shaded
position, has during the whole of the year 1908

Funchal and its Gardens

touched 50° as a minimum, and 79° as a
maximum. The maximum is unusually low ;
the minimum is normal. In a record of several
years I have only found the thermometer to
fall below 49° on one night. The effect of
this on plant life will be at once evident. It
means that, putting aside questions of soil, and
in a minor degree of wind, you can grow out of
doors everything cultivated in a cool greenhouse
in England, and some of the things commonly
designated as stove-plants. Where we break
down is with plants whose health requires a
cold snap. To find the spring flowers — the
anemones, the daffodils, the violets — in per-
fection, we must go to an altitude of 1500
to 2000 feet above the sea, where winter nights
are cold, and snow sometimes falls, though not
to lie. At least one garden at such an altitude
has a character perhaps unique — a glorified
English garden, where English flowers hold
their own amid sub-tropical trees and shrubs ;
where avenues of camelias rehabilitate the fame
of that too long unfashionable flower, and
Australasian tree-ferns fill the dells with a
luxuriance unknown elsewhere in the Northern
Hemisphere.

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

I have appended to this chapter a list of
treeSj shrubs, and plants which we have observed
to be in flower on Christmas Day this year in
our own garden, which is situate about two
hundred feet above the level of the sea, and
about a quarter of a mile from it. It will
perhaps surprise some that such a range of
blossom may be met with in mid-winter at a
distance of eighty hours' steaming from our
shores. Owing to the copious rains which have
happily fallen during the autumn, everything
this year is looking its best, and the growth of
tree and shrub since last spring is surprising.
At this season no floral feature of the island
approaches in glory the Bignonia venusta^ " the
Golden Shower." Of the most luxuriant
growth, it is ramping everywhere over wall
and pergola and trellice, and its leaves are
almost hidden in the wealth of its orange
flowers. Crimson Poinsettias^ white 'Daturas^
blue-grey Plumbago make a notable trio, magni-
ricent in combination. Hedychium gardnerianum
is over, but its orange seed-pods are a hand-
some feature. The great single Hibiscus bears
aloft its fine red blossoms, individually a flower
unsurpassed for symmetry and beauty. Irises

Funchal and its Gardens

are coming out ; for the pretty lilac jimbriata
we must wait a little, but the white stylosa,
which I brought from England last year, is
flowering already. Some of the roses are
making a great show. Begonias of various
kinds are in perfection. The fine orange Strep-
tosoleUy introduced by an English lady a few
years ago, and now pervading every garden,
and intent on being naturalized as Madeiran,
vies in colour with the Bignonia. A few stray
sweet peas are in flower, but for the produce of
the seeds we sent out in October we must wait
a little longer. Comparable in colour efi^ect
even with the brighter flowers is the foliage of
the AcaUipha^ with its bizarre combination of
green and red and bronze and pink. In our
garden it seems to flourish unusually, growing
into a big shrub eight or ten feet high. With
these and many others the most exacting lover
of garden colour has no cause to grumble ; and
if we grow surfeited with these, the ordinary
fare of gardens here, we may find in the culture
of ferns, orchids, rock-plants, or other byeways
of horticulture, innumerable points of interest.
Or, if our turn of mind is practical, we may set
ourselves to the improvement of the peas,

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

beans, and new potatoes which are our cus-
tomary table vegetables.

There are, it may be held, two schools of
gardeners. One is mainly concerned with the
iiarden as a whole, with the creation and main-
tenance of a pleasance in which trees and shrubs
and flowering plants play their subordinate
parts in a scheme of decoration. The other
school busies itself with the nurture of special
plants — with roses, carnations, begonias, or
what not. 1 have somewhere read a comparison
of flowers in this connection with pictures — ■
with pictures viewed as a decorative adjunct, or
displayed as in a gallery for their own sakes.
The two attributes may be united in one
person ; usually, at any rate, one or the other
predominates. To me the cult of the general,
of the garden scheme as a whole, appeals more
strongly ; yet in the joy I feel at the unhoped-
for survival of a gentian, or the luxuriance of
an adiantum^ I own some deference to the
particular.

The town of Funchal, as I have already
suggested, lies in the curve of the bay, and
straggles upwards from its centre to the sur-

rounding hills.

Funchal and its Gardens

" Houses with long white sweep
Girdle the glistening bay ;
Behind through the soft air
The blue haze-cradled mountains spread away."

Like the Garden of Eden (which, but for his
selection of the Seychelles, General Gordon
might very well have located in this island), it
owns four rivers ; yet none of them at all
resembles the Euphrates. In their lower
course through the town they usually contain
very little water, much having been carried
off higher up by the kvadas^ or open canals,
which supply water for domestic purposes, and
to irrigate the fields ; they are much used for
washing clothes, and (illegally) as receptacles
for rubbish. But if heavy rains fall in the hills
— and when it really rains there is no doubt
about it — then their channels become roaring
torrents, and the dirt they bring down will
colour the sea for a long distance. It happened
once that a barrel of permanganate of potash
was accidentally dropped into the Sta. Luzia
river at a sugar mill above the town. It
converted it into a stream resembling Condy's
fluid, and the washerwomen ran through the
streets screaming that the water had turned to

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

blood. If the municipality were to take the
hint and periodically repeat the experiment, it
might have very beneficial results. These
rivers are separated by ridges with more or less
precipitous sides, the buttresses of the great
mountain mass to the north and east of the
town, a range which culminates in peaks six
thousand feet high. Up these ridges lie very
steep roads, some of which lead across the
mountains to the north side of the island.
Houses line these roads continuously to the
height of about a thousand feet. Save in the
town itself there is scarcely a bridge, and unless
one is prepared to venture into the ravines by
tortuous paths, and to cross the river by step-
ping-stones, it is necessary in passing from one
ridge to another to descend into the town and
to ascend on the other side. This makes the
distances by road between houses which face
each other across a ravine often considerable.
It is almost incredible that under these circum-
stances, in the third city of Portugal, with a
population, including the suburbs, of over forty
thousand, there is no telephone system. If
you want to send a message you send your
servant to run with it, and if he happens to

Funchal and its Gardens

look in at his club, and to take part in a pro-
longed rubber, you will not see him again for
some time. To those accustomed to the enter-
prise of northern countries, such a neglect of
an opportunity of profitable business, and such
disregard of public convenience are very sur-
prising. Even in such a poor country as
Norway you may find a telephone wire in the
remotest mountain valleys. The Portuguese
lament the poverty of their country and them-
selves. In this and kindred matters is to be
found its explanation. They are accustomed
to throw the blame on the Government ; but do
not peoples enjoy the governments, like the
religions, they deserve ?

It would not be very difficult, nor over-
whelmingly costly, to make a fine drive round
the mountain basin above the town, at an alti-
tude of from 500 to 800 feet. To judge from
the fragments of roads which exist, some such
scheme may have been at some time contem-
plated. The French would do it in a year or
two ; but to judge from the general rate of
progress here, it will remain undone for
centuries.

Yet in its aloofness from the modern stream

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

of improvement perhaps much of the attraction
of Madeira lies. As far as essentials are con-
cerned, we might be living in the eighteenth
century ; and we now learn how few of the
inventions of the nineteenth are necessary to
comfort or contentment. One need never be
in a hurry ; for most things to-morrow will do
as well as, or better than, to-day. And being
accustomed to go about the town in a car on
runners, not wheels, drawn by two oxen, one
is inclined to resent the recent introduction of
two or three motor-cars, especially as the streets
are narrow and twisted. As their operations
are limited by the nature of the country to
certain parts of the town, and a road along the
coast about six miles in length, and as the
cobble stones and ridged hills must be very
trying to their tyres and machinery, there are
reasonable grounds for hoping that they will
not endure very long.

There is indeed a certain old-world charm
about the cobbled and grass-grown streets of
Funchal. The houses are irregular in con-
struction ; many of them, especially in the
centre of the town, are of considerable an-
tiquity ; and though most are more or less

Funchal and its Gardens

modernized, some still retain their fine old
stone doorways and wrought-iron balconies.
Here and there a mass of brilliant Bougainvillea
or Bignonia streams streetvvards over the wall
from an inner court, while later in the winter
the Wistaria will hang its graceful blossoms
over the heads of the wayfarers. Girls filling
their pitchers at the fountain ; carpenters, tin-
smiths, and shoemakers plying their little trades
in open shops beneath the dwelling-houses ;
picturesque country-folk staring open-eyed and
open-mouthed at what to them is the bustle
and hubbub of a great city, and on festal days
crowding to the cathedral ; such are among the
customary sights of the streets. The ancient
Church is here still vigorous and dominant ;
she is a real force deeply influencing the lives
of the people, and with her happy use of
dramatic and pictorial art in services and pro-
cessions, doing much to infuse some interest
and variety into them. We who can read are
prone to forget the effect on the unlettered of
such a representation as the Holy Child in His
cradle ; nor do we want the Holy Rood borne
aloft to remind us of the manner of His death.
And at the evening hour, when the town is

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

already in shadow, but the sunlight still lingers
on the hill, and the "Angelus" rings from the
tile-clad Campanile, you may indeed feel that
here, if anywhere, the Church is still " whisper-
ing from her towers the last enchantments of
the Middle Ages."

At various times certain well-meaning, but
misguided, British subjects have striven to
make converts among the people to some form
of Protestant religion. Much ill-will was for-
merly engendered by these attempts, leading
to serious riots. Perhaps the small amount
of success which has attended them has led
to the indifference and toleration which now
prevail. As far as I know, the ministers
of the English Church have been blameless in
this respect ; and it would indeed be idle to
expect that the ecclesiastical compromise of the
Tudors, which on historical and other grounds
has so strong a hold on us, should have any
meaning for these people. Still less do the
tenets of other Protestant bodies, however well
they accord with the comparative simplicity
and directness of the Northern character, seem
fitted to satisfy the emotions of warm-blooded
Southerners, with their strong tendency to

FimcJial and its Gardens

mysticism, and what their would-be instructors
designate as superstition. One would suppose
that the heathen of the neighbouring Dark
Continent offer a more suitable, if less agree-
able, field for such endeavours.

The general aspect of Funchal, apart from
the unfortunate condition of the river-beds,
which is due to neglect of duty on the part of
the local government, is pre-eminently clean.
The inhabitants have a positive mania for
whitewash, with its pink and yellow varieties.
They carry its use to the excess of plastering
and washing all their garden walls, a practice
which creates a dead level of uniformity and an
unnecessary glare. If, as applied to the exterior
of houses, whitewash may not always be a sign
of inward grace, yet it is something to look
clean, and in this respect Funchal far surpasses
the towns of Italy and other Mediterranean
countries. And in the matter of street smells
it only achieves a very modest distinction.

On the western side of the town, in the
neighbourhood of the " Ribeiro Secco," a river
which, except in very wet weather, does not
belie its name, the ground is less precipitous
than elsewhere, and as it faces the higher

33 D

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

hills the views are generally far finer than
those obtained from their slopes. This
may now be described as the Strangers'
quarter, for here, as elsewhere, those who are
free to select their own place of residence
seem to be drawn by some mysterious law
to move westwards. Can this be a survival
of the instinct of emigration westwards which
has populated Europe and America from the
Central Asian steppes ? In this direction are
the hotels frequented by visitors, and here, on
a slope above the Dry River, is the Quinta in
which we live among our flowers. It faces
south-east, and looks across the bay to the
rocky uninhabited islands known as the " De-
sertas " (I have an old Admiralty chart in which
they appear as the " Deserters " ! — perhaps a
poetical suggestion that they are fugitives from
the main island) ; and across such portions of
the city as are not hidden by the intervening
ridges to the great hills beyond. Below us
lies the little harbour behind the breakwater
which terminates in the Loo Rock, crowned
with its ancient fort ; and farther off the road-
stead in which the great liners ride at anchor.
It would be difficult to find a fairer setting for

Funchal and its Gardens

a garden, a nobler combination of sea and
mountain, with just the sufficient evidence
of man's neighbourhood and handiwork to
emphasize the natural grandeur of the scene.
We purchased this Quinta about seven years
ago from a Portuguese gentleman, who was
more concerned with farming than with flowers.
There was the usual square plot in front of the
house ; in the centre of it a handsome marble
fountain, and round about certain flower beds
edged with jagged clinkers, unpleasant to look
at, and very damaging to the boots of those
who incautiously approached them. With the
exception of this, and of a paved court enclosing
a small pond in which a duck of some northern
breed passed in solitude a melancholy existence,
the whole ground was given up to bananas and
vines. It was all very well " arranged," to use
a favourite Portuguese expression ; looked at
practically from the point of view of the Madeira
agriculturist it was perfect ; the symmetrical,
terraced plots all provided with cemented
conduits for purposes of irrigation, and the
roads and paths of cobble-stones laid in cement
to prevent the intrusion of weeds ; most of the
paths covered with pergolas of chestnut wood

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

on solid iron posts, for the support of vines ;
and the garden plot and the entrance-drive
surrounded by a bare cast-iron railing. The
whole had an air of having cost a great deal of
money ; and to the eye of a garden lover, and
perhaps especially of an Englishman, the general
effect was appalling.

Save for a few fine old trees, camphor trees,
magnolias and others, surrounding the house,
the domain was destitute of shade, for in the
winter the vines covering the pergolas are
almost leafless ; and this, combined with the
arid pavements and the too obtrusive iron
railings, gave a distressing air 'of bareness to
the place. But we put our trust in the vigour
of Madeira soil and air, and our confidence has
not been misplaced. We planted eucalyptus
trees where shade was most urgently needed,
and we have already specimens of those beautiful
trees at least thirty feet high. We dared to
run counter to public opinion in planting an
avenue of cypresses, here still the *' invisae
cupressi" of Horace, and held to be an
ornament for graveyards alone ; and already
our avenue is visible far and wide and imparts
something of a Mediterranean aspect to the

Funchal and its Gardens

vicinity. Our shade-giving trees planted, we
could afford to proceed more leisurely with our
climbers and flowering plants ; and of these
and of the extension of the garden ground to
contain them I will speak later.

At the back of our house a steep road leads
to the district of S. Martinho — a village two or
three miles to the west of Funchal, You mount
very quickly, and at an elevation of about seven
hundred feet come upon a pleasant road which
is almost level for two or three miles, and
bending northwards and eastwards presents a
continually varied and charming series of views
of the town lying in the great basin below.
Hither on one of the days between Christmas
and the New Year — a day of brilliant sunshine,
but as the white-horses out at sea may tell us
wit), a strong north-east wind blowing — we
asc ;nd intent to meet some friends from
an ither quarter of the town. The trysting-
p ace is a pine wood, in the shade of which we
jicnic. That at such a season such things are
possible is evidence of the wonderful climate
we enjoy here. At this slight elevation the
air is lighter and fresher than by the sea-board.
Some wandering gusts of the north-easter reach

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

us ; but with a shade temperature of over 60°
it cannot be called cold. The country round
seems remotely to suggest Devonshire in spring.
The oak-trees, indeed, retain their summer
foliage, and will not lose it till the new leaves
in February push the old ones off. But at
their base are the wild flowers of spring, and
the scent of spring is in the air. The clumps
of pampas grass and huge yuccas at the entrance
of a neighbouring Qidnta recall an English
garden, and the only suggestion at hand of a
more southern land is the luxuriance of the
glaucous aloes which grow in masses on the
rocks. Here with jest and laughter we beguile
the midday hours —

" Light flows our war of mocking words ; " —

and, when the sun declines, watch, as we have
often watched in wonder and delight before,
the ravines of the opposite hills grow dark and
mysterious in their evening haze, a foil for the
heightened glow on peak and ridge.

Fimchal and its Gardens

SOME SHRUBS, CLIMBERS, AND PLANTS IN
FLOWER ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

Astrapaca viscosa, "Tassel Tree."
Cantua dependens.
Datura suaveolens.
Euphorbia, in variety.
Habrothamnus, red.
Hibiscus, single red

,, double red.

„ yellow.
Lasiandra.
Myrtle.
Olea fragrans.
Plumbago capensis
Poinsettia capensis.
Strelitzia augusta.

„ reginac.
Streptosolen Jameson!.

Bignonia venusta.
„ Smithii.
Bougainvillea, purple.

„ mauve.

„ rose.

„ red.

Cobaea scandens.
Convolvulus, various species.
Ipomaea, "Morning glory."
Passiflora caerulea.
Solanum jasminoides.
,, Seaforthianum.

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Tacsonia insignis.
Thunbcrgia grandiflora.

Aponogeton (iistachyon.

Arum lilies.

Asters.

Azaleas.

Begonias, in great variety.

Callistemon speciosum, " Bottle brush."

Cannas.

Carnations.

Celosia cristata.

Coleus Thyrsoideus.

Crinum.

Franciscea,

Fuchsias, in variety.

Geranium, in great variety.

Heliotrope, light and dark.

Iris, English.
,, stylosa alba.

Lantana, in variety.

Lobelia.

Linum, yellow.

Melastoma.

Mignonette.

Pelargonium.

Phlox.

Salvia.

Stocks.

Roses : —
Bardou Job.
Beauty of Glazenwood
Caroline Testout.
40

Fiinclial and its Gardens

Roses — continued.
Cloth of Gold.
Duchesse d'Auerstadt.
Frau Karl Druschki.
Gloire de Dijon.
La Marque.
La France.
Marechal Neil.
Reine Marie Henriette.
Souvenir de Malmaison.
Souvenir d'un Ami.
William Allen Richardson, and others.

Chapter lll—J^NUzART
Town and Country Delights

" The little pleasure of the game." — Prior.

THE old year died in a blaze of glory.
The passion of the Madeirans for
fireworks, as pleasing not only to
the eye, but to the ear, is extra-
ordinary. During the past fortnight the
Saturnalia have been celebrated with a con-
tinuous fusillade by day and night. Learned
men will discourse to you of survivals of sun-
worship and fire-worship. But these do not
seem to account for the noise-worship in which
the younger part of the population especially
takes so active a part. The great delight of
the small boys, abetted, it must be owned, by
their small sisters, is to place some fulminating
powder on a stone and to strike it just as you
are passing, on foot or horseback. Let us hope
that this early training in the abuse of explosives
will not induce bomb-throwing in maturity.

Toiun and Country Delights

In the last hours of the thirty-first of
December the firework habit produces its
fullest manifestations. The town, the suburbs,
the country houses, and the surrounding hills
are all ablaze with coloured lights, and, as the
hour of midnight approaches, showers of
rockets, of shells, of Roman candles, and what-
not rise in all directions. The climax is reached
at midnight, when the rain of fire redoubles,
the steamers in the port blow their hooters,
bells are rung, and a most unholy din prevails.
Then in a few minutes all is peace, save when
some roysterers wake the echoes, or a belated
bomb disturbs our slumbers.

This watch-night display of fireworks Is
Indeed a splendid spectacle, its success being
largely due to the hilly nature of its area, and
its widespread extent. Though the individual
fireworks may be of comparatively inferior
quality, yet the whole far surpasses in glory set
displays at exhibitions and such places, and the
effect is much heightened by the fact that it is
the result of private and spontaneous effort.

With the advent of the New Year, Madeira's
" season," from the hotel-keepers* point of view,
may be said to be well started. The Casino is

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

in full swing. It is called euphemistically the
" Strangers' Club," a name less rich in poetic
fancy than the " Sea-bathino- Establishment " of
Monte Carlo, but appropriately suggesting to
the reflective mind that the taking-in of
strangers is its business. Its very modest
subscription is naturally inadequate to keep up
the house and gardens, or to pay for its excel-
lent music, and its frequent balls and entertain-
ments. The deficiency is very comfortably
provided by the game of Roulette. Such games
are, I understand, as illegal in Portugal as in
England ; but in this delightfully easy-going
country it seems the business of no one to
enforce an inconsiderate law, and if such a
functionary exists he is easily convinced that it
is best to leave things alone. It is not for us
English to throw stones. We have a beautiful
system of laws intended to repress betting, and
we know the result. And does not " the
City" exist that, under the skilfully designed
semblance of a real transaction, we may be
enabled to satisfy our gambling propensities in
buying stocks and shares and wheat and cotton
without paying for them, or in selling such
things without possessing them, and indeed

Town and Country Delights

without troubling ourselves very much whether
they exist or not ? Nor are we backward in
availing ourselves of opportunities wherever
they occur. An old traveller once said to me,
" I have been all over the world, and wherever
I found gambling going on, there were English-
men in the thick of it." And perhaps it may
be remarked that the chief patrons of this
excellent club are English. It is a great boon
to many visitors. In the modern sense there
is here " nothing to do " — no golf, no motoring
(to speak of), no sports of the field ; and the
Casino, before and after dinner, is a resource
for the resourceless. If people lose their
money it is their own affair. Losing has been
stated on expert authority to be the next
greatest pleasure to winning. Possibly it keeps
them out of worse mischief. And the unco'
guid who find in the vices, venial or otherwise,
of their neighbours an occasion for self-com-
placency, are enabled to gird at the iniquities
of this sinful establishment ; and so everybody
is pleased.

The game of Roulette is a very fair one to
the player. Considering that "the bank"
provides the place and means of playing ; that

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

It pays for the croupiers and the lights, and for
sweet music to soothe your sorrows ; that if
you commit suicide on the premises it will
charge itself with your burial ; surely for all
these services it is a small thing that when you
back a winning number, one of the 37 on the
board, it pays you 35, instead of 2)^^ times
your stake. This is a very modest deduction
from such noble winnings ; and if (as is more
probable) you lose, you have nothing further
to pay whatever. And think of the possi-
bilities ; in a few minutes a sovereign may
gather to itself hundreds. But you cannot
expect that to happen every day ; and if you
are here for some time, and wish to make the
most of your opportunities, you will play a
" system." This is a very certain method of
losing in the end ; but it is quite possible that
you may take a long time dying. And you
will be able to find occupation for your morn-
ings in looking over your system in the light
of yesterday's results, in darning holes in it, as
it were, in readiness for the evening's en-
counter ; or if it be worn too threadbare, in
inventing a new one.

I hope that other readers of Wordsworth

Toivn and Countrij DeUglds

will forgive me for irreverently quoting from
" The Excursion ; Despondency Corrected " —

"If tired of systems, each in its degree
Substantial, and all cruml)ling in their turn,
Let him build systems of his own, and smile
At the fond work, demolished with a touch/'

If you are a heaven-born gambler (I confess
to some incongruity in the phrase) — one of
those blighted Bonapartes whose star occa-
sionally illumines the monotony of the Casino
sky — you will know how to take fortune at the
flood, or, what is even more important, to
remember an engagement elsewhere when luck
is against you. But such a genius is rare ;
nascitur 7ion fit.

George Selwyn, in repentant old age, de-
scribed play as one of the greatest consumers
of time, fortune, constitution, and thinkino-.
If history tells the truth, he had enjoyed every
opportunity of knowing. Yet putting aside
fortune and constitution, there are some who
reckon the killing of time as one of its merits
and many who do not want to think. No one
seems to have discovered a sound basis for
condemning gambling on moral grounds. Its
excess is no doubt pernicious ; but that may be

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

said of many pleasures and pursuits quite
innocent in themselves. It does not seem to
be in itself demoralizing, for it has been the
recreation of many of the greatest and most
honoured among men. If it is accused of
withdrawing men from more useful pursuits,
the same may be said of golf and beggar-my-
neighbour. It does not appear to do any
injury to the Commonwealth, for it is merely
the means of transferring money from one
man's pocket to another (as does the Old Age
Pensions' Scheme) ; and is, so far, less blame-
worthy than some forms of extravagance. And
it causes no suffering to any living thing, which
cannot be said of field-sports. So perhaps we
may conclude that the ladies and gentlemen,
and others, who are sitting round that revolving
wheel, are enjoying themselves in a very harm-
less, if rather stupid, way ; and that if we only
want to listen to the band, or to sit in a
pleasant garden overlooking the bay, we ought
to be obliged to them for paying for our
amusement.

Yet it is a refreshment to turn from the
somewhat banal atmosphere of such estabhsh-
ments to the free air of the mountains. At

Toivn and Country Delights

this season of the year the weather in the hills
is often less to be distrusted than it is a month
later. At an altitude of five thousand feet,
where snow may be lying to-morrow, you may
find to-day a blazing sun, and be glad to ride
in your shirt-sleeves.

The mountain scenery of Madeira, consider-
ing its small area, is of surprising magnificence.
The island is a little smaller than the Isle of
Man, and about one-fourth larger than the Isle
of Wight. The distance from Funchal on the
south to Santa Anna on the north coast is only
fourteen miles as the crow flies ; yet so devious
is the road, so steep and numerous the ridges
to be crossed, that the journey involves a ride
of six or seven hours. Perhaps the most
characteristic scenery is to be found in the
valleys of the north side ; deep troughs which
run right into the heart of the central chain,
and at their head are surrounded by precipices
several thousand feet high. Shaded by their
aspect from the fiercer rays of the sun, and
enjoying a moist atmosphere, for the valleys
are often filled with cloud, these precipitous
cliff's are clothed, wherever it can find a foot-
ing, with a superb vegetation. The trees are

49 E

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

mostly of the laurel tribe, and under favour-
able conditions are of great size and doubtless
of great age. Beneath their shade, and on
their trunks, ferns and mosses flourish in
unbridled luxuriance. The traveller receives
a just and agreeable impression of being
surrounded by those primeval conditions, un-
affected by man's handiwork, which are ever
becoming rarer in the more easily accessible
portions of the world's surface. The majority
of these valleys are rarely trodden by civilized
man. A visit to them necessitates sleeping at
one of the villages on the north coast, where
accommodation is still very limited and primi-
tive ; and owing to the absence of demand it
seems rather to have deteriorated than advanced
during recent years.

Much of the finest scenery of Madeira is
rendered accessible to the adventurous through
the levadas^ or channels, by which water is
collected in the higher hills and brought down
to irrigate the lower regions. They are com-
monly cut out of the rock, or built of masonry,
on the steep hillsides, and the watercourse is
usually protected by a parapet about eighteen
inches wide. Their construction must often

Toiun and Country Delights

have presented great difficulties, it having been
necessary in many cases to let down the work-
men by ropes from above. As their existence
is essential to the cultivation of the lower lands
they are generally kept in good repair, and
those who have steady heads, and dare to walk
by so narrow a path along the face of giant
precipices, may reach magnificent scenery other-
wise unapproachable. As the levadas must of
course follow every deviation of the hillside
their length is often very great, and it may
sometimes involve a walk of fifteen or twenty
miles to reach a point not more than two or
three miles distant in a straight line. Here and
there it may be necessary to creep through
tunnels, and perhaps to walk in the water-
channel itself ; sometimes an overhanging rock
will make the passage of the narrow parapet,
with a thousand feet of precipice below, a rather
blood-curdling business ; but the reward is
great. We are conducted into the very heart
and penetralia of the mountain solitude, and
may feast our eyes on ever-changing vistas of
forest-clad cliffs and soaring crags.

It happens that a point of view in one of the
grandest and most typical valleys of the north

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

may be visited with great ease from Funchal in
a day's excursion. Two thousand feet above
the town lies on the steep hillside the hamlet
and church of Monte. The main road to the
north runs through, and ascends rapidly above,
to a pass which crosses the principal chain of
mountains at a height of 4500 feet. A cog-
wheel railway takes one very easily up from
Funchal to "the Mount." The village is a
favourite resort of the townsfolk on holidays,
and is visited annually by thousands of pas-
sengers from steamers calling at the port for
a few hours. They ascend by the railway and
return in " running cars " down the Mount
Road. These cars are, I believe, peculiar to
Madeira. They are made of wickerwork and
mounted on sledges, and descend the steep
roads around Funchal very rapidly, chiefly by
the force of their own momentum. They are
guided by two men by means of ropes fixed to
the front of the car, and where propulsion is
necessary, the men stand with one foot on the
back of the car and push with the other behind.
From the Mount you may proceed to the
hills above on foot or on horseback ; or in the
ancient Madeira mode you may be carried by

Toivn and Country Delights

men in a hammock slung on a pole. The
hammock, and the palanquin were formerly
the chief means of locomotion for ladies in
town or country ; the hammock is still used
for mountain excursions, and by aged priests
when visiting their parishioners. A combi-
nation of riding and walking is the pleasantest
method for those who are equal to it. So on
one of the earliest days of the year we start
from the Mount for the Ribeiro Frio, "the
Cold River," a stream running northward from
the main chain, near to which is a celebrated
point of view, the spot chosen for our picnic.
A dog and several horses, with their attendants,
form our cavalcade ; the first has made many
a mountain excursion before, but he is still
under the impression that he is brought out
to hunt the half-wild goats that browse upon
the hillsides. We ascend rapidly through
pine-woods, pausing where there is an opening
to look back at the city lying below us, and
away to the westward to the great mass of
Capo Girao, a headland with a sheer front to
the sea. It has been said to be the highest
sea-clifFin the world, but is surpassed by many
on the Norwegian coast, and doubtless elsewhere.

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

To the east, a mist almost lilac in hue, envel-
opes without concealing the Desertas. When
we emerge from the pine-woods, at an altitude
of nearly four thousand feet, we enter a bleak
moorland region with great heaths and bilberry-
bushes. There is an agreeable haze in the
sky to prevent the sun from being too hot ;
at this altitude the air is very fresh but
not cold. Our enjoyment and exhilaration
there is naught to mar. I expect, from past
experience, that we may find the northern
valleys filled with cloud ; but we are in luck,
and they prove to be as clear as the southern
slope. Liability to disappointment from this
cause is a risk of Madeira travel. Our uphill
journey ends at a shelter-hut on the top of the
pass, where the northern ocean comes into
view. Thirty miles off, on the horizon, lies the
mountainous island of Porto Santo, and to our
left the highest peaks of Madeira, Ruivo and
Arriero. Hence we begin the descent across
another moorland tract, the mountain views
becoming at every step grander and better
defined. From the moor we reach the valley
by a road of steep zigzags, in woods of laurel,
with an undergrowth of fern. Through this

Toioii and Country Delights

forest glade, which has been compared rather
fancifully to the scenery of Killarney, meanders
the Cold River. But this is not what we have
come out to see. We leave our horses on its
banks, ascend a slope of some two hundred feet
to a levada, pass along it by a cutting through
one of the narrow ridges characteristic of
Madeira scenery, and in a few minutes are in
the presence of one of the world's great views.
Climbing on to an isolated rock we look down
into the vast valley of the Metade, with its
precipitous sides rising apparently sheer from
its floor upwards some five thousand feet to the
pinnacles of the highest mountains. That they
are not so precipitous as they look we may
judge from the fact that the lower cliifs are
clothed everywhere with a wealth of vegetation.
The valley is widest, and circular in form, at
its head. Mysterious and only half-seen minor
valleys branch from the main body, separated
from each other by the buttresses of the
mountain range. Far below us foams the
torrent, a small stream itself, but dowered by
the reverberations of a thousand echoes with the
roar of a great river. High over all tower
the masses of Ruivo and Arriero, and the

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

inaccessible crags of the Torres which lie
between them. They are clear to-day, and are
perhaps less overwhelmingly grand than when
a belt of mist lies below their summits. But
too often they are completely hidden in cloud,
and to-day we may rejoice that we have not
made our journey in vain.

As filled with a delight not unmixed with
awe, we linger in the presence of this majestic
scene, scarcely touched and in no way spoilt
by the hand of man, we may reflect with
wonder on the sentiments with regard to
mountains which prevailed not only in the
ancient world, but in the modern down to a
very recent period. To-day, certainly to
Northerners, perhaps especially to those who
have in them something of Celtic breeding,
the attraction of the mountain, of the stern and
terrible in Nature, is immense. It exercises
over many minds that " cleansing of the pas-
sions " which Aristotle ascribes to tragedy.
It may be that it marks a reaction from our
flagrant sacrifice of the softer beauties of Nature
to our coarser needs, from the grimy hideous-
ness and meanness of our towns, and the pro-
gressive despoilment of our rural amenities. In

Toimi and Countrij Delights

this form of barbarism, perhaps, no nation rivals
the British ; and it may be that the British, as
a nation, are the chief mountain-lovers.

To the Greeks and Romans, says Humboldt,
only the homely was pleasant in a landscape,
not what we call the wild and romantic. To
the Middle Ages, and for long after the
Renaissance, the idea of the romantic was
foreign ; and the love of Nature in her savage,
and what we call her grander, moods found
until the latter half of the eighteenth century
only rare and isolated expression. The last
two centuries have witnessed many revolutions
in human thought and sentiment. Perhaps
none is more striking than this new-born
worship of the mountain.

In the great days of Rome, innumerable
travellers were constantly traversing the passes
of Switzerland. They saw in them only Livy's
fceditas Alpiunty the hideousness of the Alps.
They had no eye but for " the difficulties of the
narrow mule-paths, the wilderness of ice and
snow, the horror of the avalanches." This is
the reason why "of the eternal snow of the
Alps, ruddy in sunset or sunrise, of the mar-
vellous blue of the glaciers, of the magnificence

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

of the Swiss landscape, no ancient said one
word ; it is why Silius Italicus describes the
Alps as a horrifying barren desert, whilst
lovingly dwelling on Italy's ravines and wooded
shores." It has been pointed out in mitigation
of their blindness that modern travellers to the
Arctic desolations of ice have been equally
impervious to the terrible majesty of those
regions, destined perhaps some day to be the
playground of a jaded townsfolk. "We have to
wait many centuries for the awakening. I find
that even Horace Walpole, writing from Turin
in 1739, after crossing the Alps for the first
time, has nothing to say of them but " such
uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inhabitants."
But he is full of sentiment concerning the loss
of his pet King Charles " Tory," which was
carried off by a wolf.

To the crowds which now find an almost
exaggerated delight in the moors and lochs of
Scotland, the words of Dr. Johnson on his tour
in 1773 would seem to refer to another planet.
He describes the dreary monotony of the
treeless moors and naked hills : "An eye
accustomed to flowery pastures and waving
harvests is astonished and repelled by the wide

Tolou and Country Delights

extent of hopeless sterility." This is the classical
note ; Nature untamed or untamable by man is
repellant. The idea took form in the gardens
of the ancients, reproduced in those of the
Renaissance. The modern English garden,
with its groups of shrubs and its flowers in
masses, recalling Nature's own arrangements,
its " wild garden " and its " naturalizations " —
the "English plan of freakish Nature," as
Goethe called it — is based on quite a different
set of feelings from those which found expres-
sion (to quote a historic sentence) in the
" voluptuous parterre, the trim garden, and the
expensive pleasure-grounds, where effeminacy
was wont to saunter, or indolence to loll." Is
not the charm we find in the gardens of the
Renaissance, such as those of Tivoli or Frascati,
chiefly due to the fact that Nature has reasserted
her sway ? Should we find it all if the
balustrades were cleansed of their lichens, the
broken steps and pillars put into a thorough
state of repair, and the gnarled trunks of
ancient trees, the dense thickets of ancient
shrubs, replaced by the neat greenery of the
earlier days ?

The jaded Roman Emperor offered a great

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

reward to the man who would discover for him
a new pleasure ; surely we moderns have found
one in our new-born love for Nature's greater
works — the blue glaciers and soaring peaks
of the Alps ; the vast snow-caps and sombre
fjords of Norway ; the jagged pinnacles and
forest-clad cliffs of this volcanic island.

Yet as we gaze to-day, the 4th of January,
1909 — our minds full of the Sicilian catas-
trophe— across the vast cauldron of the Metade
valley to the fire-scarred crags of Arriero and
the Torres, perhaps there mingles with our
admiration some remnant of the ancient feeling
of horror at such evidence of the terrific and
ruthless forces of Nature. This island stands
six thousand feet high, amid sea-depths more
than twice as great. It has been piled up on
the ocean's bed by a series of eruptions repeated
again and again, sometimes in rapid succession,
sometimes at long intervals, over a period of
time to be reckoned by tens of thousands of
years. Earthquakes have riven the layers
of solid rock and filled the fissures with lava,
now to be seen in the form of dykes inter-
secting the highest hills. To earthquakes are
due the vast rendings of the rock which

Town and Country Delights

through the subsequent action of the elements
have become those " trenches of the long-
drawn vales " that delight us to-day. Every-
where, in highland and lowland alike, we
behold traces of a prolonged and appalling
volcanic activity. For many centuries it has
been stilled, and we who dwell upon its
slumbering ashes may dare to hope that the
forces which gave it birth will rest for ever
contented with their labour.

Chapter IV—JiANUz/fRr

The Garden in Mid-Winter

" Profusion bright ! and every flower assuming
A more than natural vividness of" hue,
From unaffected contrast with the gloom
Of sober cypress."

Wordsworth.

HE effect of the copious rainfall of
last autumn is still felt in our
garden. Never before in mid-
January have we been so rich in
flowers ; never have the roses especially
bloomed with such a reckless abandon.

I have already related that six years ago our
house stood in the middle of several acres of
banana trees, with a small garden plot in front.
The whole property is on a moderate slope,
facing to the south-east, and is divided into
about half a dozen main terraces. We resisted
the blandishments of those who would have us
lay out a garden on a preconceived scheme. In
succeeding years we have taken different pieces

The Garden in Mid-Winter

of ground from the fazenda^ and turned
them into flower garden ; — here a little lawn
with a belt of white datura on either side ;
there a walk bordered by cypresses, which
serve as frames for exquisite views of sea and
mountain ; here a long pergola covered with
roses, William Allen Richardson and Marechal
Niel ; there a little winding path, bordered
with rosemary, among tall shrubs, the many-
hued Jcalapha, and the giant Strelitzia with its
strangely beaked blossom. This method of
proceeding has had the advantage of giving us
continued employment, and if we do not use
up all our ground too quickly, may be con-
tinued almost indefinitely. An old quarry,
the floor of which we found a potato field, has
become a rich jungle of tree-ferns, various
flowering shrubs, arum lilies, cannas, scarlet
salvias, and many another ; its walls hung with
Bignonia, Bougainville a ^ and white roses. On
either side of the entrance drive, which ascends
in a curve from the gate to the level of the
house, we cleared a broad belt in which palms
rise from a carpet of geranium and pelargonium^
and are already asserting their supremacy over
lesser trees and shrubs. The iron railing which

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

bounds this drive is no longer visible, being
covered from end to end with the Chinese
white single rose, not as yet in flower, but in
March to be resplendent in snow-white purity.
The little pond was deprived of its melancholy
duck, and is now a watery wilderness of
papyrus and lilies. The general effect is not
unpleasing. It may be that it lacks dignity
and repose, but it is typically Madeiran, a
glorified and extended cottage-garden. And
it is rich not only in colour but in variety
and surprise.

One thing these Southern gardens lack, the

" Wet, bird-haunted English lawn."

Grass can be grown, with care and trouble,
but it is not quite the same thing. And it is
a question whether it is worth while to strive
at all for that in which we cannot hope to attain
a reasonable degree of success. In gardening,
as in other things, which is our best course :
to cultivate what suits our earth and climate to
perfection — to develop our potentialities on
their natural lines, or to set ourselves to fight
with obstacles ; to grow rhododendrons in chalky
Sussex, or to foster the reluctant primrose
here ? Different natures will give different

The Garden in Mid-Winter

answers ; mine would be whole-heartedly for
making the best of circumstances. There may-
be great men, and great gardeners, who claim
to mould the world, and its soils, to their will ;
history is witness that they generally come to
grief in the end. So let us waste little time
upon our turf here, and if we wish to see it in
perfection, after its " rolling and cutting once a
week for a thousand years," let us revisit the
Oxford of our youth in May.

There is no great change this month in the
ordinary run of our garden flowers. The
sweet peas are growing apace, but it will be
February before they bloom. A magnificent
IVigandia is rearing its great purple heads
above a wealth of giant green leaves. For
stately dignity it is unsurpassed, and its rapid
growth is prodigious. Three years ago a small
plant in a pot was given to us by a friend,
and to-day masses of it, twelve feet high and
flowering profusely, are perhaps the most
striking feature of our garden.

Like the roses, the flowering climbers are
this winter beautiful without precedent. The
orange Bignonia indeed is beginning to show
signs of decadence, but the Bougainvilleas are

65 F

Leaves from a Jladeira Garden

now superb. Their splendour is due not to
the flower proper, which is insignificant, but to
the coloured bracts which surround it. Four
or five species flourish here — purple, rose, red,
and mauve. The purple is the strongest
grower, and produces the most startling mass
of colour — perhaps unrivalled in Nature ; it
may be that the rose, which is more uncommon
and less sturdy, is the loveliest. But each has
its votaries, and the wise will be content to
admire all without setting one above the others.
The beautiful blue-grey Thuyihergia is in flower,
but not in its full pride ; and among less
prominent climbers the scarlet passion-flower
and a delicate mauve Solanum attract atten-
tion. The '' Morning Glory," unique among
flowering plants for the sheen of its steely
blue, is passing. Coba'a scandens clothes
our verandah with a never-failing wealth of
graceful bloom, and with it mixes a dainty
climbing asparagus covered now with small
white flowers.

Among orchids, the great pots of various
Cypripedia^ which for the last month have
decorated our drawing-room, are beginning to
show signs of wear. Of these perhaps the

Tiie Garden in Mid-Winter

most striking in colour is C. Lathamianum.
Their place will be taken by some fine Czlogyne,
now beginning to hang their snow-white blooms
in profusion. Various species of Dendrobiuin
will take their turn later. All these are here
of very easy culture, the chief difficulty being
to induce our gardeners not to drown them in
our absence.

And in this ineradicable passion for over-
watering lies one of our chief troubles. Water
is here a valuable and expensive commodity.
Each property possesses so many hours' run of
water from the le^jada per fortnight ; and it is
possible to purchase these rights, or to buy
water by the hour from a neighbour who is
short of cash. Stealing it by turning the stream
intended for his tank into your own is a cheaper
and more popular method of obtaining it. So
important is the estimate of rights to water,
that if you are contemplating the purchase of a
piece of ground, the vendor will probably
dilate to you, not of its acreage, its soil, its
aspect, or its prospective building value, but of
the hours of water it possesses. Doubtless in
the uneducated mind the ownership of many
hours confers a kind of distinction (such as the

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

possession of many wives brings to a Kaffir
chief), and your garden boy feels that he is
doing honour to himself in serving a " patron "
who can afford to let him stand and pour forth
the precious liquid from a hose, especially
where it isn't wanted. It is almost as good
fun as letting off fireworks, and, besides, it is
easier work than digging or weeding or sweep-
ing. And so we find that those portions
of the garden where the water-tap is handy
and the hose can be easily adjusted are con-
tinually in a swampy condition, and if the
roses are mildewed and other things "damp
off" it is not surprising. We are waging
war this year against this continual inunda-
tion, but it is hard to fight with prejudiced
ignorance.

The absence of any garden knowledge among
the working people here is indeed a great trial,
especially when one is only present one's self
for a third of the year, and the most important
operations, the pruning of roses and so on,
have to be conducted in our absence. It
is an immense tribute to the vitality of the
vegetation that our gardens do as well as they
do. It would of course be easy to bring over

The Garden in Mid-Winter

an English gardener, but there is the difficulty
of the language to be considered ; and English-
men of that class too frequently develop an
abnormal thirst in this climate when left to
themselves.

But though they have little knowledge of
their craft, being ignorant even of the names
of all but the commonest flowers, they are as
a rule pleasant fellows to work with, willing
and eager to oblige. Our first head gardener,
Manoel, might with education have gone far ;
in middle life he had taught himself to read
and write not only Portuguese but English.
Miss Dowie has told us that all the gardeners
she has met are "blighted carpenters." Manoel
was a blighted politician, foreign politics being
his speciality. He was intensely interested in
the Russo-Japanese war, and could give you a
full estimate of the land and sea forces of either
nation. Like almost all the Portuguese, gentle
and simple, he took the Russian side, being
influenced by a consideration which rather
strangely carried no weight in England — that
the Russians were Christians, and the Japanese
not. To them this war was but another phase
of the eternal struggle between Christendom

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

and Paganism. But though something of an
idealist, Manoel was not wanting in a certain
practical wisdom. I inquired why he was having
his little bright-eyed son taught French rather
than English, He replied, " Not many people
here know French ; my cousin Jos^, he can
speak French very well. One winter, many
years ago, a rich Russian gentleman come to
Madeira, and take the Quinta Vigia. None
of his servants speak any Portuguese or any
English, only French. The rich Russian
gentleman take my cousin Jose into his house
to arrange everything for him, and to buy
everything he want. When the Russian gentle-
man go away, my cousin Jos6, he very rich man,
he go to Calheta and buy a property, and never
do any more work. Perhaps some day another
Russian gentleman come here ; so I will have
my little boy learn French." This custom of
regarding the foreign visitor as a milch cow is
deeply ingrained in the servant class here. It
is a consideration ever present to us in our
dealings with our otherwise excellent cook,
whose pleasant and profitable business it is to
market for us. We hear dark rumours that
he is buying house property in the town, and

The Garden in Mid-Winter

we have an uneasy feeling that if every one
had his due, those houses would be ours.
Manoel, with all his merits, had one serious
weakness ; he did not carry his " aguardente "
well, and became very quarrelsome in his cups.
One Christmas afternoon we were seated quietly
in our verandah, when a dishevelled, tear-stained
and voluble Manoel appeared to inform us that
either he or Silva must die. Now, Silva is our
" odd man," and does nine-tenths of the house-
work, and we could ill afford to lose him. Our
fears were groundless, as next morning I dis-
covered the two playing cards amicably together
among the bananas. We were willing to over-
look a little excess at Christmas time, but
Manoel's lapses became too frequent, and he
fell. He bears no ill will, and when I meet
him in the street, he hopes the master
is well, and inquires with respect of the
mistress.

Our next head gardener was of a different
type. He really knew a little — a very little —
about his work ; unfortunately he thought he
knew everything, and generally regarded my
proceedings with a sickly toleration. One
compliment he did indeed pay me, and I have

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

treasured the memory of it as a testimony
that some of my labours were appreciated.
We were leaving for England, and he came
to me and said, " Now the patron is going
away, I shall want another garden-boy." He
was always worried about the "muito tra-
balho " of his place, and the inadequacy of
his ample salary ; and so we decided that he
had better find another situation.

We have now promoted an excellent youth
who has been with us as an under-gardener
for several years. Carlos is a typical Madeira
country boy, with thick-set, sturdy frame, crisp
black hair and laughing eyes. He is overjoyed
at his rise in the world, and for some days
murmured " muito contente " whenever I went
within a few yards of him. He is to get
married on the strength of it, and his fiancee
can fortunately read and write, and will be
able to keep his accounts. He is to bring
his bride to our garden cottage, and perhaps
before long we may have the luck to see some
nice little black-eyed Carloses and Carlottas
playing among our chickens and turkeys, and
pulling the much-bitten ears of our cross old
mongrel " Yap."

7«

The Garden in Mid-Winter

Carlos has enjoyed the benefit of some
military training, but having passed the age
of twenty-five he is relieved from the fear
of service in the army. These sturdy Portu-
guese countrymen make very well set-up
soldiers. They are of great strength and
endurance, 'and, if somewhat excitable, gifted
with a certain doggedness. Wellington wrote
of his Portuguese troops in the Peninsula,
when well paid and well fed, as the " fighting-
cocks " of his army.

The good manners which are so marked
a characteristic of the Portuguese upper classes
are shared by the lower. To their social
superiors they are respectful without servility,
and they are uniformly courteous to each
other. Servants have a pleasant way of ex-
hibiting; an interest in their masters' health
and well-being ; if I meet our cook in the
morning he never fails to express a hope that
the patron has passed a good night. A master
is expected to address his servants as " Vosse
Merce " — " Your worship " — a form of speech
we too often omit.

The Portuguese master does not need Lord
Chesterfield's advice to his godson : " There

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is a degree of good breeding towards those
who are greatly your inferiors which is in
truth common humanity and good nature ;
and yet I have known some persons, who in
other respects were well bred, brutal to their
servants and dependants. This is mean, and
implies a hardness of heart, of which I am
sure you never will be guilty."

Most Portuguese titles and modes of address
are somewhat exaggerated. In writing to an
equal, you put on the envelope, " Illustrissimo
Excellentissimo Senhor," which may be taken
as the equivalent of our " Esq." Servants,
even labourers, invariably use " Senhor " and
" Senhora " in speaking to each other. A
small and perky boy, whom we have made
porter at our gate, always hazards a remark
to me on the weather as I pass in or out ; and
if I do not immediately understand it, shouts
at me as if I were deaf. He is growing very
fat on his congenial occupation, but it is to
be feared that he will find the summer, when
our kitchen is closed, a saison maigre.

If our servants are to us a strange and in-
teresting study, what must we be to them ?
We come heaven knows whence, not at the

The Garden in Mid-Winter

joyous season of the vintage, but when days
are shortest and rains are cold ; we profess an
impious religion which will conduct us surely
to damnation ; our manners are odious — we
don't even know how to take ofF our hats ;
we make a ridiculous fuss about boiled water
and such trifles ; our pockets are apparently
overflowing with boundless wealth, and yet
we make ourselves hot digging in the garden ;
we scour inhospitable mountains with no com-
prehensible object ; we are always hunting
for old and rickety chairs and tables, and
paying for them at least the price of new ones ;
we exhibit and expect a most uncomfortable
amount of energy, when there is really no
necessity to hurry or to fuss ; and just when
the warmth of spring is flooding our gardens,
which we profess to love, with the richest
treasures, we are off again. Truly must we
be sunk in

" The depth of that consuming restlessness
Which makes man's greatest woe."

The servants' view does not often leak out ;
when it does it is not always flattering to the
masters. " There has happened," wrote
Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, " a comical

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

circumstance at Leicester House ; one of the
Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the
Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that
he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon
condition that he never marries a Maid of
Honour."

One of the pleasures of a garden is to show
it to the appreciative visitor ; and this is a
pleasure which we very frequently enjoy here.
New-comers usually express genuine astonish-
ment at the floral luxuriance, and friends who
land from passing steamers are of course pre-
pared to enjoy anything. One nice young
soldier-cousin who passed by last week won
our hearts by saying, "Well, I've never seen
a garden before ; they buck about their
gardens in India, but they don't know what
a garden is." Some visitors are a little trying
with their excessive botanical knowledge. The
study of nurserymen's catalogues has had a
distressing effect. Following the lead of these
publications there are people who, regardless
alike of poetry and of grammar, will habitually
speak of columbines as aquikgias^ of snap-
dragons as antirrhinums^ of forget-me-not as
myosotis, even of lilies as liliums. They are the

The Garden in 3Iid^Winter

sort of people, as Lady Grove might say, who
would call a napkin a " serviette." A serious
stand ought to be made against this sort of
thing. Those who know their Parkinson
may sigh for more of the good old words ;
but " gilliflower, the pride of our English
gardens," and too many of its contemporaries,
are dead beyond hope of resurrection. The
greater our duty to our country and to posterity
to hold fast by such of the ancient names as
still have life in them. To preserve the pansy
or heart's-ease, fairest of flower-names, from
yielding place to violay is surely worth an effort.
Some old-fashioned garden flowers seem to
have been spared as yet. The hollyhock is
still with us ; I do not hear mignonette
spoken of as reseda^ though even that may
come ; and the worst offenders have not dis-
covered the botanical names of sweet-peas and
stocks.

In our Madeira gardens, rich with

" Flowers of all heavens and lovelier than their names,"

we have so many plants not yet endowed with
English titles, that we are driven perforce to
the Botanical Dictionary. Perhaps if Mr.

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Kipling, or some one else with the gift of
speech, were to pay us a visit, he might in
a week or two supply us with some reason-
able answers to the constant query, " Oh ! Can
you tell me what that is ? " We ought to be
able to reply, " It is the Silver Restbringer, a
kind of water-cress from Central China, where
a decoction of its leaves is prepared for the use
of such members of the imperial family as
contemplate the happy dispatch." But accord-
ing to the present rules of the game, this
would not be playing it, and we are compelled
to answer, " It is Schwarzenbachia Griesenfeldit
minima^ var. zigzagia Veitchiiy^ and our guest
murmurs, " Oh, really ! " and the incident is
closed. I nurse — I positively dandle — an ever-
lively grievance that the splendid flowering
shrubs of the banana tribe are called by the
awful name Strelitzia. What in the world is
the Duchy doing in this galley ? Latin generic
names are not of necessity hideous or unfitting.
Those which are based on some peculiarity of
the plant or its habitat are the pleasantest ;
such zs geranium^ "crane's bill ;" arenaria,^' sand-
wort ; " saxifragay " stone-breaker." Names
derived from celebrated botanists, if often ugly,

I The Garden in 3Iid-Winter

are perhaps not Inappropriate ; such are Wigandia
from Wigand, and Solandra from Solander.
Those who have had the good fortune to see
Linnaa horealis trailing In its native marsh
will honour the great master for linking his
name with this loveliest and lowliest of plants.
But to burden a fine shrub for all time
with the title of a mere Grand Duke is an
outrage.

And If there Is some excuse for the botanists
who must furnish urbi et orbi a name of bastard
Greek and Latin for universal acceptance and
use, there is less for the florists. It is sad that
one of our finest roses here — luxuriant In
growth and rich In tint beyond experience —
should bear the prosaic name of William Allen
Richardson, a gentleman otherwise unknown to
fame. Herr Druschki's wife may, as far as I
know, personify all the virtues, but is it not
cruel to condemn a supremely pure and delicate
rose to bear the harsh-sounding title Frau Karl
Druschki ? Nor has Oberhofgartner Terks a
pleasant sound to English ears. A Society for
the Protection of Flowers from being called
Bad Names Is one of the crying needs of the
day. When the Board of Agriculture can

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

spare time from the pursuit of gooseberry
mildew it ought to take the matter up ; but I
fear that until a florist or two has been lynched
nothing will be done.

Fine as has been the weather for the past
four or five weeks, January is not to pass
without a touch of winter. Winter for us
means a strong north wind, from which
Funchal is well sheltered, bringing more or less
snow to the mountains, where it generally lies
for a few days, and copious showers to the
lowlands. The rain is not continuous but
broken by short spells of sunshine, with some-
thing of the " uncertain glory of an April day."
The thermometer falls at night to 50 degrees,
or half a degree lower, and the mid-day shade
temperature is 56 degrees to 58 degrees. We
amuse ourselves by grumbling at the bitter
cold, and are pleased to light a fire of fir-cones
in the evening. Our roses are battered to
pieces, but all things will flourish with renewed
vigour when the steady sunshine comes again.
And to the agriculturist these plentiful showers
are very grateful. They do not wash the soil
away like the torrential rains which sometimes
come from the west ; but sink gradually into

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The Garden in Mid-Winter

it. And the snow on the hills will fill
the springs. So the heart of the farmer is
glad within him. But he always asks for
m.ore.

Chapter V—J^NUi^RT
Plague and Riot

" Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are relieved
Or not at all." — Hamlet.

THREE years ago a remarkable
episode, savouring rather of the
Middle Ages than of our time,
occurred here. It illustrates the
distrust of the learned, especially of doctors,
which still lingers among the uneducated, and
it is full of lessons as to how things should not
be done. It threw a new light on the nature
of the people, previously supposed to be more
than docile, and unwilling under any circum-
stances to lift a hand against constituted
authority. And it had an undoubted effect on
their general character and demeanour.

The Government, being well aware that the
ordinary sanitary requirements of a civilized
country are not fulfilled here, is extremely

Plague and Riot

nervous about the importation of serious in-
fectious diseases, especially bubonic plague and
cholera. There are good grounds for this
state of apprehension. A large number of
steamers call here from Southern ports,
especially those of South America, and strangers
are constantly coming and going. Waterborne
diseases are invited by the primitive character
of the water-supply. Water, pure in its source,
is brought from the hills in open conduits, and in
its passage is liable to pollution of every kind.
The absence of an effective drainage system is
perhaps less serious, as owing to the numerous
fissures in the volcanic rock, impurities find
their own way of escape. Arrangements for
the isolation and proper treatment of disease
are, or were, inadequate ; and above all the
funds at the disposal of the local authorities are
quite insufficient to deal with an outbreak.

And if an epidemic occurs the indirect results
are likely to be far more serious to the island
than the mere sickness itself. There is a dense
population living under conditions of extrava-
gant protection, amounting almost to State
Socialism, and engaged in an industry created
and fostered by the State, for whose welfare the

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

State is peculiarly responsible. And if steamers
ceased to call, and foreigners absented them-
selves, the large number of people which lives
on traffic with them, directly or indirectly,
would be face to face with starvation. Yet
years roll on and nothing very dreadful happens,
and little in the way of sanitary improvement
is carried out, in spite of much talk about
it. But the underlying nervousness is always
there.

On our arrival here in December, 1905, we
were told that a few cases of plague were said
to have occurred ; *' but," added our informant,
"it isn't plague, it's all politics." The word
" politics " here is of wider application than
with us ; it may truly be said to cover a
multitude of sins. After some perplexity
we discovered the suggestion to be that the
authorities thought an epidemic would be a
help to a water scheme they were urging on
the Lisbon Government, on the principle of
getting up a war-scare to carry naval votes.
But this seems to have been a libel. In fact,
the existence of plague was never officially
admitted ; the disease if it existed, and what-
ever it was, was described as "infectious fever."

Plague and Riot

It appeared that two or three weeks earlier a
woman of the middle class had been taken to
the Lazaretto suffering from a disease pro-
nounced by the doctor in charge to be bubonic
plague. It was stated that he exhibited to
some of his colleagues the characteristic plague
bacilli. Other cases of suspicious disease
followed and were removed to the Lazaretto.
Thither also were taken for isolation and dis-
infection the families of the patients. It was
reported that the disease was taking a pneu-
monic form of a particularly insidious and
dangerous character.

Up to this point the authorities seem to
have acted in the only way possible. Granted
the existence of a serious infectious disease, as
they were informed by their medical adviser
was the case, it was their duty to endeavour by
isolating the patients and those who had been
in contact with them to stamp it out. Where
they broke down, and occasioned the subse-
quent trouble with its far-reaching conse-
quences, was in the neglect of proper methods,
especially as regards publicity. People in con-
siderable numbers were taken to the Lazaretto ;
no official news as to what was passing within

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

its walls was published. Patients died and no
notice of their death reached their friends. So,
at any rate, it was commonly said. The wildest
rumours began to gain currency. The ignorant
believed that the doctors inoculated people and
murdered them ; some of the better educated
asserted that the whole thing was being run as
a financial speculation by the Lazaretto doctor,
who was paid so much a head for those under
his charge. Sinister stories of the treatment of
women and girls were widely spread abroad.
Meantime people of influence, whose interest
was against any interference with the shipping
trade of the island, were strenuously denying
the jexistence of any sickness at all, and the
Government was watering it down to " infectious
fever."

A veritable reign of terror resulted. To be
taken to the Lazaretto was feared as a sentence
of death. People who had been in contact with
patients ran away and hid themselves to escape
the dreaded isolation. I happened one day to
look over my garden wall and to see the chief
of police and several constables with an ambu-
lance-car standing outside a neighbouring cot-
tage. I inquired their object, and was told

Plague and Biot

that for some days they had been looking for
a woman whose brother had been taken as
a patient to the Lazaretto, and that they had
found her hiding with relations there. They
took her away, and we heard subsequently that
she died that night from heart-failure due to
shock.

Three days later, on Sunday, January 7,
the crisis came. A few soldiers who were
isolated at the Lazaretto succeeded in getting
a message carried to their comrades at the
barracks, asking them to deliver them. On
the Sunday morning a band of a hundred
soldiers, accompanied by several hundreds of
the townsfolk, and countrymen from the
surrounding hills, attacked and broke into
the Lazaretto, liberated their comrades and
others who were in quarantine, and carried
from the hospital the sick patients to their
own homes. This carrying was a veritable
procession of triumph, and was succeeded by
great rejoicings. It was with mixed feelings
that we heard next day that our cook had
visited a friend of his who had been brought
to his home on his bed, and that a housemaid
had attended an impromptu dance at another

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

patient's house. After this, we felt we could
only await developments.

The Lazaretto doctor succeeded in escaping
the fury of the mob, which would have made
short work of him. His house in the town
was attacked, and there was some shooting by
the police who defended it, happily without
fatal result. An attack on the prison in which
a few of the rioters who were arrested were
lodged was not pressed home, and failed. But
the authorities were now practically powerless ;
the town was quite out of hand, and a portion
of the garrison being implicated, it could not be
depended on. As soon as the news reached
Lisbon the Government acted with commend-
able promptitude. The smart cruiser Dom
Carlos was at once dispatched ; and when thirty
hours later, having made the fastest passage on
record, she steamed into the port, the cause
of law and order was saved. The Lazaretto
doctor found his way on board, it was said,
disguised as an old woman. His name is still
execrated here, and probably even now his life
would not be safe.

But the sanitary situation now looked very
serious. Sick persons had been withdrawn

Plague and Biot

from the Lazaretto and spread over the town,
and hundreds or thousands of people had been
in contact with them. If one was to believe in
the existence of plague, one could only expect
a great outbreak within a week or two. But
nothing happened. The sick recovered, and
no further case of suspicious sickness occurred.
This of course confirmed the unbelievers in
their disbelief, and the ignorant in their distrust
of doctors. To a dispassionate observer it
appears incredible that a doctor should invent
and exploit an epidemic for his personal gain ;
yet that such was the case we were solemnly
assured by serious people. The truth may
never be fully known ; what happened is
probably that a few cases of plague did occur,
but that the disease was stamped out in the
early days, and that the sick persons removed
later were suffering from non-infectious pneu-
monia or less serious complaints.

Eighteen months afterwards, in the summer
of 1907, there was a serious outbreak of a
mysterious disease, said to be septic pneu-
monia of a plague type, at S. Antonio, a
suburb of Funchal. Fourteen persons, includ-
ing a doctor, were attacked, and the fourteen

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

died. A fifteenth, a doubtful case, recovered.
The energetic governor of the day — it was
during Franco's rule in Portugal, of which
more hereafter — personally superintended the
isolation of the sick, and the threatened
epidemic was stayed.

During the riots the Lazaretto had been
somewhat damaged, and subsequently the
hated building was completely looted and
gutted, and rendered quite unfit for use. The
Government took no steps to put it in order,
probably being unwilling to incur the unpopu-
larity and the expense of doing so. The
punishment that followed was swift and
bitter.

Early in the following winter a mariner was
landed from a steamer suffering from what
proved to be small-pox. Whether as a result
of his case or not, within a few weeks the
disease became prevalent in the poor quarters
of the town, chiefly among the families of the
boatmen. For twenty years or more there had
been no serious outbreak here, and the greater
part of the population, especially the youthful
part, was unvaccinated. The Lazaretto having
been wrecked, and being moreover in very bad

Plague and Biot

odour with the people from the events of the
previous year, there was no hospital to which
patients could be taken, and no provision for
their isolation. The authorities adopted the
remarkable expedient of placing a policeman
outside an infected house to prevent ingress or
egress. How the poor people were to live
was a question apparently ignored. And the
absurdity of the arrangement was grimly ex-
hibited when a policeman caught the disease
and died. A private subscription was got up
to supply food and medicines as far as possible,
but it is not surprising that the disease spread
with great rapidity, that it began to appear all
over the town and in the suburbs, and that it
assumed a virulent type. The statistics showed
that amonff six hundred cases there were two
hundred deaths. Probably this proportion is
misleading, as there may have been numerous
mild cases of which little or no notice was
taken.

At first there was considerable disinclination
among the populace to be vaccinated. A dis-
trust of doctors, an evil heritage of the plague
trouble, was prevalent. For our part we in-
sisted on the vaccination of our employes^ and

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

when we announced that it should be done by
an English doctor with English lymph, the
reluctance disappeared. We invited them to
bring their relations, which many of them did.

The redeeming feature of such a crisis is that
it always produces acts of heroism and un-
selfishness. Such were not wanting here. The
doyen of the medical profession, Dr. Mourao
Pitta — for many years Vice-Consul of France,
a fine example of the old-fashioned doctor, a
man of culture and of the world, of wide
sympathies and many social gifts, a welcome
guest at every man's table and a genial host at
his own — wore himself out in visiting the
poorest of the sick in their squalid homes. He
was not strong or young enough to bear the
continuous strain, and died a victim of blood-
poisoning contracted in the course of his
labours. His self-sacrifice added one more
name to the roll of martyrs which honours his
profession ; and his death left a void in many
lives.

When things were at their worst, when it
appeared likely that the disease would extend
all over the island, and that with the dis-
organization of trade widespread distress would

Plague and Biot

result, a very noble English lady went to the
Government and offered, if the Lazaretto were
at once put in order, to take charge of it, and
to nurse as many patients as it would contain.
Miss Wilson has spent much of her life in
nursing the sick poor of this island ; she is
of their own religion, and is the head of a
devoted band of sisters. The Government was
prepared to find the funds for the repairs and
furnishing, but no more. Miss Wilson took
the chance of what might happen afterwards,
and the work was hurriad on. In a fortnight
the hospital was ready for occupation. The
confidence of the people having been won by
Miss Wilson's previous labours among them,
no objections were raised by them to the
removal thither of the sick. But there were
no funds available for their feeding and attend-
ance when there. Miss Wilson was not daunted.
She had perfect trust, as I have had the privilege
of hearing from her own lips, that Heaven
would provide. And her prayer was not un-
answered. On the day before one hundred and
eighty people were to be moved to the hospital,
a yacht unexpectedly entered the port. The
owner, hearing what was going on, sent her a

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

cheque for ^^50. This was the beginning of a
continuous stream of charity, which left her for
not one moment in trouble about funds. She
was enabled to purchase every requisite and
comfort for the patients, even toys for the
children. And from that moment the plague
was stayed. It began to decline in the town,
and it did not spread to the remoter parts of
the island. Its final disappearance was coincident
with an exceptionally strong and intensely hot
"Leste," the dry east wind which sometimes
blows from the Sahara, and brings its dust
across the intervening three hundred miles of
sea.

It is satisfactory to know that Miss Wilson's
great services were fully appreciated and publicly
recognized. The Queen of Portugal took the
lead in doing honour to her, and press and
pulpit and private citizens joined in a chorus of
gratitude. And surely we English have great
reason to be proud of our countrywoman.

It must not be inferred from the somewhat
lugubrious contents of this chapter that we live
here in a constant state of epidemic sickness.
The reverse is the fact. In spite of all the
invitations to zymotic diseases held out by the

Plague and Riot

habits of the people and the sanitary short-
comings of the Government, they seldom get
a hold here. Possibly the outdoor life of the
people and the qualities of the air have some-
thing to do with this. Scarlet fever, so severe
a scourge of youth in England, appears to be
almost unknown, and one hears little of diph-
theria, which might be expected to prevail. I
have had propounded to me an agreeable theory
that such diseases cannot propagate themselves
for more than three generations here ; that is,
if A is landed from a steamer suffering from an
infectious disorder, he may communicate it to
B, and B may pass it on to C, but that C has
no such power. The remarkably abrupt termi-
nation of the small-pox epidemic and the
complete disappearance of the disease seem to
lend some colour to this comfortable belief.

Chapter Yl—FEBRUiART
Politics and Social Changes

" Confound their knavish tricks,
Frustrate their politics." ^

A YEAR has passed since the murders
of King Carlos and his son.
" Dastardly," the customary news-
paper epithet, is perhaps not very
appropriate, and doubtless " coward " is not
the right term for a man who goes forth into
a street to shoot a king ; but that they were
the hideous product of a disordered common-
wealth no one will deny. And inured as we
are to the accounts of assassination of kings and
queens, of presidents and premiers, we may well
find something more than usually pathetic in
this story — the pleasant and pleasure-loving
king slain just when he was rousing himself
to a sense of his responsibilities ; the fair young
prince surviving his father but a moment ; the
wife and mother and queen striving to beat off

Politics and Social Changes

the assassins with her bouquet of flowers ; the
younger son lifted to a throne in such a
baptism of fire. Never have the " fiercer
Goth and more hideous Hun " perpetrated a
fouler deed.

" Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;
Treason has done its worst : nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further ! "

A year has passed, and the origin of the
whole affair is still shrouded in mystery. No
serious inquiry into it has been held, a fact in
itself somewhat damaging to the reputation of
a civilized country. One naturally presumes
that those in authority fear to stir the mud.
And we have the usual result of hushing: things
up — an innumerable crop of wild rumours and
secret insinuations against various prominent
persons, most of whom are, of course, innocent
of all complicity in the crime.

I have found that the political conditions
ruling in Portugal at the time are little under-
stood in England, in spite of the able articles
on them in the Times. That Joao Franco's
rule was generally described as a dictatorship,

97 H

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

which in effect it was, obscured the fact that
it was a phase in an attempted revolution with
objects somewhat similar to those of the Young
Turks. But while the Turkish revolution has
been acclaimed in free countries, the Portuguese
party of reform and pure administration has
met with little sympathy, partly because its
methods sounded tyrannical, and partly because
for the time being it has failed. One important
difference there was. In Portugal the Sovereign
was heart and soul with the reformers, and
theirs was the cause for which he met his
death.

For many years Portugal has been governed
by an oligarchy divided into two parties,
Reeeneradores and Progressistas. There is no
great difference in principle between them, but
the former may be described as Conservatives,
the latter as Liberals. In one important point
they are in complete accord. "The Regener-
adores and the Progressistas," says the Times
in a recent leader, " neither regenerate nor
make progress. They make arrangements
between themselves in virtue of which they
share the spoils of office in rotation, a practice
so notorious that they are known collectively

Politics and Social Changes

as Rotativistas." The spoils of office do not
merely include official appointments and salaries;
they comprise numerous sinecures and less
reputable emoluments. Among the Rotati-
vistas there are doubtless men of high character
and complete incorruptibility ; there are also
men of another type. If the results were not
so serious there would be something irresistibly
comic about a Portuguese general election, in
which the party in power, having control of
the ballot boxes, is never beaten. In any case
the system is condemned by its effects. The
country is naturally rich, and its inhabitants,
if uneducated, are intelligent and hard-working ;
but owing to the rottenness of the Government,
assisted by a childishly absurd fiscal policy, in
itself a powerful instrument of corruption, it
is kept in a state of poverty, bordering on
bankruptcy, through which, indeed, it has
already passed. This was the system which
Franco with the King's support was striving
to overthrow ; his aim was to substitute for it
an honest administration with the honest col-
lection and the honest spending of public
money. Naturally he raised up bitter enemies
among those who saw their occupation gone,

Leaves froin a Madeira Garden

and he was driven by the necessities of the
situation to take arbitrary measures against
some supporters of the old regime. The
incidents of the time will supply material for
many historical romances — the secret meetings,
the sensational arrests, the hurried flights in
motor-cars to the Spanish frontier. If it was
Charles and Strafford over again, the Portuguese
Carlos displayed the moral courage and the
loyalty to his servant in which the English
king was wanting. To the bitter disappoint-
ment of those who had based their hopes of a
regenerated Portugal on this combination, his
very courage and loyalty were the cause of the
king's assassination ; and in that first critical
hour the minister, his nerve broken, faltered
and fell. It is interesting to conjecture what
course events might have taken if there had
been In him something of the stuff of Crom-
well. One can imagine a strong man forcing
the boy-king to his will, and using the murders
as a means to crush his opponents completely.
And we may wonder what was in King Carlos*
mind to do In the event of Franco's assassina-
tion, the possibility of which must have been
ever present to him. But Franco failed at the

lOO

Politics and Social Changes

supreme moment, and things have slipped back
into the old groove, and it is idle to dwell
upon the might-have-beens. Franco and his
enthusiastic young lieutenants were doubtless
too far in advance of the circumstances of their
time and country. No permanent reform will
be effected until there is an overwhelming
public opinion, and public opinion can hardly
exist until the people are educated. It is said
that, both on the mainland and here, eighty to
ninety per cent, of the adult population cannot
read or write. An illiterate man, necessarily
quite uninformed, cannot exercise any influence
for good in politics, though he may be an
instrument on the other side. We have to p;o
back some distance in English history to find
such a state of affairs prevailing, and then we
see not wholly dissimilar conditions as regards
corruption. We have heard of Paymasters-
General making vast fortunes in a few years,
and we know that the connections of the
governing families swarmed in sinecure offices.
Some atrophied survivals of such a system may
still exist, but toleration of them is not one of
the faults of an educated electorate, whatever
they may be.

lOI

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

The murders of the King and his son
seemed to be taken very calmly here. The
King himself was apparently unpopular ; for
what reason I was unable to discover ; probably
the people did not know themselves, beyond a
vague notion that the taxes wrung from them
went into his pocket. I noticed that our
servants, while ready to admit that the boy's
death was sad, would express no regret at that
of the father. The upper classes generally
exhibited sorrow and horror at the deed, and
the masses held in the cathedral were attended
by large congregations decorously clad in
mourning. But I observed that persons who
appeared to be of quite respectable position
took occasion to wear flaunting red ties, which,
whatever their political opinions, seemed to
betray a lack of decent feeling, and some apathy
on the part of their fellow-citizens, in that they
permitted it. How far the Republican idea
has spread it is impossible to judge, but the
Republican party is active and militant. The
success of the French Republic during nearly
forty years, and the credit which now it
especially enjoys, must give a great impetus to
Republican propaganda in the Peninsula.

I02

Politics and Social Changes

In this strange country the comic and the
tragic ever tread on each other's heels. To
this tragedy the comic element was supplied by
the cruiser Dojn Carlos, which immediately
after the murders came at full speed from
Lisbon to Madeira — for the second time within
two years. But on this occasion there was no
question of quelling disorder here ; and the
wags suggested, perhaps not wholly without
foundation, that the new Government, hastily
formed to meet the emergency, felt happier
with Funchal and not Lisbon lying at the
mercy of her guns. The mere suspicion of
a disaffected navy must be a perfect nightmare
to shaky governments in seaside capitals.

As regards the future much will depend on
the personal character and conduct of the
young King ; whether as he feels his feet he
will have the judgment to take the right
course, and the courage to face all risks in
pursuing it. The body of opinion which
Franco represented is not dead, and will, as
time goes on, probably gather fresh strength.
Some of the most considerable forces in the
country hold themselves aloof from present
politics, and when the "Young Portugal"

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

movement begins, in concert it is to be
hoped with the young King, it may sweep all
before it.

But for Portugal, as for every country, there
is no permanent hope unless she can breed
great men — men not only fitted to deal with
a crisis which demands unusual qualities, but
strong and steadfast in the ordinary conduct of
affairs. She has bred them in the past, and
her sturdy, virile people may produce them
again. We who pinned our faith to Joao
Franco have had to stomach our disillusion.
Yet even the work that he did, the aspirations
which perhaps by wrong methods he tried to
realize, have left their effect. But Portugal
needs a Lincoln to set her political house in
order, a Gladstone to cleanse the stables of her
finance, a Bright to raise the moral level of
her public life.

It is probable that the intense interest taken
in "politics" — a word of wider meaning, as I
have already suggested, than with us — is due
to the general dulness of life. Compared with
life, as we understand it in England, the
existence of these people is very empty. They
have little literature of their own, no art, no

104

Politics and Social Changes

drama, no racing, no field-sports, no outdoor
games — scarcely one of the multifarious pur-
suits which go to make up life in England for
the busy and the leisured alike. Small wonder
that the game of politics, the game of pulling
wires of every kind, in every direction, the
game of poking political fingers into every
financial and every commercial pie, should
have an attraction for speculative and alert
natures denied almost every other exercise but
that which is afforded by religion. And if we
add the fact that the governing classes are for
the most part poor, that the hunger for office
under the State as the only possible career
exists to an extent which we can with difficulty
understand, we may be able to picture faintly
to ourselves the passion for "political" intrigue
which has helped to bring the country to such
a pass.

With all their alertness, their tact, their
power of rapid decision (well illustrated by
their skill at card games), the Portuguese do
not seem to be good men of business. Until
quite recently almost all the important business
of this town — wine, sugar, shipping, coal — was
in the hands of foreigners, chiefly English.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Lately there seems to have been some awaken-
ing from Portuguese lethargy in this respect,
a fact which is of good augury for the future
of the country. For in this lack of business
capacity, or business training, is probably to
be discovered one reason for Portugal's

political failure. I shall have occasion to speak
later of the singular ineptitude of the system
of taxation, and it is impossible to doubt that
under a more intelligent Government the
country would attain a level of prosperity quite
undreamt of now.

Socially, those who have the privilege of
knowing them, will find the Portuguese a very
charming people. It may be that they do not
feel in general much sympathy with the
English, whose somewhat brusque manners
and comparative want of tact must often jar
on their finer susceptibilities, but it is possible
for individuals of the two nations to be close
friends. And an Englishman who has adopted
their nationality may become Lusitanis Lusi-
tanior. Many Englishmen who have visited
this island will recall with affection and regret
the gracious dignity and unfailing bonhomie of

the late Count T . Of British parentage

io6

Politics and Social Changes

and British up-bringing, he married a great
Portuguese lady, and was created a Portuguese
noble. He played his part well ; he would
speak to us as " you English," and he was
not averse from commenting to us on the faults
of our national diplomacy and conduct. I
remember the delight with which I heard his
reply to an American lady who said to him :
" It seems to me, Count, that for a Portuguese
you speak remarkably good English." His
answer was, " So they tell me." A lesser man
would have adduced his honourable Scottish
house, and his Eton education.

Here, as elsewhere, the nineteenth century
witnessed great social changes. The decline
of the old landed aristocracy was hastened by
the abolition of the law of succession to estates.
Much of the land in Madeira was formerly
held under strict entail, and could not be sold.
These entails arose originally in connection
with the building of chapels and the celebration
of masses. The owners were styled " Mor-
gados " — a species of territorial title corre-
sponding perhaps to that of " Lord of the
Manor." The law of entail has been abolished,
and the estates can be sold in the ordinary

107

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

way. And nothing breaks up the old regime
more effectually than the division by law of the
parents' property equally among the children,
now (with limitations) the rule here. It is
rather strange that there has never been any
serious movement in England for the adoption
of this system, which prevails in most Euro-
pean countries. No doubt the parents' right
of freedom of bequest is comparatively seldom
abused ; and among the upper classes the
custom of the eldest son succeeding to the
bulk of the family property, and the younger
children being left to shift, more or less, for
themselves is so engrained that no sense of
hardship is present. And it has doubtless been
a factor in creating British pre-eminence in
trade, and in the extension of the British
Empire. Before the establishment of a stand-
ing army provided them with a regular military
career ; before India and the colonies offered
a field for military, civil, and commercial enter-
prise, the country gentleman's younger sons
naturally went into trade at home —

" Boastful ami rough, your first son is a squire,
Your next a tradesman meek, and much a liar."

This custom after some eclipse during the

io8

Politics and Social Changes

eighteenth century revived in earnest during
the nineteenth, and extended to more exalted
circles. Yet the eighteenth century idea that
trade, other than selling stacks of hay or fat
beasts, was in some sense derogatory still sur-
vives, if only as a pose and a pretence ; did
not a distinguished essayist remark not long
since that '* English etiquette allows no trading
for gentlefolk below the rank of a marquis."
Here the child becomes from the day of his
birth a partner, as it were, in the family pro-
perty or business ; and as he is sure of his
share he has perhaps less incentive to strike
out a line for himself. The old feudal life
is dead. The estates of the Morgados have
for the most part passed into the hands of
new men, who have made fortunes in South
America, or of foreigners. But here too, as
elsewhere, the pride of descent is, I believe,
stronger in decadence and poverty than in
the prosperous days of unquestioned lordship.
The change has its drawbacks ; the ancient
patriarchial relations have disappeared ; the
country houses stand empty, or are visited
for a month or two in the year by their new
owners ; and the tenants are left to their own

109

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

devices. They have things very much their
own way. The landlord is as a rule the owner
of the bare soil and of the water-rights apper-
taining to it. He cannot turn his tenant out
without compensating him in full for his build-
ings, walls, pavements, trees, and crops. And
the tenant can sell his property in these.
Theoretically, the landlord is entitled, as rent,
to half the produce of the farm ; but in the
case of small holdings, which are the rule, it is
practically impossible to check this, and no
doubt he habitually gets much less.

To the genealogist this island must be a
happy hunting-ground ; but the difficulties of
such investigations in the way of a foreigner
are almost insuperable. When it was first
settled, in 1420, by Joao Goncalvez, surnamed
Zargo, representatives of some of the chief
families of Portugal accompanied him, and
obtained grants of land ; and four noblemen
were sent by John I. to marry his daughters.
Their names are common here to-day, and
possibly their descendants are numerous. It
is quite usual for illegitimate children to be
called by their father's surname, and this
practice helps to disseminate widely the greater

Politics and Social Changes

family names. In our own country we have a
pretty accurate notion, when a man is called
Stanley, or Percy, or Herbert, whether he is of
the race or a pretender. Here it is very diffi-
cult for a foreigner to distinguish. Many of the
great names survive to-day — Aguiar, Almeida,
Camara, Correia, Freitas, Goncalvez, Leal, Or-
nellas, Perestrello, Vasconcellos, and others.
Some of these are to be found borne by
members not only of the upper but of the
lower classes.

Among the historic Madeira families are
some derived from foreign adventurers who
arrived after the occupation. There are Drum-
monds (pronounced Drumont) to-day who are
descended from John Drummond, son of Sir
John Drummond, Lord of Stobhall, brother of
Annabella, queen of Robert IH. of Scotland.
He came to Madeira in 1425, probably as a
refugee, and only revealed his real name on
his death-bed. The Esmeraldos, perhaps the
greatest of Madeira families, descended from
Jean d'Esmenaut, a Fleming, who arrived in
1480. A Knight of the Order of Christ, named
Robert Willoughby, came from Portugal in
1590. His name was corrupted to Vizovi.

Ill

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

A pleasant account of a visit to Madeira
more than two centuries ago is contained in the
letters of Christopher JeafFreson, of DuUingham
House, Cambridgeshire, published in 1878 by
Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, under the title "A Young
Squire of the Seventeenth Century." This
youno- gentleman inherited, besides important
properties in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, large
plantations in St. Christopher's Island, in the
West Indies. On his way out to take posses-
sion of these he called at Madeira in the year
1676. He sailed from Gravesend in the Jacob
and Mary, " a vessell of about a hundred and
fifty tunns, 14 or 16 gunns, a square stearne,
with good accomodations."

If this vessel left something to be desired in
the way of size and speed, her pleasant name
atoned for much. The day of such fearsome
titles as Cappadocian or Aconcagua was not yet.
It would indeed be agreeable if one of the
great steamship lines were to have the courage
to revert to the old style. And surely such
names as Darby and Joan, The Happy Lovers,
or The Jolly Tripper, would amount to a gra-
tuitious advertisement in themselves. But the
modern shipowner names his ship out of the

112

A I'EEl' OF THE I'OKT

Politics and Social Changes

Gazetteer, and reserves his play of fancy for
the decoration of the saloon, with strange and
distressing results.

Contrary winds detained the Jacob and Mary;
she lay ten days at Plymouth, and took six
weeks to reach Madeira. But voyages, if longer,
were perhaps less monotonous than nowadays.
"The 28th we came in sight of the islands
called ' the deserts,' and the same evening we
espied a sayle, which we doubted was a Turke ;
which made us putt ourselves in a posture of
defence, and the next morning, finding that
he had chased us all night, we were confirmed
in our opinions, and seeing that he made still
all the sayle he could after us, we prepared all
things for a fight, and continued in that posture
all the day and night ; and the next day,
drawing neare the Island of the Madera, our
pursuer quitted his chase, and we got into
Funchiall road in the afternoone ; where wee
were verry neare loosing our shippe, the master
being unacquainted, and comeing too boldely
in near the shoar, in a dangerous place. But
the men towed her off againe." After such
near chances of wreck or capture, "of being
taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery,"

113 I

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

it is not surprising that our traveller hastened
to land, which he did with difficulty and not
without being well wetted. He went to " Mr.
Pickford and Mr. Allen* s, the Consull's house,
to whom the shippe was consigned ; where we
met with civil entertainment from those persons,
whose repute as well as gravety gave weight to
their wordes." In these days gravity, even
among consuls, is not a very common character-
istic. It may be that the disappearance of the
Barbary pirate has made us all more light-
hearted. From the Consul, Mr. JeafFreson
learnt that the island produced " some years
twenty-five thousand pipes of wine, besides
sugar and corne, with which it doth not suffi-
ciently fournish its people, who are supplied
from England and elsewhere, as allso for
herrings, pilchards, beefe, mutton, baizes,
perpetuanas, hatts and the like, which are there
bartered for wine and sweetmeats." It was, as
appears elsewhere in the letters, a profitable
business for ships outward bound to the West
Indies to call at Madeira and exchange such
goods for wine to be subsequently bartered
in the Leeward Isles for sugar, tobacco or
indigo. Writing later from St. Kitt's to his

114

Politics and Social Changes

cousin, Mr. Poyntz, upholsterer, at the sign of
the " Goat " in Cornhill, near the Royal
Exchange, London, Mr. JeafFreson points out
the advantages of this trade, and adds, " There
is noe living here without those wines. If
you consign the goods to Mr. Pickfourd and
Mr. Allen, I doubt not that they will be just
in shipping the valew for my use. It is worth
sometimes five or seven pounds a pipe. If you
can doe this with conveniency, it would save
me the charge of buying it here, and if there
bee more than enough for my own drinking I
feare not to dispose of it well." The West
Indians had not as yet discovered the virtues
of the cock-tail.

During his stay at Funchal, Mr. Jeaffreson
kept his eyes open, and some of his observa-
tions would not be out of place to-day. " The
walkes from the cittie are so rugged and uneven,
that one may be said to climbe rather than
walke abroad. But these difficulties are recom-
pensed with the fruitefull, well cultivated, and
pleasant viniards, the frequent delightfuU land-
skipps, with the frequent and odoriferous scents
of the weedes or common herbes and field-
flowers, which Nature produces of herself in

Leaves from a 3fadeira Garden

the barren and unmanured parts of this most
pleasant and fruitfull spot ; where neither the
extreme colde of winter, nor the violent heat
of summer pinches or scorches the inhabitants."
He visited among others the convent of Santa
Clara, and was surprised at the "freedome
these women use," a fact noted by other
travellers. He " understood but little of their
language, but made a shift to barter some
ribbands for sweetmeats." This convent, with
all other convents and monasteries, was sup-
pressed in 1834. The property of these
conventual establishments passed to the
Government ; much of it was sold. But the
convent of Santa Clara still stands in all its
charm and beauty, and a number of sisters,
who have taken voluntary vows not recognized
by the State, are permitted to inhabit it.

I refer elsewhere so the superstitious pro-
ceedings designed to bring rain in time of
drought. Such are noticed by Mr. Jeaffreson.
" Rains are sometimes much wanted by the
islanders, for which theire idols or images of
their saints suffer most severely, by several!
sorts of chastisements, and are brought into
the cittie, and carried otherwhiles in prosession.

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Politics and Social Changes

Trying fowle means as well as faire, if they
wont heare theire prayers, the islanders try if
beateing will learne them better manners ; like
Baals priests, who leaped and stamped on the
altar, when theire deaf God would not heare."

From his hosts, the traveller heard much
of an Enchanted Island, which had several
times been seen by very credible persons
to the northward or north-west of Madeira.
The Governor had employed a French ship
to seek it, but in vain. This story was long
as persistent as that of the sea-serpent. A
floating island figures in the legendary history
of St. Brendan, that Odysseus of the sixth
century; and in succeeding centuries stories of
islands which appeared from time to time are
quite common. In a treaty between Portugal
and Spain in 1519, the former actually ceded
to the latter the " Island not found." It is
probable that this bafiling phantom was due
to the effects of mirage, not uncommon in
these latitudes. Mr. Samler Brown states
that he has often seen portions of the coast
reproduced on the horizon with a startling
fidelity.

A more remarkable traveller arrived off the

117

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

port of Funchal after dark on August 23rd,
18 1 5. H.M.S. Northiiynberland^ conveying
Napoleon Bonaparte to his last home at St.
Helena, called here for provisions. It is related
in the Diary of Mr. John R. Glover, secretary
to Rear-Admiral Cockburn, that on the follow-
ing day Mr. Veitch, His Majesty's Consul,
visited the ship, *' of whom Bonaparte asked
numerous questions with respect to the island :
its produce, the height above the level of the
sea, its population, etc." On the 25th Mr.
Glover notes : " We had a continuation of the
violent and most disagreeable siroc wind, which
commenced on our first making the island ;
and such was the superstition of the inhabitants
that they attributed this destructive siroc to
Bonaparte being off the island, and were
extremely apprehensive that their crops, which
were nearly ripe, would be more than half
destroyed." On the same day, after dark, the
Northumbei'land set sail. Next day Bonaparte
ate little and was out of spirits. Mr. Glover
attributes this to the heat and the considerable
motion of the vessel. We may suspect a
deeper cause for his malaise. In Madeira he
had passed the last outlying speck of the world

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Politics and Social Changes

which he had striven to master, and as the
vessel headed for the desolate Southern ocean,
it may be that a sense of his final and utter
failure at length came fully to his mind. And
who may measure the bitterness of this sense
to him ? " He knew no motive but interest —
he acknowleged no criterion but success — he
worshipped no God but ambition ; and with
an Eastern devotion he knelt at the altar of his
idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no
creed that he did not profess — there was no
opinion that he did not promulgate. In the
hope of a dynasty, he upheld the Crescent ; for
the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the
Cross ; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the
adopted child of the Republic ; and with a
parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the
crown and the tribune, he reared the throne of
his despotism. A professed Catholic, he im-
prisoned the Pope ; a pretended patriot, he
impoverished the country ; and under the
name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse,
and wore without shame, the diadem of the
Caesars ! **

So did a contemporary sum up his worship
of success, and his subordination of means to

iig

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

his end. And however much we may detest
his objects and his methods, however great our
satisfaction at his overthrow and the part our
country played in it, we may spare some pity
for the greatness of his fall.

120

Chapter Yll—FEBRU^ART
Land and Sea

"The earth hath bubbles, as the water has." — Macbeth.

BY way of introducing a little variety
into our horticultural pursuits, we
have this year rented a cottage and
garden near " the Mount," which I
have already described as lying some two thou-
sand feet above Funchal. It is rendered very
easy of access by the mountain railway, and a visit
to it has the advantage of affording a complete
change of air. In mid-winter this region is often
bathed in mist, with " the rainbow smiling on
the faded storm," when the town and the lower
lying country are in full sun ; but as the spring
advances, these uplands enjoy one of the most
delightful climates in the world. The spring
flowers — violets, anemones, daffodils, and the
rest — which die or languish in the unvarying
geniality of the litoral, flourish at this elevation
in unexampled glory. It is possible in Madeira

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

to experience within the space of an hour or
two quite a variety of climates, each furnished
with its characteristic vegetation. From the
sea-level, with its sub-tropical wealth of gorgeous
climbers, its sugar-cane, mangoes and bananas,
you ascend a thousand feet to find groves of
oranges and lemons. A little higher you enter
a region of pine-trees, with gardens where the
hardy fuchsias and the hydrangeas grow to an
immense size, where the ground is carpeted
with agapanthus lilies, and the hedges are bright
with mimosa blossom in spring. Higher still,
passing from the pine-woods, you come to a
moorland region faintly recalling some of the
wilder parts of North Wales or Cumberland,
while above are the bare and fantastic crags
which have been compared to those of the
Dolomites. So you may pass in a short space
from the sub-tropical region to the Riviera, from
the Riviera to Bournemouth, from Bournemouth
to Carnarvonshire, and from Carnarvonshire to
the Alps.

Our mountain garden lies in the middle of
these regions. As the domain is full of deci-
duous trees, it presents at this season quite a
wintry aspect. But the camelias are in flower,

122

Land and Sea

irises are throwing up buds, freesias and
daffodils will not be long behind them. The
garden has been much neglected, and the box
hedges have grown into straggling bushes five
feet high. Innumerable seedlings of the incense
tree are blocking all the banks, and have
rendered some of the garden paths quite im-
passible. Our first care is to hack a way through
these, and to open up vistas of the hills and
sea. It is too late to do much in the way of
planting for this season, but we can make
preparations for next year. There is no such
thing as a nursery-garden in Madeira — an
opening awaits an enterprising man. If it is
known that you are in want of plants, casual
persons will probably arrive with some for sale ;
but, unless you wish to be a receiver of stolen
goods, you will be chary of buying them, as it
is quite likely that they have been removed
from your neighbour's garden. There is very
little serious crime in the island ; aggravated
offences against the person appear to be almost
unknown, and robbery on a large scale, " flat
burglary," is rare. You never hear of any one
being molested in the town or suburbs, and
you may tramp the wildest mountains and most

123

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

unfrequented valleys and meet with nothing
but civility from the sparse inhabitants. Times
and manners have changed for the better since
the beginning of the eighteenth century, when
Dr. Hans Sloan tells us that every tradesman
wore his short doublet, and for the most part a
black cloak with a long big-hilted dagger under
it, a sharp knife being in his pocket. No man
dared go into the street after dark, lest any one
who had a grudge against him should shoot
him, or lest he should be taken in the dark for
another man. Dr. Sloan was told that a small
piece of money to a negro would purchase any
man's life. He mentions having been called in
to treat a priest who had been shot at in the
night by some one who took him for another.

But there Is a very lax state of public opinion
as regards petty theft. Unless you keep watch-
dogs, you will have your poultry and your fruit
stolen by night. The authorities seem to be
reluctant to enforce the penalties against such
offences. Not long since, a neighbour's gar-
dener caught a man handing some bundles of
bananas over my garden wall late at night and
apprehended him as he descended himself. He
called to my gardener, and together they haled

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the man to the police-station. The case was
quite clear : sections of the stalks left on the
trees were produced in Court and shown to fit
the bunches which the man was removing ; but
the judge dismissed it. 1 was told afterwards,
I know not with what truth, that the prisoner
was a very poor man, that he could not pay a
fine, or for his keep in prison ; and that if I
had offered to pay for his board the Court
would have been willing to lodge him there
for a week or two. This seems to add fresh
burdens to the lot of the prosecutor, which
even with us is often a troublesome one ; and
probably accounts for the small number of
prosecutions.

If there is one advantage of education more
obvious than another (some of us are too
apt nowadays in England to note only its dis-
advantages), it is that it delivers from terror.

** Your nature's needs are twain,
And only twain : and these are to be free —
Your minds from terror, and your bones from pain." *

We hardly realize perhaps how deeply we are
indebted on both counts to the achievements

* W. H. Mallock, " Lucretius on Life and Death."

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of science, even in the very diluted form in
which they reach most of us. The state of
fear in which the lower classes here, though
they are by nature of a cheerful temperament,
pass their lives is inconceivable to the educated
Northerner, unless, indeed, he is unfortunate
enough to be afflicted with that gruesome form
of religion which Mr. Gosse has so graphically
described in " Father and Son." The common
people here are doubtless not so worried about
the horrors of eternal punishment as are the
more unhappy kinds of Protestants. Their
Church, with its practice of Confession and
Absolution, does much to deliver them from
that gloomy obsession. But it fails to dissemi-
nate the imaginary dangers which beset their
daily lives. For them

<' Hell and its torments are not there but here."

The unseen and the seen are equally fraught
with terror ; they dread alike the ruthless forces
of Nature and the malignity of man ; they live
in fear of the powers of darkness, of the
authorities, and of each other.

Their attitude towards witchcraft and its
kindred superstitions is still quite mediaeval.

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Witches of course abound, and it will be very
bad luck for you if you come across them on
the hills, whither they repair to meet their
master, the devil. They will naturally turn
themselves into beasts of the field, or fowls of
the air, and you won't know anything about
them ; but they will be very angry with you
for disturbing them, and you will suffer for it.
It is a good plan if you have reason to believe
that you are in the presence of a witch to open
a pair of scissors wide to the form of a cross.
As long as you keep them like that you will be
all right, but it must be confessed that it is
sometimes inconvenient. And you must be on
your guard against vampires in human form.
They are always on the look-out to suck your
blood from your little finger. And of course
the evil eye has to be continually thought of.
Charms are very useful against it, and a sprig
of rosemary— the herb of Our Lady — has great
virtues. If you keep a pig — and if you are a
Madeira peasant of course you do — very elabo-
rate precautions have to be taken to preserve
him from malign influences. It is always
advisable to have a bunch of rosemary laid on
the stye, and a bottle containing water — holy

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

water is of course the best, but expensive —
should be hung above it. This will attract
any threatened danger of an occult kind, and
the animal will escape. Once upon a time a
mischievous young Englishman thought to
make sport of this time-honoured belief by
breaking many such bottles with an air-gun.
But the fact that the bottles were broken while
the pigs remained unharmed was, in their
owner's eyes, a powerful vindication of the
practice. And perhaps there was something in
it — in the absence of the bottle the naughty
boy might have been tempted to aim at the

pig-
Pigs are, of course, peculiarly subject to/

malign influences.* For do not the evil spirits

of bad men reside within them ? and that is why

you will never give them any bread ; indeed,

you must carefully remove all crusts from the

pig tub. I have always felt that the lot of the

Gadarene swine was a hard one ; it seems

harder still that the curse should be extended

to their distant cousins many times removed.

But facts are stubborn things.

* " Where hast thou been, sister ? " says the first witch in
"Macbeth." "Killing swine," replies the second.

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Land and Sea

If you become suddenly rich, or in any
other way attain unexpectedly your heart's
desire, your neighbours will say that you have
found a hair ball. They refer to those curious
round and smooth agglomerations of undigested
hair which are sometimes found in the stomachs
of oxen and other animals, and which are not
uncommonly fatal to the domestic Persian. cat.
But it is not enough to find such a ball.
You must make a loaf of bread yourself, and
secretly ; you must place the hair ball within
it ; and then you must hide the loaf under an
altar or in some sacred place where nobody
will see it. Then whatever you wish will
arrive to you. It is all rather troublesome,
but the reward is great if the conditions are
properly fulfilled.

If your own hair is coming out, the remedy
is quite simple. You must cut off a lock on
St. John's night (no other night will do) and
bury it under a quick-growing plant, such as a
pumpkin. Then if you are careful never to
pass the place again, your hair will be sure to
grow. I hope the publication of this simple
and certain remedy will not bring down on me
the wrath of Mr. Truefitt.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Many other ailments may be cured without
the intervention of a doctor, whom indeed you
are naturally very much inclined to distrust.
If you have erysipelas, you should bleed a black
puppy dog, or draw blood from the comb of a
black hen ; then steep part of a pumpkin in
the blood and apply it to the affected part ;
and hang up the rest of the pumpkin in the
chimney, and be sure to take no further notice
of it. If you suffer from varicose veins, you
should apply a piece of pumpkin and then
throw it to a pig, the flesh of which must on
no account be eaten.

If you lose any of your property it will be
very unwise to go to the police. They will
cause no end of trouble and will want all sorts
of stupid forms filled up, about the age and
occupation of your parents, and such irrelevant
things ; and they may ask many inconvenient
questions, so that you come to feel more like
the guilty than the injured party. You had
far better resort to a wise woman, or a wizard,
whichever sex you prefer ; and it is conceivable
that the seer, possessing a wide and varied
acquaintance of things and people, may be in a
position to negotiate for the return of the

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goods — for a suitable consideration. And of
course you will not marry, or set out on a
journey, or take any important step in life
without due consultation in the same quarter.
One hundred reis, or fivepence, will procure
you much disinterested advice. Truly must
the wizard, like the professional letter-writer,
become the repository of strange secrets. With
the productions of the latter we are familiar.
There is one of the fraternity who writes
English, and revels in a picturesque style. It
was something of a surprise to my wife after a
good many years of married life to find me
described in one of his effusions as her " affec-
tionate bridegroom." Such a notable gift of
expression, and so fine a contempt for mere
facts are wasted here ; they would command a
large salary in Fleet Street.

There is, I think, as elsewhere in Latin
countries, a strong pagan survival in the creed
of the common people. The ancient gods are
not wholly dead, but they are called by other
names. Even the Blessed Virgin herself is per-
haps not clearly understood to be one Person.
If you suffer from rheumatism, you pray to
Our Lady of the Mount ; if you are anxious

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

for a son and heir, you propitiate Our Lady of
somewhere else ; it is no great step from this
for the uneducated mind to think of two
goddesses, possessing different attributes and
powers.

The patron saint of our own parish here,
St. Martin, seems to have obtained his repu-
tation as the friend of revellers, publicans,
and tavern-keepers from the accident that his
festival coincides with an old pagan feast. St.
Martin does not himself appear to have been
an especially jovial person. The oft-painted
incident of his dividing his cloak with a beggar
made him originally the guardian of mendicants ;
but that function has been transferred to St.
Giles. In early life he worked many miracles,
including the restoring of the dead to life, and
while Bishop of Tours he did much to spread
the monastic system. There is nothing in this
to connect him with the toper, or even the
moderate drinker. Yet throughout Christen-
dom Martinmas is a day proper for revelry,
the day on which cattle are killed to be salted
for winter use, and the new wine is drawn from
the lees and tasted. It is a curious chance
which has linked the Christian ascetic with the

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attributes of Dionysus. Very appropriately the
large parish dedicated to him here is one of
the chief vine-growing districts of the island,
and the curious may note " Fine old S. Mar-
tinho" in wine-merchants' lists. Neighbouring
parishes are dedicated to St. Anthony, who
may perhaps assist you to regain lost or stolen
property ; and St. Rock, the friend of the sick,
and especially the plague-stricken. No doubt
his shrine was much sought during the un-
happy events of 1906. The expression, "as
sound as a roach," is perhaps due to a cor-
ruption of the French form of his name.

Vows to execute unpleasant tasks are not
uncommon. In their performance men will
carry heavy chains or bars of iron ; women
will shuffle on bare knees over sharp stones,
and up the steep steps leading to the Mount
Church. Votive offerings, such as wax models
of injured and ailing limbs, are constantly
made. I asked one custodian of a church what
became of them. With a twinkle in his eye
he explained that the patient either died or
recovered ; whichever happened there was no
further use for the offering, and the wax made
very good candles. If a long drought occurs,

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

various expedients are resorted to with the
object of propitiating the powers that make
rain. A procession in which men bared their
backs and lashed themselves and each other
with great vigour was formerly in vogue, and
is recorded to have been most successful. It
is now, I believe, forbidden. Our housekeeper,
who has the faculty of throwing a refreshingly
new light on things we are inquiring about,
has had something to say on this subject. She
recalls a year when there was no rain, and the
earth was parched and the corn did not grow,
and the poor people were in great distress. So
they walked in procession, and they said many
prayers, and at last the good God took pity
on them and sent three wrecks. The insu-
larity here exhibited is characteristic ; there is
no thought of the shipwrecked, and possibly
drowned, mariner ; of the loss or ruin to ship-
master, owner and underwriter ; it is only the
abundance of loot that counts. So no doubt
we are regarded by some of those we employ
as specially created, like the wrecks, by a bene-
ficent Providence, in answer to their prayers
for a master and mistress fairly well off and
not too knowing.

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Land and Sea

Before the days of steamers, wrecks must
have been quite a considerable source of profit
to the islanders. A southerly gale has been
known to drive half a dozen ships lying in the
port on shore. Steamers are able to go out to
sea, where they are safe ; and such a gale,
especially as it sometimes does much damage
to shore boats and lighters, is perhaps regarded
with less favour than formerly.

But the sea has sometimes brought less
welcome visitors. The islands of Madeira and
Porto Santo suffered much in their early days
from privateers and corsairs. Next to dis-
covering an "unsuspected isle in far off seas,"
the harrying of one which somebody else had
discovered and settled must have been the
greatest fun imaginable. Such raids are not
entirely without their modern successors, but
nowadays they are not considered good form.
In 1566 the town of Funchal was sacked by
a large force of French freebooters, who landed
on a convenient beach about three miles to the
west of the town. They occupied it for fifteen
days, plundering churches, convents and houses,
holding citizens to ransom, and putting many,
including the Governor D'Ornellas, to the

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

sword. Their leader Montluc was wounded
by a shot from the garden of one Caspar
Correa, who was killed in consequence. Mont-
luc died of his wound just as relief was arriving
from Lisbon. His followers escaped. It is
interesting to note that the families of Correa
and D'Ornellas are still among the most pro-
minent in the island.

In later days, when England was at war with
France and Spain, and naval combats frequently
took place in these seas, many incidents must
have occurred to enliven the monotony of life
at Funchal. From the Gentleman s Magazine
for 1742 I cull the following: "The Hastings
Lord Bamff, took off the Madeiras, Jan. 7,
after an engagement of two hours, a Spanish
register-ship of 20 guns and 105 men, besides
10 men and 4 women passengers, and a child,
bound from Cadiz for the Havanna. As he
was carrying his prize into Madeira, he like-
wise took on the i6th a privateer of 14 carriage
and 6 swivel guns, and 73 men."

We can picture the excitement which such
arrivals as are described in this bald narrative
must have caused.

In October, 1799, a fleet of ninety-six British

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Land and Sea

merchant vessels, under the escort of three
men-of-war and bound for the West Indies,
anchored in Funchal Bay. It is recorded that
they took away 3041 pipes of wine shipped
by British merchants, either for the supply of
the colonies, or for the sake of the voyage.
These were the palmy days of the Madeira
wine-trade.

Madeira cannot claim the stirring place in
our naval annals which belongs to the not dis-
tant Canary Islands. Thrice have our greatest
sailors attacked the Spaniards there ; and it
must be owned that Spain has won the rubber.
In 1595 Drake, on his last voyage, was repulsed
off Las Palmas in Grand Canary. This failure
of the scourge of Spain, the destroyer of count-
less treasure ships, the relentless pursuer of the
beaten Armada, must have been very welcome
to the victorious defenders. In 1657, during
Cromwell's Protectorate, Blake attacked the
harbour of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe, in which
was lying a great treasure-laden fleet, home-
ward bound from the West. He thrust his
ships into the port under the guns of the shore
batteries, and succeeded in sinking sixteen
Spanish galleons without the loss of one of his

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

own ships. It was a daring piece of work and
our first great naval victory since the defeat of
the Armada. In 1797 Nelson attacked Santa
Cruz with the object of taking possession of a
large treasure landed there from a Spanish
galleon. He was beaten off with heavy loss.
It was his one defeat, and it was here that his
arm was shattered by a cannon-ball. He
returned to England expecting to be punished
for his failure, and found himself a hero.

The romance of the sea is not yet wholly
spent. Three or four years ago two boat-loads
of shipwrecked mariners rowed into the port
of Funchal. They landed on the pier, and
commenced to relate to an excited crowd the
story of their adventures, with much picturesque
embellishment. They told how their vessel, a
large sailing ship carrying the French flag, had
sprung a leak a hundred miles to the westward
of Madeira, and somewhat out of the track of
steamers. They described their heroic efforts
to keep her afloat, and their unceasing labour
at the pumps, and how finally, with the ship
sinking beneath their feet, they had taken to
the boats just in time to escape being engulfed
as she disappeared. So engrossed were they

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Land and Sea

and their audience with this thrilling tale that
until it was concluded they did not lift up their
eyes to see a large sailing ship being towed into
the port by a steamer. When at length
observed she must have given them a nasty
turn, for was she not the very vessel from
which, as they had just so circumstantially
narrated, they had narrowly escaped two or
three days before ? And indeed

" It was that fatal and perfidious bark ; "

and we may feel no doubt that they greeted
her with " curses dark." The inconvenient
steamer had found her derelict with some awk-
ward augur holes in her bottom, and deemed
her a prize worth towing into Funchal. There
are some ships that nothing will sink. What
became of the poor distressed mariners I
do not know ; the sailing ship lay here for
some time, while the lawyers wrangled over
the salvage, and then sailed away, doubtless in
charge of a fresh crew.

The sea is the home of strange coincidences.
One day, a quarter of a century ago, two
vessels hom.eward bound left the port together.
Their names began with the same three letters.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

One was the European^ a steamer of the Union
line ; the other was the Eurydice^ a man-of-war.
Neither reached its destination. The former
was wrecked on Ushant ; the latter capsized in
a squall off the Isle of Wight, and was lost
with all hands.

During the South African War our feelings
were harrowed with stories of privateers which
were being fitted out in the Canary Isles with
the especial object of attacking the Cape mail-
boats. And there were circumstantial accounts
of such and such a liner having received a
warning, and travelling night after night with
no lights, to the great inconvenience, not to
mention the alarm, of her passengers. But
such tales were no doubt apocryphal. Towards
the close of the war some members of the former
Transvaal Government resided here, and acted
as a kind of post-office between their comrades
who were still in the field and their friends in
Europe. Certain very curious proceedings took
place in this connection. It is still a little too
near the events to record what happened ; but
there is reason to believe that our own Govern-
ment was fully alive to what was going on, and
took its own measures to deal with the matter.

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Land and Sea

The sea, like life, has its little ironies. And
it condescends sometimes to play practical jokes.
Last winter a young English clergyman, stay-
ing for a short holiday at one of the hotels,
mentioned to the hotel-keeper one morning
that he thought of going for a walk in the hills.
His failure to return in the evening suggested
pictures of his mangled corpse lying at the foot
of a precipice. Fortunately, one of his fellow-
guests was able to say that he had seen him on
board a Royal Mail steamer which was outward
bound for South America. This allayed
anxiety, but originated various theories for his
disappearance. Ten days later a telegram
arrived from Brazil to say that he had been
carried on involuntarily, not having noticed
that the steamer had started. He was taken the
round trip, and on his return to Southampton
found himself famous, being met by seven
reporters anxious to gather the impressions of
a clerical stowaway.

The converse sometimes happens. Not long
ago a young man and a maiden, who had made
acquaintance on board, landed together from a
mail-boat bound for South Africa, for a walk.
Doubtless time took wings, for when they

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

returned to the pier the steamer was gone.
The girl's parents were on board, and must
have been consumed with anxiety at her dis-
appearance, as they could get no news of her
until they reached Capetown. This, and not
the absence of tooth-brushes, is the really tragic
side of such occurrences. The young couple
were hospitably entreated here, and proceeded
the following week. Let us hope that the tale
had an appropriate conclusion.

I have wandered afar from our mountain
Quinta — perhaps not inappropriately, for it is a
convenient starting-point for many excursions.
It lies on the very brink of a delightful ravine,
the source of Funchal's easternmost river, known
to the English as the Little Curral. If this
valley lacks the sensational features of Madeira's
wildest gorges, it is rich in all the elements of
the picturesque. Up hill and down dale you
walk or ride, with miniature precipices yawning
below you, while rocky eminences, aping in
their form the greater mountains, stand clear
against the sky above. Villages with peaked
thatched roofs, almost Japanese in character,
hang on to the slopes in the most inconvenient
situations. Arum lilies growing wild fleck

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Land and Sea

the hill-sides with their cream-white grace ; on
damp rocks masses of liverwort abound to
charm the fern-lover. In an hour or two you
emerge from this little wilderness on to the
Caminho do Meio, the very steep road which
ascends to the east of Funchal. This alarming
road has an inclination of 23°, or one in two
and a third, and from its exceeding abruptness
has been nicknamed " Rocket Road." Facilis
descensus^ it is easy to toboggan down it in a
running car ; but how any one ever gets up it
is a mystery. Crossing it, you may pass through
a delightful little forest of eucalyptus trees,
their smooth straight stems springing to a
surprising height, and ascend to a winding
levada, affording very charming views of the
town, the sea, and the rocky Desertas, which
leads you in time to the pleasant mountain
village of Camacha.

A very pleasant village indeed it is, lying over
two thousand feet above the sea-level, on a spur
of the higher hills, a few miles to the east of
Funchal. It was formerly much resorted to in
summer by those English whose business re-
tained them in Madeira, as is attested by the
presence of some agreeable villas, now little

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Leaves from a Aladeira Garden

used. The railway which ascends to " the
Mount " directly above Funchal now makes
that locality more convenient as a residence
in hot weather. Camacha possesses among
other attractions a level tract of good turf
on which many a cricket match has been played.
It mi^ht be mistaken for the grreen of an

O CD

English village but that it lies on the very
brink of a deep and picturesque ravine.

In this hamlet and its neighbourhood is made
much of the wicker-work — chairs, tables, sofas,
and other articles — which fills the shops of
Funchal. Enormous quantities are purchased
by the passengers of passing steamers ; and
it is not unknown at charity bazaars in
England. It is carried down the steep moun-
tain road to the town chiefly by women,
who will bear, balanced on their heads, a
surprisingly heavy and unwieldy mass of tables
and chairs. This practice gives them a peculiar
gait ; the body is held perfectly rigid, and the
hips swing with a regular motion as they walk.
The muscular development of these women
must be prodigious.

And Camacha is justly celebrated for its
flowers — its arum lilies and irises, its ixias and

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Land and Sea

sparaxlas, its primroses and violets, with many
others which prefer the stimulating freshness of
its elevated site to the softness, of lower regions.
The hills around are golden in spring with
broom and gorse ; the hedges are full of hardy
fuchsias and their like ; the stream-beds and
woodland walks are rich in fern. Truly it
is a pleasant district for the flower-lover and
botanist.

145

Chapter VUl—FEBRU^Rr

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

" I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but aa
example to deter." — Junius.

THE commercial conditions existing
in this island afford a melancholy
example of the evils of State in-
terference in business matters. Of
unrivalled climate, with a soil of great fertility,
and lying within a few days' steam of the
greatest markets in the world, it is yet pre-
vented by a vicious fiscal system from enjoying
the wealth which is its natural due. There is
no question here of the encouragement of
young and struggling industries by a moderate
scheme of Protection, and it is not necessary in
this connection to consider under what circum-
stances, if ever, Protection is beneficial. Two
facts strike the observer : firstly, the apparent
desire of the Government to tax everything that
can be taxed, regardless of consequences ; and

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Taxes — Monopolies — Pove rty

secondly, the extraordinary state of things which
may be brought about by monopolies created
in the supposed interest of one set of cultivators,
but probably originating in the desire of the
politicians to have their fingers in every possible
pie. These two facts are closely interwoven,
but as instances of the first may be mentioned
the injudicious taxation of the " raw material "
of export trade, such as the duty on wood from
Norway intended for immediate re-exportation
as crates for fruit, a tax which has killed the
cultivation and export of bananas ; the duty on
bottles to be used for the export of bottled
wines ; the duty on artificial manures necessary
for the successful growing of vegetables, in
which an enormous trade might be done ; and
what is more serious, the effect of the sugar
monopoly on the price of the alcohol which is
largely used in the preparation of wine. The
authorities do not appear to understand that an
export trade is one of the chief sources of
wealth ; that people cannot live " on taking in
each other's washing " ; or that exporters have
to compete in foreign markets with the pro-
ducers of other countries ; that the price they
obtain for their wares is chiefly regulated by

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

that competition ; and that it is to the interest
of the whole community that they should not
be driven out of those markets by the artificial
raising of the cost of production. " Here is
an industry, come let us tax it to death," seems
to be their motto. One can almost hear Lord
Place, the Parliamentary candidate in Fielding's
" Pasquin," *' I hope we shall have no such
people as tradesmen shortly ; I can't see any
use they are of ; if I am chose, I'll bring in a
bill to extirpate all trade out of the nation."

Of the second fact, remarkable instances may
be adduced, some of them savouring rather of
the " Arabian Nights " or a comic opera, than of
a serious business community. But to quote
Dr. Johnson, " Sir, to leave things out of a
book because people tell you they will not be
believed is meanness." First, as regards flour.
In order to prevent, it is said, the growth of a
monopoly in the people's food, licence is granted
to various millers to grind corn ; each miller
being allowed to grind such proportion of the
whole amount required as corresponds to the
proportion his machinery bears to the total
milling machinery in the town. The result
is that mills have been multiplied and increased

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Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

to an extent many times in excess of economic
requirements, a serious waste of capital and of
administrative expenses, which ultimately falls
on the consumer, or at any rate tends to the
impoverishment of the community.

The growth of sugar-cane, and the manufac-
ture from it of sugar and alcohol, offer a still
more noteworthy example of the effects of
State control of commerce. The industry is
one in which many thousands of people are
directly or indirectly interested, and having
been for some years in a state of intermittent
crisis, arising from differences between the
manufacturers and the Government, offers a
staple subject for conversation in the island.
Stand on any eminence in the neighbourhood
of Funchal at this season of the year, when the
crop is ripe for cutting, and you will see miles
and miles of sugar-cane extending from the
seashore up the mountain slopes. This cane is
mostly bought by an English firm long estab-
lished here, and sugar is manufactured from it
in a thoroughly efficient mill, equipped with
the most modern machinery ; yet when you go
to buy sugar in the shops you are charged
sevenpence a pound for it. This astonishing

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

result, to which natives and foreign residents
are inured, but which to strangers appears
incredible, is brought about in the first instance
by a duty of three hundred per cent, on imported
sugar, which of course raises the price here to
nearly four times what it would be in a free
market. But it is also influenced by other
factors. The sugar manufacturers have what is
practically a contract with the Government,
under which they are bound to purchase the
whole of the Madeira crop at a price which, I
understand, is about four times that current
for cane in Barbadoes, in consideration of which
they obtain, if not explicitly at least practically,
a monopoly of the business, and also may im-
port free of duty, or nearly so, molasses from
the West Indies in an unmanufactured state.
This provision appears to be of some value to
them in the ordinary course of their business,
and would naturally be of the highest impor-
tance in the event of a failure of the Madeira
crop.

It might be supposed that this sacrifice of the
consumer would bring great profits (taken from
his pocket) to the cultivators. But such does
not appear to be the case. It may be that

150

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

neither the soil nor the climate of Madeira is
really fitted for the permanent growing of sugar
on a large scale. It is an exhausting crop, and
can perhaps be only grown economically in
countries which enjoy cheap black labour.
Here it certainly pays to grow — at the expense
of the consumer, and under cover of the three
hundred per cent, duty, but that is all. And
as it is of easy cultivation, and under the con-
tract I have mentioned the grower is sure of a
sale at a fixed price, it is effectually discouraging
the raising of other crops. However beneficial
this curious system may be to the cultivator
and his landlord, from the point of view of the
community certain obvious disadvantages attach
to it. Of course at this price no sugar can be
exported to foreign countries ; all export of
preserves, jams, candied fruits, and such articles
depending on the use of sugar is equally out of
the question, though it is conceivable that a
great industry might be established in these,
and bring much profit to the island ; and one
cannot but think that in the languishing state
of the wine trade, the provision of untaxed
alcohol, at the lowest possible price, from what-
ever source obtained, would commend itself to

151

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the Government as a means of saving what is
still the island's staple export.

Under the system of land tenure which pre-
vails here, the landowner takes by way of rent
half the produce of the soil, the remaining half
being the tenant's share. The cultivation of
sugar-cane under the artificial conditions de-
scribed is no doubt advantageous to the land-
lord. Not only does the crop produce a good
return to him at a fixed price, but it is easy to
check the amount received for it, and petty
frauds by the tenant are rendered impossible.
And at first sight it is also beneficial to the
tenant ; at any rate he receives in money an
amount which he could not otherwise hope for.
But against this must be set the fact that little
else can be grown with sugar-cane : that the
beans, and sweet potatoes and yams, the sup-
port of the tenant's family, must be bought and
paid for instead of, as was formerly the case,
being grown on the farm. Some of the
opponents of the sugar cultivation assert (I
cannot say with how much reason) that the
tenants are gradually being impoverished, and
that the outcome will probably be a widespread
revolt against the landlords, whose present

152

CUTTINt; THE SLCAK'-CAMi

Taxes — Monopolies — Po verty

prosperity may be expected to be short-lived.
Since the introduction of the fixed-price system
a few years ago the cane crop has increased
fourfold, and is still increasing. Species of
cane have been introduced which will flourish
at a greater altitude than would that formerly
cultivated, and already much of the best land
in the island is given up to this absorbing crop.
In the view of its opponents not only is the
whole system economically bad, but it is fraught
with dangers to the community, both financial
and political.

It is not the least of the drawbacks of such
artificial arrangements that they cannot be
abolished or altered without causing great loss
and even ruin to numerous innocent indi-
viduals. It is in effect an experiment in
Socialism. The cultivators are mere creatures
of the State, and are entirely at the mercy of
such provisions as the State may make. With
the cultivation on this artificial basis, free com-
petition on the manufacturing side is practically
impossible ; you must either have State mills,
or mills owned by individuals working, as
here, under contract or in close touch with
the State.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

I have endeavoured to describe in a few
words the main features, as they strike a mere
spectator, of this extraordinary system, which is
full of lessons for those who may discern them.
Its contentious details, which I have avoided,
are discussed with much acrimony in the local
press ; but so ingrained is the idea of State-
protection and State-regulation that the British
practice of letting business matters take their
natural course seems to be the last thing to
occur to any one. And perhaps as things are
it would puzzle even an administrator like
Lord Cromer to find a way out. A country
whose chief industry is based on a protective
duty of 300 per cent, naturally gets into a very
queer tangle economically.

Exports being discouraged in this fashion,
and also to a less serious extent by the imposi-
tion of export duties, it is not to be expected
that the import trade should flourish. And it
is further checked by very high customs duties,
averaging, I believe, not far short of 100 per cent.

Sydney Smith's " dying Englishman " would
not get off so cheaply here : " The dying
Englishman, pouring his medicine which has
paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid

154

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his
chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent.,
and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who
has paid a licence of a hundred pounds for the
privilege of putting him to death."

These duties can hardly be described as pro-
tective, because with the exception of certain
minor articles, such for example as furniture
and boots, few things in general use are manu-
factured in the island. It must be acknow-
ledged that they act as protective of certain
industries on the mainland of Portugal ; but to
judge from the predominance of foreign (chiefly
German) goods in the shops, this protection is
of no great eflfect. The duties are in practice
rather restrictive than protective. Every one
gets in the way of doing without many things
which in other countries are in quite ordinary
use. And to some extent they account for the
backward state of the island in such matters as
sanitation. The enormous duty on iron pipes,
for example, discourages very effectually private
enterprise in the laying on to houses of water
from springs, and so on. The result in revenue
of these duties is therefore quite incommensu-
rate with the damage they do to trade, and to

155

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the well-being of the inhabitants. If there
must be a tariff, it is probable that a very much
lower one would soon produce a much greater
revenue. At present we go without a new
carpet, because the duty on it would be £,20 or
;^30. If the duty were reduced to one quarter
of this sum, we should import our new carpet,
and the State would receive £,^ or so instead of
nothing. And the vista of general prosperity
which after the first wrench would succeed
such a change, coupled with the abolition of
socialistic experiments as touching cultivation
and manufacture, is boundless. But there is
no sign as yet of the existence of any intelligent
appreciation of economic laws.

In spite of everything the State can do to
cripple foreign trade, and the fact that the most
important export, wine, is a declining factor,
a good deal of foreign money comes into the
island. The coaling, watering, and provisioning
of calling ships employ much labour ; there is
an ever-increasing influx of visitors during the
winter and spring ; and the salubrity of the
climate tempts many Portuguese who have
made money in tropical countries to make it
their home on retiring from business. Much

156

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

of the land has during the last fifty years
passed into the possession of this class.

The amount of money left by passing
steamers must be very considerable. In the
palmy days of Johannesburg, the homeward-
bound Cape mail, with much money burning
holes in many pockets, must have been a
veritable gold mine. And nowadays huge
steamers taking American tourists to the
Mediterranean call here and remain thirty-six
hours. It is said that these tourists are very
close-fisted, but even the post-cards they pur-
chase must run into a goodly sum. It is to
be feared that the money does not always go
in the first instance into very worthy hands.
Our excellent house-keeper, whose uncon-
vential views are a perpetual joy, especially
as regards the dignity of certain professions
which we regard as disreputable and some of
which must be nameless, has thrown light on
this subject. We asked what had become of
a certain John, formerly one of our hammock-
bearers, whom we had not seen acting in that
capacity lately. " Oh no," she replied, " John
does not carry hammocks any more ; he is
a very respectable man now ; he is a guider."

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

We inquired what a guider might be. "A
guider," she answered, "is like this. John
he stand on the pier when English gentleman
land from Cape steamer, and he say to English
gentleman" (we can see that English gentleman),
" * You want a drink ? ' English gentleman say,
* Yes ! ' So John take him to a wine-shop,
and say to him, * Madeira wine very good
here.' So English gentleman order a bottle.
When he drink it, he say, ' How much ? '
John say, * Eight shillings — very fine Madeira
wine.' English gentleman very cross, he
say too much money ; but in the end he pay,
and then he go on board again " — no doubt
assisted by the obliging John.

" Next day," she continued, " John go to the
wine-seller, who give him four shillings.
Yes," she added reflectively, "John very
respectable man now " ; and we felt that any
remarks on the honesty of his former toil,
as contrasted with his present rascally business,
would be misunderstood.

If it were not for these adventitious benefices
the island would be in a bad way. A stranger
may ask in surprise why Portugal, and especi-
ally Madeira, are poor. It is obvious that this

15S

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

island is one of the most favoured spots of the
earth's surface. Its genial climate, its fertile
soil, its ample rainfall, its situation on the lines
of route from South and West Africa and
South America to Europe, and from North
America to the Mediterranean ; its possession
of plentiful labour — all these factors combine
to promise an exceptional prosperity of State
and individual alike. This promise is not ful-
filled. There is no money to provide even the
most ordinary requirements of a civilized coun-
try. Roads, bridges, water-supply, drainage,
hospitals, asylums, schools — in all these depart-
ments Madeira is a century behind the age. If
you ask why, there is no answer but " We are
too poor." Good heavens ! how do the Portu-
guese imagine that peoples inhabiting countries
which lack almost all the advantages of theirs
furnish themselves with these necessaries of life
and a hundred others ? Even the provision of
"up-to-date" hotel accommodation for visitors
appears to be rendered impossible. The com-
panies which have been during recent years
crowding the health resorts of Europe with first-
class hotels and restaurants have left Madeira
alone, and the wealthier class of travellers, which

159

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is prepared to pay for its comforts and might
bring much profit to the island, is discouraged
from visiting it.

If we seek for the cause of this poverty and
backwardness, our investigations always lead by
one route or another to the vicious fiscal system
of which I have given some examples. The
concessions, the monopolies, the extravagant
duties, the sacrifice of the community to the
supposed interest of a class — such are the
means by which the State forces poverty on
itself and its citizens.

It is frequently said, and by some for whose
judgment I have much respect, that the poverty
of the inhabitants is due to over-population.
So it may be under the present fiscal system ;
but granted one which did not discourage
export trade, a large population would be
a blessing and not a curse. In Madeira the
people are very prolific ; there is no question
of the declining birth-rate, which is pro-
ducing pessimistic forecasts of the extinction
of Western civilization ; and owing to the
healthy outdoor life infant mortality is less
than might be expected ; — the greater the
reason why the working class should not be

i6o

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

hedged off from opportunities of profitable
labour.

Even as things are the labourer's lot is not
an unhappy one. Farm hands get from 400
to 500 reis a day, that is, from one and eight-
pence to two shillings. I find they do not,'as
a rule, work every day in the week ; one or two
days are generally devoted to the cultivation
of their own little patches, where they grow
the sweet potatoes on which they chiefly live,
or the sugar-cane which is supplanting them.
They do not know what cold is, and fuel is
only required for cooking. An English farm-
labourer might reasonably regard their con-
dition with envy.

In the foreign concession-hunter the Portu-
guese sometimes catch a Tartar. A few years
ago a German company-promoter, backed by
a millionaire prince of imperial connections,
obtained a concession to exploit this island as
a resort for tourists and invalids. The company
formed to work it undertook, as a consideration,
to build a sanatorium with forty beds for sick
poor — an ingenious arrangement, as it secured
Royal support, her Majesty the Queen of
Portugal being charitably disposed in such

161 M

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

matters. But it was a very inadequate con-
sideration for the outrageous terms of the
concession. These included not only the ad-
mission of furniture and appliances for the
German hotels free of customs duties — an
injustice to the owners of existing hotels, who
have paid duties on their imports — but also the
right of expropriating land within a defined
zone. This zone covered much property be-
longing to British subjects, including important
business premises of British firms. These firms
naturally objected to their property being
expropriated and their business being damaged,
not for public purposes, but in the interests of
a private company formed to run hotels and
gambling casinos. A great outcry arose. Sug-
gestions, perhaps not wholly without foundation,
of German political aggression being at the
bottom of it all were freely made in the English
press. After a long fight, the English Foreign
Office was moved to protest energetically against
the threatened expropriation of certain English
property, and the Portuguese Government had
to inform the German company that it could
not carry out the terms of the concession.
The company, which had bought a good deal

162

Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty

of land and done some building, threw up the
business and claimed ^^500,000 damages. It
was asserted that over ;^2 00,000 had already-
been spent. The matter is still unsettled. It
may be that the Portuguese Government will
have to pay /!i2 00,000 or more, and take over
the lands and buildings ; for which it would be
unlikely to find a profitable use at one-quarter
of the cost. But the lesson is worth something.

It is rather gratifying to the Englishman,
before whom the bugbear of German competi-
tion, of German commercial wisdom and success,
has been brandished for years, to discover that
even the German " sometimes nods." The
possession of a few unused, and presumably
useless, buildings, and a shadowy claim against
a Government which is itself in financial diffi-
culties, do not seem a very brilliant result for
years of work, of diplomatic pressure and political
intrigue, coupled with the expenditure, one way
and another, of nearly a quarter of a million
sterling.

I will conclude this chapter with a quotation
from the " First Voyage " of Captain Cook :
" Nature has been very bountiful in her gifts
to Madeira. The soil is so rich, and there

163

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is such a variety of climate, that there is scarcely
any article of the necessaries or luxuries of
life which could not be cultivated here." These
words have been almost repeated in my hearing
by expert botanists in recent times. But
Nature's bounty has been unavailing against
the perversity of man.

164

Chapter lX^m<iARCH
The Garden in Spring

*' When spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil."'

Heber.

DURING the last month the garden
I has lost some of the splendid
colouring which characterized it in
mid-winter. We have suffered
from no southerly gale, perhaps our worst
enemy in the way of weather, but we have had
much northerly wind, with snow on the hills,
and cold showers below. These will ulti-
mately have a good effect, but they have
retarded growth for the present, and the
spring blossoms seem to be later than usual.

A notable feature of the past month has been
the flowering of a native plant, the " Pride of
Madeira," Echhim fastiiosum. It grows wild on
the sea-cliffs, and in greater luxuriance in
gardens. From a mass of grey foliage it
throws up a number of torch-shaped heads of

i6s

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

a beautiful blue-grey colour, according well
with the rocks or walls over which it loves to
hang. Grown In a mass on a bank in full sun,
it is a very handsome object, and it owns the
sentimental attraction of an indigenous plant.

Freesias are now in full blossom, and the air
is sweet with their delicious perfume. Violets
do not grow well with us, but they are brought
from the hill-gardens of unrivalled size and
scent, the " Princess of Wales " being perhaps
the most noteworthy. The yellow blossom of
the mimosa trees has about it a very strong
suggestion of spring.

Among climbers the Bougainvillea is now in
its fullest perfection, and compensates us for
the fading of the Bignonia venuUa. The mag-
nificent rose-coloured Bignonia chirere is in
flower in some sheltered gardens ; for ours we
must wait a little longer. And shortly we shall
enjoy what is perhaps the noblest of our flowers,
the upstanding cream-white bells of Solandra
grandifiora, I find that this is usually a novelty
to English visitors, perhaps because its rampant
growth renders it unsuitable for all but the
largest houses. Here it will fling itself along
a wall, or over a roof, in unrivalled luxuriance.

i66

THE I'RIDK OF MADEIRA

TliG Garden in Spring

If it has a fault it is that its splendid blooms
too quickly fade.

It is more pleasant to chronicle such brilliant
and easy successes than to confess to failures.
It is perhaps not worth while where victory
in one direction can be so readily won to
strueele to avert defeat in another. But

hope springs eternal, and suggests that even
where others have failed we may succeed. I
have made a valiant attempt to form a little
rock-garden on English lines, and it must be
owned with reluctance that it is a complete and
utter failure. I did not venture to hope that
many " Alpines " would put up with the con-
ditions of this climate, but I was not prepared
for the behaviour of some of the rock-plants
which are almost weeds in our rockeries at
home. Of the numerous kinds of sedum,
encrusted saxifrage^ sempervivum, veronica^
thymey aubretia^ arabiSy cerastium, and such-like
plants which I imported, not many have sur-
vived the summer, and not one has really
flourished. To my surprise, gentians have
lived and looked fairly healthy ; but they
show no signs of flowering. Some plants
change their habits under the new conditions ;

167

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the common cat-mint, which on the Sussex
chalk grows into a respectable shrub, here
creeps along the ground with great humility ;
and the helianthemum behaves in like fashion,
and looks anything but happy. Another
summer will probably sweep them all away.
It is, I think, not so much a matter of climate
as of soil. In dry weather the earth here cakes
almost to the consistency of stone, and these
rock-plants may be unable to extract from it
the moisture they require. So, if one is to
have a rock garden, one must probably fall
back for its denizens on such succulent plants
as cacti, which contain their own supply of
water within themselves. With these and
aloes, and such hanging things as heliotrope
and ivy-leafed geranium and the "Pride of
Madeira " one may clothe one's rocks, and try
to forget that one is beaten. I have this year
blasted out of the natural rock a deep path,
with sloping walls six feet high, which will be
eminently fitted for the display of such flowers ;
but with all their beauty they will not equal in
interest- the spring glory of the English rock-
garden.

Yet perhaps with our wealth of roses,

i6S

The Garden in Spring

varying indeed in profusion but never lacking ;
our gorgeous tropical climbers ; our masses
of scarlet geranhirriy and brilliant pelargonium ;
our hedges of sweet peas ; our beds of delicate
begonia ; of euphorbia^ azalea^ fuchsia^ lantana^
salvia^ llnum^ and many another never-failing
flower ; perhaps it is more reasonable for us to
be content with these than to go astray after
strange gods.

Among fruits, the banana Is always with us,
and is much better eating than the travelled
specimen we know at home. The custard
apple, delicious when at its creamy best in
January, is becoming stringy and tasteless now.
But the passion-flower fruit — that huge and
glorified gooseberry — Is ripening ; and the
loquat, the Japanese quince, is displaying its
abundance of golden clusters. if not of
universal acceptance raw. It makes very tasty
tarts, and a jam with few rivals. With its large
and shiny dark green foliage it Is a handsome
tree In Itself; it will grow well against a wall
In the South of England ; there Is a fine speci-
men at Kew, but the fruit does not ripen there.

Some of the fruit trees and many of the
shrubs and flowering plants sufl^er much from

169

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the attentions of a small species of ant, which
has so abounded in recent years as to amount
to a veritable plague. " An ant," said the
wisest of mankind, " is a wise creature for itself,
but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or
garden." This particular species is said to
have been imported in recent times from
Mauritius or Brazil with some sugar-cane
plants. It has certainly flourished after the
manner of new importations — the rabbit in
Australia, the measles in Fiji, the trout in New
Zealand. But I have doubts as to the alleged
origin of this ant ; I find complaints of the
abundance of a similar pest in books published
fifty or sixty years ago. Its numbers appear to
have been steadily diminishing in our garden
during the last year or two, and such shrubs
as Oka fragranSy which it formerly permitted
only just to exist, are now growing vigorously.
Yet it has had its uses ; it has destroyed most
of the fleas with which the streets of Funchal
formerly swarmed, and by devouring their
young it has much diminished the number of
lizards, which do great damage to the ripe
grapes in the vintage season.

Of more agreeable insects, we are favoured

170

The Garden in Spring

throughout the winter with the presence of the
Red Admiral butterfly, and, less commonly, of
the Painted Lady. We constantly observe a
curious habit of the former. The pavement in
front of the house is of dark grey cobbles, with
a pattern of thin lines of white stones running
through them. Every sunny day a Red
Admiral will float over this, settling here and
there, and it is quite safe to bet ten to one that
it will choose a white stone to alight on. We
have endeavoured to acclimatize his first cousin
the Peacock butterfly, by introducing a con-
siderable number in the chrysalis stage, but so
far have not seen a specimen of the perfect
insect. With the spring comes thej lovely
Clouded Yellow. I am under the impression
that I have observed the Pale Clouded Yellow
(Colias Hyale)y but I can find no record of its
having been noticed by others.

Birds are not very numerous in Madeira,
perhaps because of the prevalence of the kestrel,
which may be seen everywhere in town or
country. It will sometimes even snatch the
tame canaries from their reed cages as they
hang outside the houses. And it is to be
feared that, as in France, every feathered thing

171

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is game to the peasant with a gun. But at this
season the wild canaries, peculiar to Madeira
and the Canary Islands, are building in all our
garden trees, and enlivening us with their song.
Among other garden friends are the grey wag-
tail, the linnet, the ring sparrow, and the gold-
finch. The red-legged partridge, the woodcock,
and the quail breed in the island, but the
sportsman must expect to work very hard for
a small bag. The snipe is said to be a periodical
visitor. Stragglers of various species some-
times arrive from the African coast, especially
after the prevalence of a strong east wind ; and
even American species have been observed, a
fact very interesting to naturalists, as it suggests
a way in which the seeds of American plants
may have reached the island in the past.

This is a busy season in the. fazenda^ or farm.
The sugar-cane is now being cut, and the streets
of Funchal are full of ox-drawn sledges con-
veying bundles of it to the mill. By a curious
perversity these are laid cross-wise on the
sledge, instead of length-wise, with the result
that the ends will sometimes strike the legs of
the unwary wayfarer, or otherwise obstruct
traffic, and much shouting and vituperation is

172

The Garden in Spring

the outcome. A cloud of urchins hovers round
the sledges, eager to pilfer a cane as occasion
may serve. In this land of abundant cane and
dear sugar, youth seldom tastes any other
sweetmeat.

The vines have all been pruned during
February, and are now putting forth their
leaves. I have spoken of the wine industry
as a declining one, but wine is still in point
of value the only important export from the
island. The culture of vines is of little interest
tp us, as we do not see the vintage ; and one
has not even the satisfaction of feeling that it
pays, as for some years past the price paid by
the merchants for the must, or grape juice, has
been steadily declining. Indeed, there have been
years when it was difficult to sell it at all. The
attack of temperance from which the Western
world appears to be suffering is producing much
distress among those concerned one way or
another in the supply of intoxicating drinks.
It will soon be a question of almshouses for
decayed brewers and wine-merchants. The
happy days when brewer after brewer deigned
to enter the House of Lords, and was provided
by obliging genealogists with a descent from

173

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Crusaders, seem already very far ofF. " Plumpy
Bacchus, with pink eyne " is no longer the
monarch that he was.

But the wine trade of Madeira has passed
through many vicissitudes in the past, and
perhaps when the world has recovered from its
headache and is athirst again the rich golden
wine without rival of its kind will once more
enjoy a vogue.

The first vines introduced into Madeira are
said to have come from Crete. It is probable
that the famous " butt of Malmsey " which
figured so prominently in the history books of
our childhood was of Cretan, and not Madeiran
growth ; but Malmsey is still one of the finest
wines made here. The English had certainly
found out the merits of Madeira wine before
the close of the sixteenth century. It is re-
corded in the "Voyage of Lopes," in 1588, in
"Purchas His Pilgrimes," that "wine groweth
in great abundance in Madeira, yea, and in my
opinion, the best in the world, whereof they
carry abroad great store into divers countries,
especially into England." A hundred years
later there are said to have been ten English
commercial houses in the island, the first

174

The Garden in Spring

English Consul, John Carter, having been
appointed in 1658.

Mr. Yate Johnson quotes from the account
of Paterson's disastrous expedition to Darien
in 1698, that when his vessels touched at
Madeira " those gentlemen who had fine
clothes among their baggage were glad to
exchange embroidered coats and laced waist-
coats for provisions and wine." And John
Atkins, a surgeon in the navy, who was here
about 1720, relates that he bought a pipe of
wine for two half-worn suits, and another pipe
for three second-hand wigs.

The Continental wars of the close of the
eighteenth century gave a great impetus to
the consumption of Madeira wine in England,
and for many years before and after the year
1 800 the average export was nearly 20,000 pipes.
The restoration of peace on the fall of Napo-
leon, and the consequent re-opening of French
ports, brought about a decline, but the trade
flourished until the vines were attacked in
1852 by a fungus, Oidium Tuckeri, znd nearly
all destroyed. Sulphur has been found to
keep this in check, the vineyards have been
replanted with American stocks, and in spite

175

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

of much trouble from the phylloxera, which
appeared in 1874, the cultivation has attained
something of its former importance. But the
Oidium did worse than temporarily ruin the
island vineyards ; it destroyed the confidence
of the English wine-drinker. " There is," says
Mr. Greg — in an essay rich with generous
appreciation of Madeira of the right sort —
" there is indeed a fashion to decry the wine,
and he has suffered much from blight, and the
rougishness of vintners ; for when the demand
in former years ran high, these sorry rascals
substituted for the real Simon Pure low-priced
fluids liable to turn acid, and so did he fall
into disrepute." *

So the English market was lost, and, as
regards the finer wines at any rate, it is not
likely to be regained, as long as the merchants
maintain their policy of shipping wines blended
to a particular quality, rather than vintage
wines. If there is one thing that commends
a wine more than another to the Englishman,
it is the knowledge that it is of a good year ;
and he who might be induced to lay down
a pipe of an exceptional vintage will discover

* "Through a Glass lightly." By T. T. Greg. London, 1897,

176

The Garden in Spring

no particular inducement to purchase Messrs.
Smith, Brown & Co.'s " Special Verdelho,"
which is always kept to the same standard.

For the spirit which must be added to the
grape juice in the manufacture of wine no
other than that made from sugar-cane is now
available. The importation or manufacture of
rectified spirit from any other source is for-
bidden in the interest of the sugar cultivation.
It is frequently said that grape brandy is the
proper spirit for this purpose, that no other
combines and matures with the juice of the
grape in the same manner. The opposite is
asserted here ; you are told that it is the same
thing chemically. The very word is enough to
make the amateur who contemplates a purchase
close his cheque-book with a snap.

To return to the banana. For reasons
already stated its cultivation has declined here
in recent years, for under the prevailing fiscal
arrangements it is quite impossible to grow it
at a profit in competition with the Canary Isles
and Jamaica, where more enlightened conditions
prevail. But small if dwindling plantations
still exist, and a few trees are to be found in
every garden. It imparts to the scenery a more

177 N

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

tropical aspect than perhaps any other plant in
general cultivation. It was introduced at an
early period. Thomas Nichols, a resident
at the Canaries about 1560, wrote a short
account of Madeira, in which he says, " The
banana is in singular esteem and even venera-
tion, being reckon'd for its deliciousness, the
forbidden fruit. To confirm this surmise, they
allege the size of its leaves. It is considered
almost a crime to cut this fruit with a knife,
because after dissection it gives a faint simili-
tude of a crucifix ; and this, they say, is to
wound Christ's sacred image." I believe this
idea still prevails among the lower orders. For
local consumption the small fruited " silver
banana," which grows on a tall tree, is more
highly esteemed than the banana of commerce,
which is a better traveller.

Once upon a time, in the far-off Victorian
days, it was the pleasant habit of young ladies
to collect fronds of ferns, or other botanical
specimens, but before all things ferns, and to
press them between sheets of paper, sub-
sequently connected, when the collection
approached completion, with graceful ribbons.
Croquet and its more strenuous successors were

17S

The Garden in Spring

not as yet invented ; archery was not becoming
to every one's figure. The collection of fern-
fronds had many merits ; it took the young
ladies into fresh air and ennobling scenery ; it
developed a power of observation and a sense
of order, and it may have had even more
important advantages. It is possible that the
assistance of a strong arm, the help of a willing
hand, was sometimes necessary upon a steep
hill-side, or here in Madeira in the passage of a
precipitous levada.

With the recrudescence of the early Victorian
fashions, especially as regards hats, I have
observed during the last year or two some
revival of interest in crushed ferns. But it
was only a flicker ; fashions change quickly
nowadays, and with the abrupt disappearance
again of the mid-nineteenth century mode, the
demand for blotting-paper has slackened. From
a botanical point of view this is perhaps not to
be deplored. Were a serious epidemic of frond-
snatching to set in, the stalwart young women
of to-day, deserting the tennis-lawn for the
mountains, might make short work of the
Madeira fernery. The threatened danger, we
may hope, is past, and in the forests of the

179

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

northern valleys the ferns may still shed their
spores and multiply undisturbed.

The attempt to transplant specimens ot the
native ferns from their home in the mountains
or by the northern shores to our gardens here,
is not as a rule very successful. Even if one
can manage to give them adequate shade and
sufficient water the air on this southern littoral
is too dry. The charming ivy leaf fern
{^Asplenium hemionitis), which grows in great pro-
fusion below two thousand feet on the northern
slopes, will live in a rockery here, even as
it will flourish in a pot in a cool house
in England. But it will not produce the
enormous fronds of its wild state. The curious
liverwort {Adiantum remforme)yVfh[ch. is peculiar
to this and some other Atlantic islands, delights
to grow on the face of damp rocks in the
ravines of the southern side, and is a little
less intolerant of removal. Its stiff heart-
shaped fronds with their outer row of spores
dangling on delicate stems, never fail to please.
Woodwardia radicanSy which has been found in
the northern valleys with fronds eight or ten
feet long, will grow anywhere. The common
Maidenhair {Adiantum capillus Veneris) is very

i8o

The Garden in Spring

adaptable, both wild and under cultivation. In
damp woods it will throw up fronds two or
three feet in length ; in sunny walls it is as
small and bushy as our English Rue-fern.
The Hare's Foot {Davallia Canariensis)^ which
is a native of this island and the Canaries, but
was introduced to Europe two centuries ago,
grows freely in any situation.

The inhabitants of Funchal and its suburbs
have an exasperating habit of plastering their
walls and whitewashing them, so that no fern
can grow in their chinks. But in the western
quarter of the town there still remains a frag-
ment of the great wall built after the invasion
of the French freebooters in 1566. This has
escaped both demolition and plaster, and it
is the home of a very curious woolly fern,
Notoclaena lanuginosa y which seems to revel in
the hardest mortar. Like many ferns which
live on walls in sunny situations, it shrivels
up in dry weather, but is very fine after rain.
Other ferns of similar habit may be found in un-
plastered walls, especially in the hills to the west-
ward of the town, and at an altitude of seven
or eight hundred feet. The common Spleen-
wort is one of these, and with it sometimes

iSi

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

grows the Scale fern, Ceterach officinarum. The
last named is very local, but I have found
it in great abundance, and of surprising size
in the situation described. Cheilanthes fragrans
may be found in walls close to the town,
but as it is usually in a dried and withered
condition it may easily escape notice. This
fern has a great power of retaining its vitality
when dry, and a specimen is said to have
revived after being mounted for eleven months
in a herbarium. At this season of the year
banks near the town are green with gymno-
gramma leptophyllay a small and pretty annual.

Ascending to the Mount, two thousand feet
above Funchal, and exploring the neighbouring
ravines, we may find in abundance the Black
Spleen-wort, and a few other interesting ferns,
but to reap his full harvest of delight the fern-
lover must cross the mountains and traverse
the moist ravines which descend towards the
north coast.

The great cushion fern, Dicksonia Culcita^
still grows in damp woods in the north-west
of the island. Unfortunately its silky fibres
are much used for stuffing pillows, and like
other plants which serve human needs it is,

182

The Garden in Spring

unless saved by cultivation, threatened with
extermination. So, too, the native junipers
are almost extinct, their wood being used not
only by cabinet-makers, but as torches. Many
of the island trees are becoming very rare from
similar causes, notably a lofty olive, with a hard
white wood, much in request for the keels of
boats. Very few large specimens of the native
laurels now remain, as they are in demand for
cabinet-making. It is related by the old
chroniclers that when the island was discovered
it was clothed with dense woods. To clear it
for cultivation they were set fire to. The con-
flagration is said to have lasted ten years, and
on one occasion to have mastered the colonists
and driven them to their ships. This story is
probably only a poetic way of saying that it
took ten years to destroy the primeval vegeta-
tion on the ground required for the cultivation
of sugar-cane ; and it is quite possible that
man's needs in more recent times have had as
much to do with extinction of the native flora
as this possibly mythical fire. The inner and
more inaccessible ravines seem to have escaped
both these means of destruction, and in them
may still be found a few very ancient specimens

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

of the indigenous hard-wood trees. Beneath
their shade and on their trunks cluster the
finest of the island ferns. The levadas^ or
artificial watercourses, which I have already
described as winding in and out of valleys
otherwise inaccessible, and crossing the face
of precipitous cliiFs afford a ready means of
approaching these haunts. The levada on the
east side of the Metade Valley (see Chapter III)
may be reached in less than three hours from
Funchal, and following its course either west-
ward into the heart of the valley, or eastward
from the Ribeiro Frio towards the Lamaceiros
Pass, the pedestrian will be rewarded with a
view of very luxuriant fern life. Here especially
will he note the Killarney fern {Trichomanes
radicans)^ and the filmy ferns {Hymenophyllum
Timhridgense and H. unilaterale). These grow
in masses on damp rocks and sometimes clothe
the gnarled trunks of the ancient laurels.
Here also may be found the curious cow's-
tongue fern {Acrostkhum squamosum) growing
in the same manner. 1 have observed this
fern in great profusion, and of unusual size, by
the path which leads up the head of the Boa
Ventura Valley to the Torrinhas Pass, a route

184

The Garden in Spring

which, whether from the botanical or the
picturesque point of view, is one of the most
interesting in Madeira. The wealth of fern
life in this gorge is something almost in-
describable.

At a lower altitude on the north side of
the island banks and walls will be found full
oi Asplenium furcatum growing side by side with
the ivy-leaf fern ; and on the coast itself the
sea spleenwort flourishes everywhere.

In all there are about forty species of ferns
found in the island ; of these three are peculiar
to Madeira, and five to the North Atlantic
islands. A full account of them may be found in
Mr. Yate-Johnson's " Handbook to Madeira,"
with some indication of the localities in which
they may be looked for.

Some slight knowledge of ferns undoubtedly
adds great interest to a country walk. It would
almost seem that they have an eye for the
picturesque. I have noticed in this and in
other countries that the finest ferns are often
to be found amid the finest scenery.

185

Chapter X—<dM^RCH
Antiquities

Duke. " And what's her history ?
f^io. A blank, my Lord."

Twelfth Night.

IT must be owned that while what we
especially enjoy in Madeira — climate,
scenery, vegetation — is of surpassing
excellence, many things are lacking.
Some will regret that there are no sandy dunes
by the sea-shore whereon to essay the putting
of a little ball into small holes " with instru-
ments singularly ill-adapted to the purpose " ;
others the absence, or scarcity, of partridges.
Some the want of roads suitable for motors
and bicycles. To others again the lack of
any savour of real antiquity will be a never-
assuaged sorrow. We have to go without all
the romance which springs from that sugges-
tion of ancient civilizations which is every-
where present in Mediterranean countries.
The chance of turning up even a Corinthian

i86

Antiquities

stater amid our sugar-canes would invest spade-
work with a new interest. And our gardens
lack that spice of immemorial antiquity which
is added in Italy by the presence of a broken
column, or a battered bust ; which even in
many English gardens proceeds from the
proximity of an ancient church, a fragment
of a city wall, or a castle shattered in the
civil wars.

" I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as were some buried Caesar bled ;

That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head."

It seems an undoubted fact that previous to
the Portuguese colonization this island was un-
inhabited. No vestiges of any previous race,
civilized or uncivilized, have ever come to light.
It may have been visited by early explorers,
Phoenicians, or others ; more probably the
adventurous mariners who passed the pillars
of Hercules and turned their faces southwards
kept too close to the African coast to gain any
inkling of its existence. But even if it was
visited, it was not settled, and we are therefore
denied all the sentimental excitement and the
practical labour of searching for antiquities.

187

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Those who have seen Etna from the Greek
theatre of Taormina, or walked from temple
to temple on the heights of GirgentI, or
wondered at the mighty columns lying prone
on either side of the stream at Selinunto, may
realize our loss. And even if our aspirations
do not soar so high as such glorious monu-
ments of Hellenic art and civilization, if fancy
fails us to picture an Acropolis of Funchal with
its crown of Ionic columns, we yet may regret
that even the ancient earthworks and the
Roman villas of our own country, or such
mysterious relics of the past as the temples
and treasure-houses of tropical South Africa
are lacking. And perhaps we may feel some
surprise at the strange purposes of Nature in
so long hiding from human knowledge an
island so eminently fitted for human needs.

The old chroniclers, notably Fructuoso, who
relates with picturesque detail the discovery of
Madeira, are not invariably to be trusted. The
measure of their historical value may be judged
from Cordeyro's account of the early kings of
Portugal. His object was to connect them
with the heroes, scriptural or mythical, of
antiquity. Lisbon was originally built by

iS8

Antiquities

Eliza, nephew of Thubal, grandson of Noah ;
hence it was called Elisabon. Eliza was in
some way connected with Elysium, and his
name survives to-day in " Champs Elysees."
He was also called Luso ; hence Lusitania, the
Roman name for Portugal ; and under his
third name of Phoromeo or Prometheo, he
invented fire. But in order to have two
strings to his bow, the chronicler later attributes
the foundation of Lisbon (Ulyssabon !) to
Ulysses, who married Calypso, daughter of
Gorgorio, King of Portugal, in b.c. ii8o.
Another King, Atlante, had two daughters,
Roma and Electra. The former founded
Rome (subsequently rebuilt by Romulus and
Remus) about 1628 b.c, 678 years after the
Deluge. So is history made.

We Madeirans are dimly aware that to the
south of us, s6me two or three hundred miles
away, lies another group of islands, called the
Canaries, and belonging to Spain. We do not
think much of them, and we understand that
in return they are fully alive to our defects.
So, perhaps, Ramsgate may not admire Mar-
gate, and Worthing be blind to the merits of
Littlehampton. Officially the two groups are

189

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

ever on the watch to pounce on the means of
inter-communication. You have only to sug-
gest plague, to whisper small-pox, to hint at
yellow fever, as existing in one of them, and
until further notice an exceedingly strict
quarantine will be imposed by the other.

We are accustomed — especially such of us as
have not visited them — to speak of the Canary
Islands as dusty, arid, waterless deserts, lacking
the plenteous vegetation of our more favoured
island. We sometimes hear with indignation
that the Canarians contrast their dry and
bracing air with what they impudently term the
damp-laden and depressing climate of Madeira,
and we are shocked at the abyss of prejudice
therein revealed. We admit that our own
mountains are only half the height of the Peak
of Teneriffe, "whose majestic summit may well
be said to support the sky ; which thrusts its
snow-clad cone far into the glittering sunlight
to serve as a beacon and a guide to the wander-
ing sailor." But we are not concerned for the
wandering sailor, if such a being still exists ; and
who will maintain that the beauties of Nature
are to be measured by a foot-rule ? Did not
Ruskin hold that the noblest stretch of water,

190

AntiqititieH

and the fairest mountain elevation in the world,
were contained in the view across Windermere
to the Langdale Pikes ?

These islands, whether they rival the
amenities of Madeira or not, have quite a
different history. Lying as they do much
nearer to the coast of Africa, and their loftiest
peak being of such a soaring height, they could
not escape the notice of the early voyagers who
passed from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic
and skirted the Libyan coast in their southward
course. And they therefore seem to have
been fairly well known to the ancients. When,
at the close of the Crusades, the adventurers of
Western Europe turned their attention to the
Atlantic, these islands were inhabited by a
semi-civilized people, possibly of Egyptian
origin, as they practised the mummification of
their dead. They were organized on a basis of
caste, a convenient belief being maintained that
the Creator first made the nobles, and then,
finding the world would hold more, created the
common people to wait upon them. Such an
opinion is perhaps still held covertly to this day
in some other countries. These islanders made
a very gallant defence of their country against

191

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the invading Spaniards, and from the date of
the Jean de Bethencourt's expedition to con-
quer them in 1402 a century elapsed before
they were completely subdued. It must be
owned that in the stirring details of this con-
quest, and in the relics of these mysterious and
interesting people, the Canaries possess an asset
which Madeira with its more peaceful history
lacks.

Midway between Madeira and the Canaries
lies a small group of three uninhabited islands,
the Salvages, to which a different sort of
interest attaches. In 1820 a dying sailor made
a confession that Captain Kidd, the celebrated
pirate, had buried a great quantity of treasure
there. Various attempts have been made to
discover it, without success ; and if the dying
sailor was not playing a practical joke on the
world he was leaving, it still remains to tempt
the adventurous.

If the Romans had not shrunk from explora-
tion on the high seas — a curious want of enter-
prise considering their taste for conquest and
colonization ; and in the course of their wan-
derings had occupied Madeira, our gain would
perhaps be not merely that of the antiquary

192

Antiquities

and scholar, but practical. Roads, bridges,
aqueducts, and other public works would
surely have survived the fall of the Empire,
and as elsewhere within its confines would
either serve modern uses, or point the way
for their successors.

And a very little thing turned the scale and
left this fertile island unoccupied for another
fifteen hundred years. The writers of the
guide-books do not seem to have stumbled
on the story, but it is recorded by Plutarch
that in the century before the birth of Christ
some Andalusian seamen made two islands
in the Atlantic, which from the account would
seem to have been Madeira and Porto Santo.
They described to the Roman general Sertorius
the richness of their soil, the wealth of their
vegetation, their soft airs, and the equable
warmth of their climate. Having heard these
things, we are told, Sertorius was filled with
a wonderful longing to dwell in these islands,
and to live in quietness far removed from the
usurpation of tyrants and the stress of war.
But he was prevented by his followers, and
some time after was assassinated. No later
Roman made the attempt. How many little

193 o

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

things have changed the history of the world !
The colonization of Madeira was the first step
towards the great over-sea possessions of Por-
tugal ; its occupation by Rome might equally
have been the first step to a world-wide Roman
Empire.

Although the general aspect of Funchal may
be described as " old-world," yet it suggests
rather the comfortable and leisurely world of
the eighteenth century than anything earlier.
An old house or two with a sixteenth-century
coat-of-arms and date may be seen ; some of
the churches were built not long after the
original occupation, but they contain very little
of interest. The cathedral, which was finished
in 1 5 14, is not an interesting building as a
v/hole ; but its ceiling of juniper wood, com-
monly said to be Moorish in character, and
distantly recalling some Venetian work of the
period, is very fine. The sacristy contains a
good deal of elaborate carving of the sixteenth
century, and a number of pictures which to
describe as of no merit is too mild. The
Church of the Convent of Sta. Clara, in which
Zargo, the first governor, is buried, is lined with
very beautiful tiles with an interlaced arabesque

194

Antiquities

design, I think, of early sixteenth-century work,
and the effect is most pleasing ; but there is
little in the whole town which one would take
the trouble to look at in Italy or Spain. None
of the fine arts seem to have flourished here at
any time. Probably the Morgados, the territorial
lords, who for several centuries had everything
in their control, were very unenlightened coun-
try squires, who never produced a Maecenas.

In masonry the good Latin tradition of
sound and substantial work still survives, and
the houses are built with great solidity. One
misses the stone stairways and marble balustrades
of Italy, but pleasant fountains and stone
seats of passably good design are common ;
and long pergolas with stone pillars and tops
of chestnut wood are an agreeable feature. The
houses were formerly roofed Vvith brown-grey
tiles which " weather " to a very charming
and reposeful tint. These were unfortunately
abandoned some years ago for tiles of that
staring red which one sees in the neighbourhood
of Marseilles ; and more recently a hideous
diaper design of many colours has come into
fashion. And architectural taste generally is at
present at a very low ebb.

19s

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Although Madeira has played no great part
in human story, and has no imposing relics of
the past to show, it was nevertheless the
nursery of two very notable things, which
profoundly influenced the history of subse-
quently discovered and colonized Western
countries. I have mentioned that its colonization
was the first step in that world-wide Portuguese
over-sea enterprise which blazed up in the
succeeding century, and led the Pope to divide
the new world between Portugal and Spain.
Into Madeira Prince Henry introduced some
shoots of sugar-cane from Sicily, and here he
organized the first cultivation and manufacture
of sugar on a large scale, and from Madeira
the cultivation spread to the West Indies when
they were discovered and settled. The de-
ficiency of white labour for the working of
this crop led to the importation into Madeira
of large numbers of negroes from Africa, their
first employment by Europeans in the develop-
ment of a new country, and a step which later
led to very momentous consequences in North
and South America. For hence arose " that
execrable sum of all villanies," the slave
trade.

196

A I- I U N I \ I \

Antiquities ,

The arms of the city of Funchal com-
memorate the early prosperity of the cultivation
of sugar-cane. They are : Sable, five sugar
loaves argent, arranged cruciformly. Originally
a stem of sugar-cane was disposed on each side
of the shield, but later a vine branch with fruit
took the place of one of the canes.

The collector — we are all collectors nowadays
— who cares for English furniture and silver of
the eighteenth century, has sometimes found
Madeira a happy hunting ground. In house
after house — English and Portuguese — you may
see good old English furniture, especially fine
chairs and settees, some undoubtedly the work of
the great English makers ; while others are
local copies and adaptations of their designs.
And as the Madeira cabinet makers have always
been masters of their craft, the latter are not to
be despised. They may generally be detected
by the great heaviness of the island mahogany
from which they are made, and by their missing
in some indefinable way the quality which genius
impresses. But the real thing is not uncommon.

Walnut furniture of the Queen Anne period,
whether of English or of Dutch origin, is also
to be found ; but as the wood is peculiarly

197

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

liable to the attacks of worms, which in this
climate are rampant, it is usually in very poor
condition, a fact which those who have come to
feel its unique charm will regret. The business
of " worm-eating," which is said to afford an
honest livelihood to many respectable workmen
in London, is as yet unknown here.

Strangers often express surprise at this
abundance of old English furniture in a foreign
country. It is explained by the fact that in the
seventeenth and especially in the eighteenth
centuries many Englishmen settled here to
exploit the wine trade ; they made a great deal
of money, and built themselves fine houses,
and sent to England for their furniture and
plate. And as later the East Indiamen
commonly called here for wine, Madeira pro-
bably had more regular communication with
England than even with Portugal. There is,
however, a persistent tradition that Thomas
Chippendale himself at one time resided and
worked either in Portugal or here. 1 can find
no authority for this, but the surprising amount
of work more or less showing his influence
seems to lend some colour to the story, which
is not in itself incredible.

198

Antiquities

It is not to be supposed that you can walk
into a shop and buy such treasures. The
getting of them still has some of the excitement
of the hunt. There are as yet no dealers in
curios, and there are consequently no sham
antiquities at genuine prices. Occasionally an
old piece finds its way to one of the cabinet
makers, or if it is known that you are looking
out for such things you hear of them. In a
country where the lower orders cannot read or
write, report by word of mouth seems to play
a greater part than with us. Everything is
known everywhere at once, and no doubt our
mysterious tastes excite much comment among
a people which loves nothing so much as talk.
And when you do get a chance of buying, you
are generally asked quite old-fashioned prices.
I bought a " Chippendale " chair for twenty-two
shillings. It was covered with green paint ;
this being: washed off it stood revealed as of the
finest design and workmanship. And do we
not possess one of the most beautiful silver
cake-baskets ever seen, with London mark and
date 1762, which was bought for a trifle more
than its weight in dollars ?

Occasionally the contents of an old house are

199

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

sold by auction. If the sale occurs during the
winter season, when the town is full, fair prices
may be obtained for the more obviously
attractive lots. But s^reat bargrains are some-
times to be had. Not many years ago a very
beautiful and extensive set of Nant-Garw
china was sold for a mere song, perhaps less
than the price asked for a single plate by
London dealers. It fortunately passed into
the possession of those who were able to
appreciate it.

The ethics of buying valuable things at a
low price have often been discussed. If the
purchase is made in market overt, as at public
auction, under the eyes of the world, there
would seem to be no moral obligation on the
purchaser to pay more than his bid. The case
is different where the sale is privately made
by a poor and ignorant person who has little
means of judging the value of what he is
parting with. A sensitively honest purchaser
will hesitate to take advantage of such a situa-
tion, and may fittingly astonish the vendor by
paying more than is asked. Where a dealer,
who may be presumed to be an expert, is
concerned, it is too much to expect any one

200

Antiquities

who buys to do more than thank heaven for a
bargain. A story is going the rounds of a
young lady buying a pewter jug from an old
woman in Suffolk for a shilling, and finding
screwed up in paper within it a black pearl
necklace, said to be of great historic interest,
and of enormous value. This is not quite a
case in point, as I suppose the necklace still
belongs, not only morally, but legally, to the
old woman.

Book-lovers will deplore the booklessness of
the town — which does not boast a bookseller
of any sort. A few English eighteenth-century
calf-bound volumes occasionally appear at sales,
having presumably arrived with the Chippen-
dale chairs. I have long nourished a vain
hope that among them I may some day
discover such a treasure as the first edition
of the " Vicar of Wakefield," published at
Salisbury ; but so far I have found little but
the customary theology, and odd volumes of
" Sir Charles Grandison," and Young s '' Night
Thoughts." By the way, one of my most
treasured literary curiosities is a bookseller's
catalogue, in which the last-named work is
described as Young's "Night Thoughts on

201

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Life, Death, and Immorality," a lapse which
is like to make our great-grandmothers, whom
the reverend doctor's pious platitudes lulled
to sleep, turn in their graves. A pleasing
collection may be made of curious extracts
from bookseller's catalogues. Some in puffing
their wares adopt a very flamboyant style. I
cull the following recommendation of the
bound numbers of a magazine which appears
to have died untimely ; but there are two
ways of looking at everything : " This yellow
flower lived triumphantly for three years ; and
so long as real art and literature are loved in
this island, the work will be treasured. Some
of the greatest names of modern times are
to be found on its pages ; some of the most
brilliant gems glisten in the green field of its
endeavour, against whose brightness time may

batter in vain. With as literary editor,

a host of great ones appeared, splendid, like an
army with banners." This is going one better
than our Madeira letter-writer.

True to their obscurantist principles, the
authorities impose a tax on books imported
in any considerable quantity, although they
permit Messrs. Hatchard to post us single

202

Antiquities

volumes free of duty. This tax is said to be
regulated by the nature rather of the binding
than by that of the book ; the unhappy pur-
chaser of the " Encyclopasdia Britannica,"
bound in " three-quarter levant morocco "
(specially recommended), was mulcted in a
much more considerable sum than he who
was content with the same notorious work in
cloth covers. If either of them was induced
to order the well-made revolving bookcase,
he probably found that the duty on it was
about four shillings per pound avoirdupois.
So dearly must knowledge sometimes be bought.
This absence of any distributing agency for
literature affords a strange contrast to the
teeming bookshops of France and England ;
to the piles of cheap reprints both of time-
honoured and of modern works which are now
offered to us everywhere in such profusion ; to
the public libraries which flourish in every self-
respecting town. In this matter, as in so many
others, Portugal is still living under the con-
ditions of the eighteenth century. The root
of it all is to be found in the absence of educa-
tion ; until this is remedied there will be no
awakening.

203

Leaves fyom a Madeira Garden

Many books have been written about
Madeira, but they have generally been on
somewhat prosaic lines, statistics of temperature
and rainfall being especially the concern of their
authors. The poets — certainly in our language
— do not seem to have found much inspiration
in the island's beauties. Combe, the author of
"Dr. Syntax," produced a curious work, a sort
of guide-book combined with verses after his
manner, the whole designed apparently to illus-
trate some very exaggerated coloured caricatures
of Madeira types, somewhat in the style of
Rowlandson. And it has been my good fortune
to light upon a remarkable book entitled "The
Ocean Flower," a poem in ten cantos, pub-
lished in London in 1845. The author was
T. M. Hughes, whom I judge by internal
evidence to have been of the male sex. The
object of this astonishing work is to relate the
discovery, colonization and early history of
Madeira, embodying what used to be called a
" chorographical " description of the island.
The following verses, which describe Zargo's
selection of the site for a town which he named
Funchal, from the fennel which abounded there,
are a fair specimen of the writer's style : —

204

B*MI^HMita

Antiquities

"For here an amphitheatre of hills

Swept sheltering upwards, a fair strand around ;
And Zargo fixed amid three murmuring rills
The island capital upon this ground.

" And for that on this stripe of level strantl

(There's round the Isle, I ween, no other mall)
Grew store of fennel gay by zephyrs fanned,
The Donatorio named the place Funchal."

Nearly two hundred pages are filled with
this sort of thing, interspersed with songs, some
of which in their own way are gems. The
giant Til-tree, the wood of which may or may
not have been used in the decoration of the
Spanish Armada, is thus referred to —

" 'Twas in the Cadea Velh he stood
Till Spain usurped the crown,
When Philip for his Armada-wood

The noble tree cut down.
Its beauteous veins dark-polished
Shone in many a gay saloon ;
But a storm arose.
And his English foes
That Armada finished soon ! "

Of the vine our author has much to say —

" His joy is to shoot forth his leaves.
And from trellis to trellis to pass,
And when ripened to wine, upon sociable eves,
To be poured into glass upon glass,'

and so on. Tobacco appears as " the shrub

narcotic which the fair disdain." But the tair

have changed since 1 845.

205

Chapter Xl—.fMz^RCH

The North Side

" And there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair.
And by the sea, and in the brakes
The grass is cool, the seaside air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than ours."

Matthew Arnold.

A JOURNEY to the north side of this
island is something quite apart
from the ordinary run of travel
in the modern world. A very
mountainous country, girt with precipitous sea-
cliffs and intersected by a succession of ravines ;
with no roads other than mere horse-tracks at
the best and almost impassable foot-paths at the
worst ; an absence of any other than the most
simple lodging and most homely fare in the
seldom visited villages ; such are the conditions
of the journey. But its very difficulties have
produced their own remedy. The necessity
of carrying across mountain passes or up

206

The North Side

precipitous cliffs everything not locally produced
has bred a race of porters unsurpassed for
strength and endurance in the world, porters
who take a very pride in the weight of their
loads, who will delight to carry not only your
luggage but yourself, who will make shift to
carry your grand piano if you have a fancy to
take it with you. Wherefore it is possible for
the modest traveller who is content with a
change of clothes, and some certainty of pro-
vision in the shape of a tinned tongue and a
little tea, who will ride or walk as occasion
serves, and if he or she knocks up be content
to be borne in a hammock by casual peasants —
they are all porters, more or less — it is possible
for such an one to journey with a light heart
and a single attendant. The less hardy may
think a second bearer for a camp bed and some
blankets not out of place ; the sybarite who
wants more had better stick to the hotels and
casino of Funchal.

The roads or tracks which cross the central
range of mountains radiate from Funchal like
the sticks of a fan. They all lead the traveller
through mountain and sylvan scenery of great
beauty, especially on the northern watershed.

207

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

I have already described the chief route across
the island as far as the Ribeiro Frio, the
excursion which gives to many visitors their one
glimpse of the northern valleys. The traveller
who instead of returning to Funchal pursues
this route to the village of Sta. Anna will pass
through a succession of enchanting scenes, " an
intermingled pomp of hill and vale." He will
ascend ridge after ridge and descend into valley
after valley, each differing from each in character,
yet now and then displaying that curious repeti-
tion of feature, that suggestion of imitative
power, which are sometimes very marked in the
scenery of volcanic mountains. Perhaps the
finest part of the route is where the traveller
crosses the Metade valley, a good deal lower
down than the point of view already described.
Looking back, he gazes once more into the
stupendous recesses of the great ravine ; the
view if less intimate is more mysterious ; and
if clouds have gathered on the crests and hide
the topmost crags of Arriero and the Torres,
their lower cliiFs will appear the more appalling
for the gloom above. At this season the lower
hills are made glorious by the common broom,
" flooding the mountain-sides for miles with

208

The North Side

seas of golden blossoms." The late Rev. R. T.
Lowe, author of " A Manual Flora of Madeira,"
states that though not indigenous to the island
it has been during the last hundred years so
widely diffused, both by culture and self-pro-
pagation, as to appear so. It is sown exten-
sively on the mountains to be cut down for
firing, or to be burnt on the spot every five
or six years to fertilize the ground and prepare
it for a crop of corn or potatoes. The twigs
and more slender branches are employed as
withs for binding bundles of faggots or brush-
wood ; and numbers of the country people,
especially women and girls, living within reach
of Funchal earn a scanty livelihood by bringing
into town bundles of giesla to be used for
heating ovens, and similar purposes. In some
places the broom is being completely superseded
by the common gorse, which was introduced
about one hundred years ago, and has spread
over the whole island. It is used as in England
for clipped fences, and occasionally as brushwood
for firing.

Passing from the slopes of the lower hills,
the traveller enters a sylvan region, and
emerges from it to arrive at the pleasant

209 p

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

village of Sta. Anna. Here are masses of
hydrangeas, which must be glorious in summer,
and the hedges are full of fuchsias and other
flowering plants. At this season the air is
still fresh and keen, for Sta. Anna lies at an
elevation of eleven or twelve hundred feet.

Using Sta. Anna as a centre, the traveller
may explore much of the northern coast ; he
may ascend the six thousand feet of Ruivo,
the highest summit of the island, or, by means
of the levadas which tap their streams, he may
find his way into the great valleys and their
ramifications which extend deep into the
central range. The village itself lies a short
distance from the edge of the sea-clifi^s, which
are here about one thousand feet high and rich
in all the elements of savage grandeur.

Here he may look down on little coves and
isolated beaches, such as Stevenson would have
loved to endow with the romance of a piratical
past, and he may dream of days when
perchance they were put to nefarious, if
picturesque, uses. In some of its features
this coast recalls the fantastic pictures of
Gustave Dore ; solitary and peaked rocks
stand out in the sea, and the ceaseless fret of

2IO

The North Side

the waves has in more than one instance worn
a passage through the centre of such a rock,
forming a natural arch.

Or he may stroll eastward through the
woods for an hour or two to the Cortado pass,
where, as he emerges from a rocky defile, he
will come suddenly on one of the most striking
views of the island. In front is the mass of
the Penha d' Aguia, the Eagle's Rock, an
isolated mountain rising from the sea to a
height of nearly two thousand feet, and joined
by a low neck or saddle to the mountain chain
of the island. At its foot lie the little ports
of Fayal and Porta da Cruz, Inland the eye
ranges over a vast extent of the cultivated
hillside up to the wooded heights of the
Lamaceiros Pass. This part of the island,
considering its mountainous and broken
character, is very thickly populated. The soil
is rich and friable ; to work it the pointed
tools which are used in the neighbourhood of
Funchal are not needed. There is plenty of
water. The climate is much cooler than on
the southern side, and there is a delightful
freshness in the air. Some vines, and a little
sugar, are grown ; the staple crops are the

211

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

corn and the vegetables on which the people
feed.

Of the lower slopes of the hills, every available
space is terraced and cultivated. The concen-
trated industry displayed is very remarkable.
There are those who will prate to you of the
" lazy Latin races." Let them reflect on the
conditions of cultivation in this and similar
countries, and recant their heresy. These
peasants, scratching the slopes of an extinct
volcano — though they knew it not as such —
lead simple lives very remote from all modern
influences. Many pass their days without even
visiting the great city of Funchal. Their
ignorance of the very rudiments of education
insures their continued adscriptio glehce. For
what Mr. Wells calls the "general adventurous-
ness of life " in towns, perhaps the chief attrac-
tion of town-life to those who have learnt to
read and write, they are quite unfitted. Where-
fore, as their fathers before them, and their
sons to come, they wage their life-long combat
with the forces of Nature and the exactions of
their landlord. Their religion, with its ordered
ceremonies and cheerful festivals, is at once
their chief consolation, their sole recreation, and

212

The North Side

their one taste of a life higher than their con-
stant toil. It is idle to ask whether their
lot is more or less happy than that of more
" advanced " communities. Even if we allow
that happiness is the end, it is perhaps more
evenly distributed by a principle of compensa-
tion than is generally evident. If they are
denied the joys of the "Football Special" and
" All the Winners " ; if their sole glimpse of
the achievements of science, such as the electric
light, Is afforded by the play of some warship's
searchlight, which in the early days of such in-
ventions must have scared their simple wits to
distraction ; if of what is passing in " the
world" they are as ignorant as their own
beasts ; yet who, being master of his fate,
would not choose theirs in preference to that
of the stunted slaves of modern industry }

Were it not for the difficulty of bringing
them to market, vegetables might be grown in
large quantities In these valleys for the supply
of European markets during winter. But
carnage over the mountain passes is out of the
question ; and the tiny steamers which en-
deavour to keep up communication between
the little ports and Funchal are often unable in

213

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the stormy sea of this northern coast to ship
cargo for weeks together. Cars running on
overhead wire-ropes across the mountains have
been suggested, and as far as I know may be
feasible, but who is to find the capital outlay
for such an enterprise ? So "ihe northern dis-
tricts of the island remain pretty much the
same as they have been for centuries ; and
those who take delight in unspoiled scenery
and the ways of a primitive peasantry may
indulge a hope that they will long remain so.

As one looks northwards across the ocean,
the island of Porto Santo is ever a prominent
object, hanging like a fairy isle between the sea
and sky. It is but six miles long, with an
extreme width of three miles, with some two
thousand inhabitants, chiefly engaged in pastoral
pursuits. Here are bred the oxen so largely
used for draught purposes in Funchal. Its
loftiest peak is about 1660 feet high. There
are no trees, and from a distance it affords a
strangely barren contrast to the fertile aspect of
Madeira. It is a poor little place, with a mail
only every two or three weeks, when the
weather permits a small steamer to make the
voyage from Funchal : and life on the island

214

The North Side

must be of the dullest. Yet it has Interesting
historical associations. It was occupied by the
Portuguese a year before they colonized
Madeira. The first governor was Bartolomeo
Perestrello, an Italian sea-captain in the Portu-
guese service. His daughter married the great
Columbus, who resided here for some time.
The story runs that the dying pilot of a
Biscayan vessel which was driven into Porto
Santo by stress of weather gave to Columbus
his chart and papers, and some information
which led the great navigator to believe that
land lay beyond the ocean to the westward.

Washington Irving waxes wroth over this
" idle tale of a tempest-tossed pilot," which he
says was seized and shaped by such as sought
to tarnish the glory of his hero. But we may
see in it nothing more than one of those vague
reports of islands or continents yet undiscovered
which in the ferment of the fifteenth century
were eagerly received. In that wonderful
period human activity was at its highest point ;
not only were the scholars and the artists, filled
with the spirit of the classical revival, ever
seeking fresh means of intellectual and imagi-
native enjoyment ; the men of action and of

215

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

science were no less thirsting for a wider know-
ledge of the material universe. The great
achievements of the Renaissance, says John
Addington Symonds, following Michelet, were
the discovery of the world and the discovery
of man. And the former process did not stop
with the voyage of Columbus to America in
1492, and the rounding of the Cape by the
Portuguese in 1497 ; the solar system was
explained by Copernicus in 1507. If we con-
trast the history and achievements of the ten
centuries preceding these dates with those of
the four centuries succeeding them, we may
realize what we owe to the intellectual emanci-
pation of the fifteenth century.

The discovery early in the century of rich
islands in the Atlantic, of Madeira and the
Azores, suggested naturally the possibility,
almost the certainty, of fresh discoveries. From
time immemorial men had dreamed of a happy
land beyond the western wave. The Elysium
of Plato's " Timaeus," the Antilla of Aristotle,
the Christian legend of the seven bishops
who with their followers fled from Spain
before the Moors, and were guided miracu-
lously to an island of the ocean, whereon they

2X6

The North Side

founded seven cities — such were examples in
literary form of the vague mass of tradition
which existed in the popular mind. And
Columbus, lingering in the solitude of Porto
Santo, weighed the various stories which reached
him, of islands seen afar, of mysterious reeds
and trunks of pine trees of an unknown kind
wafted by westerly gales, of the bodies of two
dead men cast upon the island of Flores, whose
features differed from those of any known race
of people. Of such stories, false or true,
Madeira and Porto Santo were doubtless as full
as a mining-camp to-day with rumours of rich
'* strikes." According to the statement of his
son Fernando, he passed from one position to
another, until he came to the conclusion that
there was undiscovered land in the western part
of the ocean ; that it was attainable, that it was
fertile, and finally, that it was inhabited. To
few men has it been more fully given to prove
the truth of their theoretical speculations.

The existence of a mine of quicksilver in
Porto Santo is affirmed by some Portuguese
writers. Mr. Yate-Johnson describes this as a
figment of the imagination, and believes that it
arose from the fact that a little mercury was

217

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

found on the ground at the top of one of the
hills, where a stranger had been unlucky enough
to break an instrument — a curious instance of
unconscious " salting."

Delightful as is the vicinity of Sta. Anna,
the traveller who wishes to realize fully the
beauty and grandeur of the north coast must
travel further westward. In the course of his
journey he will descend into the ravines of
many rivers, crossing them perhaps not much
above the sea-level, and ascend again and again
by tortuous and steep paths the ridges which
divide them. These wanderings will lead him
along the face of headlands, against the base of
which, perhaps a thousand or fifteen hundred
feet directly below, the surf thunders un-
ceasingly. In such awe-inspiring situations,
along a rough and narrow path hewn in the
rock, he may perhaps deem it wiser to lead his
horse than to ride him. And the grandest and
wildest path of all can only be traversed on
foot.

West of Sta. Anna lies the village of St. Jorge,
situate also about a thousand feet above the sea.
It looks but a little way off, but it takes two or
three hours to ride to it. It is the centre of a

2l8

The North Side

very fertile and beautiful district, with a fine
air of prosperity ; the cottage gardens bright
with flowers. The Bishop of Funchal owns
a fair Quinta and a considerable estate here.
From a point on the cliffs below the village
the long line of surf-beaten cliffs may be seen
in all their glory. As one looks southward,
the great mass of Pico Ruivo dominates the
scene, its sides scarred with the beginnings of
those ravines which in their full development
lower down cost us so much trouble to cross.
From this pleasant village the traveller may
ride in another three hours to Boa Ventura,
passing on the journey one of those fearful
headlands which I have described.

Where every prospect pleases, where you
may make your choice between beetling crags
and sylvan gorges, and flowery m.eads and sea-
sprayed cliffs, it is difficult to select one spot
on this northern shore as more truly delightful
than another. Yet, if I must make a choice,
I do not hesitate to choose the village of Boa
Ventura, of " Good Fortune," as the very gem.
The hamlet lies some 1400 feet above the sea-
level, on a spur of mountain standing out into
one of the main valleys of the island, perhaps

2 19

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the most glorious of all its valleys. The
church is dedicated to Santa Quiteria, a Portu-
guese virgin and martyr, whose aid may be
invoked against the bite of mad dogs, an inter-
vention of no great value here, as hydrophobia
is unknown in the island ; although from
another point of view this immunity may be
held to be the result of her beneficent influence.
It stands with its surrounding group of closely
packed cottages a few hundred yards from the
extreme point of the ridge, which is occupied
by the churchyard. A pleasant and level path
connects the two.

The Portuguese seem to have, consciously or
unconsciously, a happy knack of selecting a fine
and romantic position for the last resting-place
of their dead. Does not the chief cemetery of
Funchal fill the finest site of the town ? And
the rude forefathers of Boa Ventura sleep amid
a scene of beauty not easily matched. To sit
in the evening hour by the churchyard wall
and watch the shadows creeping upwards from
the already dark valleys towards the reddening
peaks, while far below the Atlantic rollers break
and spirt in spume through the honeycombed
reefs ; to note how the last lingering rays of

220

The North Side

the setting sun illumine the graves of the
unnamed dead ; such is an experience not
readily forgotten.

" Perchance the men who chose this sacred ground,
Set high between the mountains and the sea,
In that last radiance of the sunset found
Some promise of a glory yet to be ;

" Some hope In that last burning sunset kiss

For those who nameless and unhonoured lie j
Some fitting symbol of unearthly bliss
For such poor fragments of humanity."

And it may be that as you stroll back along
the level path — the path by which the villagers
are borne to their long rest — the tower of Santa
Quiteria will ring forth the Angelus, telling
once more, as it has told through the centuries,
its message of peace and consolation.

«' To me, a stranger, of an alien race.

Doubter, yet lover of the ancient ways,

It brought perchance some particle of grace,

Some reflex of the light of other days ;

" It stirred the feelings and it touched the heart j
It told of causes lost and victories won ;
It called up memories of the painter's art,
The Virgin Mother and her wide-eyed Son,

" And of the artist's fancy fairest flower.

Those humble figures of poor human clay,
That stand attentive at the evening hour,
And bow their heads in reverence, and pray.

221

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

" To many a toil-worn worker of the hills

It brought the message that for him was best ;
It shed a bahn to cure his earthly ills ;
It told of present and eternal rest."

From the village of Boa Ventura a path leads
up the valley and over a high mountain-pass,
called the Torrinhas, to the southern side and
Funchal. This path, if in good order, is
perhaps just passable for horses ; if landslips
have occurred to damage it, it may be, as I
once chanced to find it, scarcely passable on
foot. From the village it descends a few
hundred feet to the level of the little river,
which in a more northern land would make an
ideal trout stream. By the side of this it
ascends for some miles, passing gradually from
the cultivated lands to the region of primeval
forest, the enclosing walls of rock becoming
ever grander as we bore deeper into the mass
of the central range. At length we appear to
reach an impasse. The valley at its head
widens into a circular amphitheatre, suggesting
an extinct volcano, without reason, as the
geologists tell us. The scene offers an unsur-
passed combination of the stupendous and the
picturesque. The mountain sides are clothed
with forest, the aboriginal laurel-trees of the

222

The North Side

island, their trunks and the moss-clad rocks
around them affording harbour for a surprising
wealth of fern. Looking upwards through
their branches, we catch glimpses of the crags
and pinnacles above. There is no lack of
water ; the " liquid lapse of murmuring streams"
suggests the reason of this abounding vegetation.
Up one of the slopes our path finds a way of
interminable zigzags till we reach the level of
the pass, nearly five thousand feet above the
sea. A comparatively level stretch bordered
here and there by great smooth rocks of un-
usual form and affording views of the vale
below, which fill us with awe and admiration,
leads to the Torrinhas Pass itself. We hasten
through a narrow opening in the jagged summit,
and a different world lies at our feet. We
are at the head of the greatest valley of the
southern side, the Curral das Freiras, known
to the tourists who visit its lower end from
Funchal as the Grand Curral ; and beyond it
stretches the Southern ocean. The general
aspect of the two sides of the island is almost
startling in its contrasts. Behind us is an
amazing wealth of greenery ; in front the slopes
are almost treeless, and their prevailing tint is

223

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

brown. From the summit of the pass we may
descend by a good road into the Curral, and
ride in five hours to Funchal.

But the enterprising traveller will prefer to
return to Boa Ventura and to continue his
exploration of the north coast, of which the
wildest portion still awaits him. In a few
hours' ride from the fair village, which he will
no doubt have left with regret, he will reach
the little town of S. Vicente, lying at the
narrow mouth of one of the grandest of the
island's valleys. Here, too, a road leads up
the ravine and over a high pass at its head to
the west side of the Grand Curral and Funchal,
one of the finest, some think the very finest,
of the routes across the island. Opposite the
extremely narrow opening in the line of coast-
cliffs through which the river reaches the sea,
on the very beach itself, stands a curious
isolated rock, the interior of which has been
hollowed out to form a chapel which is dedi-
cated to the patron saint of the valley. This
chapel was constructed in the year 1692, and
is used for the celebration of mass on St. John's
Day.

From S. Vicente westward a very remarkable

224

" ,iB»^'sJ>' ^li-^,

ROAD NEAR liOA VENTURA
Frotii a sA^eff/t hy Chevutier

The North Side

path, only passable on foot, has been hewn in
the face of the precipitous cliffs. It leads in
about two hours to the village of Seixal. It is
never more than six feet wide and often much
less, it has no parapet, and the overhanging
rock sometimes makes it impossible for a tall
man to walk upright. Here and there, where
waterfalls descend from the hills above, the
rock is tunnelled to afford protection. Some-
times the path descends to the sea-level, only
to ascend again several hundred feet. And
always the cliffs are sheer, with the wild sea
breaking at their base. It is not a path suited
to the nervous. Wild gullies, deep gashes
severing the line of cliff and extending far into
the heart of the mountains, are passed on the
way. The deepest and most precipitous is
called, not inappropriately, Ribeiro do Inferno.
The botanist will remark that the moist crannies
in the rock are everywhere filled with splendid
specimens of the sea spleenwort, Asplenium
marinum ; and the cliffs are studded, as else-
where on the north coast, with a species of
houseleek, Sempervivum glandidosum^ varying in
size from that of a small pincushion to that of
the crown of a tall hat, or larger.

225 Q

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

In the pleasing jargon of the botanists the
leaves of this plant are thus described —

" Rhomboidal-spathulate or obovate-ligulate
inconspicuously or irregularly fringed with
short subremote often clavate or capitate sub-
cartilaginous ciliay bright green closely imbricate
in a flat or discoidal sessile radical rosette
lasting till the appearance of the single central
succulent branched flower-stem."

This will enable the reader to picture to
himself its appearance.

At Seixal this unique path comes to an end.
Sheer clifl^s of great height bar all further
passage along the coast, and the traveller bent
on proceeding westward must either take boat,
or ascend to the mountain plateau above. It
is possible so to climb by a very rough path
up the west side of the vale of Seixal, a valley
seldom visited, but almost unrivalled in wealth
of vegetation and wild rocky scenery. Above
this gorge lies a lovely sylvan and ; park-like
tract with scattered timber, across which a
path may be followed to the far-famed water-
falls of Raba^al, whence one of the little ports
on the south coast may be reached.

For the prolonged exploration of the high

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The North Side

land in the centre of the island, and the heads
of the great ravines, the weather in winter is
often unsuitable. But in summer tent life at
this altitude must be very delightful. A de-
scription of its charms may be found in the
late Mr. Wollaston's volume on the insects of
Madeira. Under such agreeable conditions he
pursued his investigations. But from what I
have observed, there are certain races of insects
which may best be studied in the villages.

'.2^

Chapter X.ll-^<iAPRIL
Holy-Days and Holidays

"She (the Roman Catholic Church) may still exist in un-
diminished vigour, when some traveller from New Zealand
shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a
broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."
— Macaulay.

IN this Still Christian country, Holy Week
is not the season of junketing and
holiday-making which it has become in
England. The Portuguese are by no
means inclined to the strict formalism which
distinguishes our neo-Catholics. Lent is
doubtless a season of fasting and renunciation,
though the practice does not appear to be
carried to a very irksome degree. But the last
days of the Holy Week are universally observed
with a rigour and solemnity befitting their as-
sociations. The outward sign which strikes
the stranger most forcibly is an all-pervading
silence. From Thursday to Saturday all sounds

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Holy -Days and Holidays

are hushed ; not a bell rings in church or
house ; the bells are removed from the very
oxen in the street. In a city of bells, religious
and secular, among a people which loves and
makes noise for its own sake, this has a very
solemn and insistent effect. All self-respecting
persons are clothed in black, and to the churches
unending services and many symbolical repre-
sentations of the events of the Passion attract
throngs of sombre worshippers. Flags are at
half-mast, and the general aspect is the very
fitting one of a city mourning for her mighty
dead.

Yet even during those solemn hours, when
on shore all human noise is stilled, when even
the roulette at the Casino ceases from spinning,
and the decorously impious hide themselves in
their houses and play bridge, the traffic of
steamers to and from the port knows no
cessation. The sanctity of the mail-service
surpasses the sanctity of the Church ; and even
the grimy tramp disdains to hush her hideous
hooter. Why is the sea thus relieved from the
conventions of the land ? Why, when the city
is actually or officially on its knees in prayer,
does Mammon, naked and unashamed, rule the

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

waves ? To the faithful such blatant evidence
of the triumph of the world must indeed be a
stumbling-block and an offence.

By a convenient if somewhat illogical ar-
rangement, the week of the Passion ends at
the moment of noon on Saturday. The op-
pressive silence changes suddenly to exuberant
noise. The Alleluia is sung in the cathedral ;
rockets and shells are discharged ; and the
ringing of bells announces that the long period
of mourning is over, and that the joyful cele-
brations of Easter have commenced. The
startling transition has that happy touch of
dramatic effect in which the Roman Church
excels. If the hour does not quite agree with
the details of the gospel story, it is only one
more instance of her perspicacity in adapting
her service to human needs.

A great feature of the religious life of this as
of other Catholic countries is the procession.
Processions take place at all seasons, but they
are especially used to relieve the monotony of
Lent. On March 25, the feast of Our Lady,
a day we unfortunately associate with the
disagreeable incidents of rent and unpaid bills,
takes place one of the most attractive of these

230

Holy-Days and Holidays

functions, the procession of Our Lady of
Lourdes. It starts from a chapel adjoining the
suburban residence of the Bishop, and takes a
circuitous route through the streets of the city
and back again. It is composed for the most
part of children — the little girls clothed in
simple gowns of a violet hue, or of white, with
chaplets of natural flowers. Some have wings
of gauze, and represent angels. Elder girls,
clothed in white as nuns, chant hymns at
intervals. Few banners are borne in this pro-
cession, the central feature being an image of
the Virgin. Behind the long line of children
come acolytes in robes of light blue and black,
bearing candles ; then members of religious
confraternities, gentlemen of the place ; and
finally, with a bodyguard of stalwart canons, the
bowed figure of the good old Bishop in his
vestments. The whole affair is a model of
order, simplicity, and good taste, without a
single jarring note.

Pleasant as is the procession itself, a stranger
may perhaps be even more impressed by the
aspect and behaviour of the crowds which
assemble to see it. The line of route is
massed with townspeople in gay clothes, and

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

country-folk in their best, the women still for
the most part wearing bright shawls, their
heads in kerchiefs of different colours, each
colour representing to the initiated the parish
of their residence. Every one is tidy and to all
appearance clean ; no one wears the shabby
cast-off clothing of a superior class, and the
sunny street presents a brilliant kaleidoscope
of colour which is quite astonishing to those
accustomed to the squalid aspect of our dingy
Northern crowds. And the orderly demeanour
of the throng is even more surprising. No
police or soldiers are required to keep the line,
the people keep it for themselves. I chanced
this year to be placed in a garden fronting a
spot where two roads met and a sharp corner
was turned by the procession — a point where
there was naturally some extra pressure of
spectators. One would have expected that
two or three mounted men would have been
necessary to control the crowd ; yet not a
policeman was to be seen, and there was no
trouble whatever in keeping the road open.
And even when the procession had passed, and
a surging mass of humanity filled the roadway,
there was no rough horseplay and no undue

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Holy-Days and Holidays

pushing or scrambling. It was a fine example
of give-and-take and self-control.

These processions, and the festas of their
parochial churches, are almost the only public
amusements of the populace. They never lose
their attraction. On every such occasion
thousands of country-folk tramp many miles to
the scene — romeiros (literally " pilgrims to
Rome ") they call themselves. And the Church
in no way frowns on a combination of innocent
amusement with religious exercise. The ordi-
nary adjuncts of a fair are present. Cheapjacks
ply their trade, lottery-mongers conduct raffles
for dolls and other toys, vendors of fruit and
sweatmeats line the walls. The holy-day and
the holiday are still one.

I append to this chapter a list of the Pro-
cessions of Funchal, with which my friend
Canon Homem de Gouvea, of the cathedral,
has been good enough to furnish me. As far
as I am aware, this information is not elsewhere
to be found in print.

In the course of the year each important
parish has its own procession. That of our
parish, St. Martinho, takes place on Palm
Sunday, and traverses the main roads of the

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

district. It is headed by a large banner with
the curious inscription " S.P.Q.R." There are
life-size images of Christ in his agony, and of
the Virgin with a dagger in her heart ; and a
number of tiny children with angels' wings.
Many of the poor little things grow tired with
their long tramp, and are carried sleeping by
their fathers. A feature of this as of some
other processions is a band of female penitents
who, closely veiled in black and bare-footed,
walk the stony paths in much discomfort.
The cortege reaches the steep road at the back
of our house at nightfall, the candles and
lanterns are lighted, and to the music of a
monotonous dirge the long line of lights slowly
ascends the hill, affording a very impressive
spectacle.

In this sympathy, in the fullest sense, of
Church and people, there is much to give us
" emancipated " Northerners pause. To what
are we tending with our new-born rejection
of ancient conventions, our overthrow of long-
accepted ethical standards, our zeal for progress
progressing we know not whither ? Politically,
we appear to be travelling as fast as we may to
a State-organization of the whole community

234

Hohj-Days and Holidays

and Its affairs, to the crushing in civil life of
the individual intellect and resource and spirit
as they are crushed in armies ; and we are
shouting ourselves hoarse in honour of our new
deity the State — the State which is to provide
us with everything we most want, whether it
be a protected industry, an old-age pension, or
a living wage. Externally we are engaged in a
fierce and exhausting competition of armament
with a nation somewhat further advanced in
this business of State organization than our-
selves. I once saw a game of golf played in an
out-of-the-way part of Africa, when the players
were armed with revolvers and the caddies
carried rifles. "With the chance of an enemy
lurking in every bunker, the eye was apt to
wander from the ball. Not dissimilar appear
to be the conditions of our national existence.
And we may judge how serious is the outlook
when the most trusted of our statesmen, a man
of practical hard sense, litde given to imagi-
native flights, does not hesitate to speak of the
ever-increasing expenditure on armaments as
likely to submerge our civiHzation.

And as regards our social future the hand-
writing on the wall is plain for us to read.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Our shrinking from discomfort, our fear of
pain and trouble, already point to the dwindling,
perhaps the extinction of our race. With so
many of our women determined to avoid the
trials of motherhood, of our men disinclined to
be the fathers of sons for whom they cannot
"adequately provide," we may not hope to
retain permanently our place among the peoples
of the earth.

And here in the Church founded on a rock,
the Church which has withstood many assaults,
and weathered many storms, and the gates of
hell have not prevailed against her, — we may
see the antithesis to the stream of tendencies
on which we are drifting. Now as ever she
stands in the main for peace against the sword,
for the lowly against the mighty, for the raian
against the State. "A tithe of your goods
you shall give to the poor." Yes, but you
shall keep the other nine-tenths yourself And
perhaps the future may yet be hers ; for she
sets her face sternly and successfully against
any artificial limitation of the population, and
her children will in due time outnumber and
overwhelm the dwindling remnants of those
who ignore her teaching on this point. While

236

Holy-Days and Holidays

the Northern peoples are deliberately destroying
the conditions which have made them dominant,
it may be that the future of the Western world
lies in the hands of the virile and reproductive
lower orders of the Latin races.

Here it would indeed seem that religion is still
religion, an end in itself, the greatest end. With
us it appears to be materializing and rationaliz-
ing itself into mere philanthropy ; the Churches
to be in haste to become huge Charity Organiza-
tion Societies, and to compete for public favour
and support on that ground. This is quite in
accordance with what we consider our practical
good sense. If a Bishop spends the whole of
his considerable income, and something over,
in going about in motor-cars and doing good,
we are disposed to judge the measure of his
success by the actual tangible and weighable
amount of "pfood" that he can be shown to
have done. And in private life you may meet
people who, believing themselves to be religious
enthusiasts, will recommend their particular
form of faith to you on the ground that it
makes them cleaner, or fatter, or richer, or
healthier, or something quite non-religious.
So strong is the desire to establish " religion "

237

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

firmly on a commercial basis, to be judged
by results, as a sound dividend-paying con-
cern.

Such considerations, and others, may lead
some of us, trained in the traditional horror of
the Scarlet Woman, to ask ourselves whether
in truth the Roman Catholic Church is always
in the wrong ; whether she is really, as our
forbears honestly believed, the enemy of the
human race. She is, as I have suggested, the
main safeguard of the race's future among
the peoples that call her mother. And she is
perhaps the chief sanctuary in Europe of that
spiritual side of human nature, which in the
intoxication of our material progress we are
more and more tending to ignore. Many who
have no desire to subscribe to her doctrines,
who distrust her dominance, may yet view not
without sympathy the greatness of her ideals,
the coherence of her ethical system, the whole-
hearted devotion of her servants, her practical
wisdom in dealing with human weakness. To
her aesthetic charm, to the splendour of her
world-wide pretensions, to the glamour of her
hoary antiquity, few can be wholly insensible ;
is she not the one unbroken link connecting

238

Holy-Days and Holidays

the civilization of the ancient world and our
own ? Perhaps, to compare small with great,
there are some who feel to-day as did Michael
Angelo in his patriarchal age, when he had
outlived the exuberant and -imaginative spirit
of the Renaissance, and was confronted with
the "frozen orthodoxy" of the Catholic
reaction. "And now he began to feel the
soothing influence which since that time the
Roman Church has often exerted over spirits
too noble to be its subjects, yet brought within
the neighbourhood of its action ; consoled and
tranquillized, as a traveller might be, resting
for one evening in a strange city, by its stately
aspect and the sentiment of its many fortunes,
just because with those fortunes he has nothing
to do." *

Truly the earth is full of trouble. The
nations rage furiously together and the peoples
imagine a vain thing. In this secluded isle we
get our newspapers in a lump once a week.
This serves to heighten the effect of their
terrific contents. At home the perusal of
different editions hour by hour produces a
comparatively listless frame of mind ; interest

* Pater, " the Renaissance."
239

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is staled by custom. Here six days of calm,
broken only by inadequate press telegrams
from Lisbon, which are generally more con-
cerned with the numbers drawn in the State
lottery, and such matters of urgent local in-
terest, than with the politics of Europe, are
succeeded by a day of shock. Some persons
of well-regulated mind are able to read their
papers in due succession, one a day, and so
to take their daily dose of news like civilized
folk. The more usual practice is to swallow
the whole lot — to sup full of horrors — within
an hour or two of the arrival of the mail.
This spring we have scarcely recovered from
the threat of Armageddon in Eastern Europe
when we are confronted with the naval crisis,
and our flesh is made to creep more than ever.
The change which has come over the spirit
and temper of our people in the last few years
is extraordinary. Mr. Rudyard Kipling was
perhaps not alone in deprecating the swagger
and bounce of the Jubilee period, but his
magnificent " Recessional " was the only urgent
note of warning. Throughout history such
insolence (in the Greek sense) has ever pro-
voked a retribution. We paid our penalty in

240

Holy-Days and Holidays

Natal, but the force of the reaction is not yet
spent. The very men who a decade or two
ago were prating of the irresistible force wielded
by the mightiest empire the world had ever
seen, are to-day groaning over our commercial
and martial decadence, and prophesying our
capitulation to the first comer. But it is a
less unpleasant and sa^er mood than the other.
And perhaps it is helping to evolve a more
practical turn of mind. An excellent British
boy was asked the other day why the sun
never set upon the British flag. He replied,
" Because it is usual to haul it down before
sunset." And it may not after all be neces-
sary for England to trust to the consideration
advanced by my late gardener, Manoel, that
Portugal is her friend.

Portugal herself, not to be behindhand in
the race of sensation, is at the beginning of
April in the throes of a ministerial crisis, and
the political world is seething with excitement.
It appears that an internal loan has recently
been raised, and that the Minister of Finance's
accounts;in connection with it have not given
general satisfaction. The Opposition has as-
serted that about twenty per cent, of it has

241 R

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

disappeared, and has demanded an inquiry.
Wild scenes have taken place in the Cortes,
a duel or two has been fought without any-
one being a penny the worse, and, finally, the
ministry has resigned.

The mother of Parliaments would hardly
recognize some of her children. In her com-
paratively serene atmosphere it is inconceivable
that the fall of a Government should be
brought about by the persistent banging of
desks by the Opposition. But other countries,
other manners. And so the rotatory process
is once more at work ; and behind all is
the republican party, probably gathering fresh
strength as the discredit of the monarchists
deepens.

It is pleasant to turn from these jarring
sounds of civil discord and international rivalry,
*' the dreadful note of preparation," and to
contemplate with due sympathy what is one of
the common objects of the streets of Funchal,
perhaps especially at this season. Portuguese
women may seldom be beautiful according to
our standards, though often endowed with very
fine dark eyes, but they evidently possess a
" sweete attractive kinde of grace." For in the

242

Holy "Days and Holidays

spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of standing in the street beneath the
window of his lady-love. The musical serenade
has gone out of fashion, which is a pity ; and
the lover sometimes cuts, it must be owned,
a rather ridiculous figure kicking his heels
in front of closed shutters, through which the
lady, unseen herself, is probably inspecting
him. As the shades of evening descend the
fair often becomes more kind ; the shutters are
thrown back and half a female form protrudes
from the window. The lover stands im-
mediately below with his head turned upwards
at what must be a very uncomfortable angle,
and courtship proceeds. This sort of thing may
go on for an indefinite period. In the case of
a great, and very coy, heiress, it is said to have
lasted five hours a day for five years. Such love-
making must be a monotonous, even if a very
earnest, business. Of

" The love that's born of laughter,

The love that's fed on tears ;
The cahn that reigncth after

A storm of hopes and fears :
Eyes mutual longings darting.

And linked hands that burn ;
The ' little death ' of parting.

The rapture of return j"

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

— of such accessories of courtship these young
people can know little. The man in the street
commonly has an air of being rather bored ;
but this may be " manners," and a mask to
conceal the fierce tumult of his southern blood.
When the affair has been officially brought to
the notice of the lady's parents by some friend
of the gentleman's family, and terms have been
satisfactorily arranged, the lover is at length
admitted to the house, an engagement is ratified,
and marriage follows at no distant date. But
here as elsewhere, following the American and
English mode, the manners and customs of the
jeune fille are becoming more free and easy, and
probably before long the fashion of craning
necks at windows will be a thing of the past.
No doubt the ladies formerly led very secluded
lives ; there is an old Portuguese saying that a
woman should only leave home three times in
her life — to be christened, to be married, and to
be buried. If this is the correct form of it, the
Portuguese would seem to own some affinity
to the Irish.

Although the young lover does not make
music to soften his lady's heart, the machete^
a small guitar of four strings peculiar to the

244

Holy-Days and Holidays

island, is often heard in the streets. In the
country peasants frequently beguile the tedium
of a journey with its strains ; and on holidays
bands of men, with perhaps half a dozen instru-
ments and accompanied by an admiring throng,
walking in step to the music, may often be met
with. In skilled hands the machete is capable
of much ; the peasants as a rule confine them-
selves to striking an unending succession of
simple chords, such as the following : —

:-J^==]Hi=ft==M7=rmqr=l^=?=l^=l^

It is " a measure full of state and ancientry,"
and the effect, if monotonous, is not un-
pleasant.

THE PROCESSIONS OF FUNCHAL

Procession of the Ashes. — So called because it
takes place on Ash Wednesday. It is promoted
by the third order of S. Francis, at the begin-
ning of Lent, as a stimulant to penitence, the
principal penitent saints of the Catholic Church

245

Leaves from a lladeira Garden

being carried on biers. Not only the brothers
of the order take part in it, but many penitents
and devotees. At present the procession takes
place at the village of Camara de Lobos. It
was formerly celebrated with great zeal at
Funchal. Among the images carried are those
of Our Lord on the way to Calvary, of
S. Roque, Sta. Lucia, Sta. Bona, S. Antonio
de Noto,* S. Louis of France, S. Henrique
de Dacia, and Sta. Izabel, Queen of Portugal.

Procession " dos Passos,' of the way to Cahary. —
This takes place on the Fourth Sunday in Lent,
to commemorate the raising of the Cross. It
is promoted by the Fraternity " do Senhor dos
Passos," established at the Collegio Church.
The fine images of Our Lord on the way to
Calvary and of Our Lady of Solitude are
carried. The civil, military, and ecclesiastical
authorities, with the clergy, penitents, devotees,
and members of the confraternity take part in
the procession. A similar procession takes place
at S. Roque, S. Antonio, S. Martinho, Camara de

* Santo Antonio de Noto is a black, and perhaps his image is
a survival of the times when there were negro slaves in whom
(levotion might be stimulated by the representation of a saint of
their own colour.

246

Holy-Days and Holidays

Lobos, Ponta do Sol, S. Cruz, and other parishes
of the Island.

Procession of the Triumph. — To commemorate
the Passion. It takes place on the fifth Sunday
in Lent. Promoted by the Carmo Brotherhood,
established at the church of that name. The
Images carried are those of Christ in the garden,
Christ being scourged, " Ecce Homo," Christ
carrying the Cross, Christ Crucified, the dead
Christ, and Our Lady of Solitude. It starts
from the Carmo Church, and the various
confraternities, devotees, and the clergy take
part in it.

Procession of the Burial. — On Good Friday ;
it commemorates the burial of Our Lord. The
Cathedral authorities, the Bishop presiding,
various fraternities, and the faithful in great
numbers take part. It starts from the
Cathedral.

Procession of the Resurrection. — From the
Cathedral on Easter Sunday at nine a.m. In
memory of the Resurrection of the Divine
Master. The ecclesiastical, civil, and military
authorities take part.

Procession of Lourdes. — On March 25 ; to
commemorate the appearance of the Blessed

247

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Virgin to Bemadette Soubirous in 1858. Fine
banners and a beautiful statue appear in this
procession. As well as the clergy and the con-
fraternities, the children of the Catholic schools
take part. It starts from the Chapel of the
Penha.

Procession of the Penha de Franca. — On the
first Sunday in May ; in memory of the ap-
paritions of Our Lady at Penha de Franca.
The clergy, fraternities, and faithful take part.
Starts from the Chapel of Penha de Franca.

May-day Procession. — In honour of S. Thiago
Minor (St. James the Less), in fulfilment of a
vow made by the Camara and the authorities of
the town on the occasion of the plague which
ravaged Madeira in 1523. It proceeds from
the Cathedral to the Soccorro Church and back.
In it take part the ecclesiastical, civil, and mili-
tary authorities, with the fraternities, each person
carrying a wreath of natural flowers.

St. James the Less is the patron saint of the
City of Funchal. He was selected by lot from
among the twelve apostles, St. John the Baptist,
Our Lady, and her Son, on the occasion of the
above-mentioned pestilence.

Fifteen years later another pestilence raged,

248

Holy-Days and Holidays

and a procession took place at the saint's altar
at the Soccorro Church, where the Chief Officer
of Health addressed him this, " Sir, until now,
I have guarded this city as well as 1 could ; I
can do no more. Here, take this wand of
office, and be you our Officer of Health."
He threw his wand on to the steps of the
altar ; and so the plague was stayed.

Procession of Corpus Christi. — Ordered by the
laws of the realm in commemoration of the In-
stitution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and
carried out at the public expense. In it take
part the ecclesiastical, civil, and military autho-
rities, all the fraternities of the Holy Sacrament,
all the clergy, and all the military contingent
available.

Procession of the Protection of Our Lady of the
Mount. — In fulfilment of a vow of the Bishop
and Chapter on the occasion of a flood in
1803, which destroyed more than five hundred
persons, completely inundating the greater part
of the City of Funchal, and carrying many
houses into the sea. It is celebrated on the
first Sunday after October 9 ; the clergy and
fraternities and a great concourse of people
take part in it.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

Procession of the Carmo. — Celebrated on
July 1 6, at the expense of the Carmo con-
fraternity. It starts from the Carmo Church.
Various fraternities of Our Lady take part.

250

Chapter XUl—zAPRIL

Mountains and Islands

" Laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so
green, so full of goodly prospect." — Milton, " Of Education**

THE lengthening of the days, and
the greater likelihood of settled
weather are a temptation to " step
a little aside from the noisy crowd
and the incumbering hurry of the world," and
to seek the majestic solitude of the hills. To
do so does not necessitate any so elaborate or
prolonged a journey as the exploration of the
north side of the island. In the course of a
day's excursion from Funchal some of the
finest mountain scenery in Madeira may be
visited without undue exertion. If these
spacious moorlands and rocky crags are less
characteristic and less lovely than the wooded
valleys of the north, they have a charm, a
sense of freedom, and a breeziness which are
their own.

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Leaves from a Madeira Garden

The best known and perhaps the oftenest
attempted excursion from Funchal is to the
Grand Curral, called by the Portuguese Curral
das Freiras, " the Nuns' Fold," from the
Convent of Santa Clara having formerly
possessed considerable property in it. It is
a deep valley, of more or less circular shape,
almost in the centre of the island, and bounded
on its northern curve by the highest peaks.
At its lovrer end it contracts to a gorge too
narrow to admit of a road. It is therefore
necessary to ascend the enclosing hills on one
side or the other, east or west, to obtain a view
of the valley. Neither excursion conducts the
traveller to any great height, the former to an
altitude of about 3300 feet, the latter to about
4400 feet. The eastern side being the nearer
to Funchal is more often visited. It is perhaps
the pleasanter ride, but the western side affords
the finer viev/. From either point one looks
down into the great basin, with its strip of
cultivation and its little church standing on its
floor 2000 feet above the sea ; the encircling
mountains scarred with fissures from base to
summit, and culminating on all sides in towers
and pinnacles of rock. The form of the valley

252

Moitntains and Islands

suggests to the untrained eye an extinct volcano
as do other Madeira valleys, a suggestion
fortified in the Grand Curral by the bareness
of most of the mountain sides ; but the
geologists tell us that it is the result of denuda-
tion rather than of volcanic action. Perhaps
the volcanos began its construction, and
denudation contributed its present form.

But the easiest way of reaching the hill
country is by means of the Mount Railway,
which takes you 2000 feet up, into the cooler
air, without trouble. Hence you may take a
hundred walks, to little peaks and minor
valleys. The country is wcU-wooded, every
point has its own view, and ther^ are no
noxious beasts. Chapter Ixxii., "Concerning
Snakes," of the " Natural History of Iceland,"
which chapter Dr. Johnson boasted he knew
by heart, applies here. " There are no snakes
to be met with throughout the whole island."
If you are more ambitious, you may ascend from
the Mount by what I have already described as
the main road to the north side. When you
emerge from the pine woods on to the moor-
land you will see the track ahead of you tor
miles, skirting ridge after ridge, and ever

253

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

ascending. Not long since it was a mere
horse-path, but it is gradually being paved, and
is attaining to the dignity of a road. To the
contemplative mind it will suggest something
of the past history of the island. Doubtless
the early settlers would not be long before they
strove to cross the mountains, and it is not
improbable that this was the route they would
take, and that to-day we are treading in their
footsteps.

In his great prose epic, " The Old Road,"
Mr, Hilaire Belloc has pointed out to us the
true significance of The Road ; " the most im-
perative and the first of our necessities." And
not only is it the most ancient of the works of
man ; it is perhaps the longest to endure.
Considering the length of the Roman occupa-
tion of Britain, more than twice that of our
rule in India, and the solidity of Roman build-
ing, it is surprising that we have not more
remains of Roman work than we have. A few
villas, a few buried towns, a bath or two, the
northern wall, — there is not much else, except
the roads, and they are everywhere. You may
meet with forgotten traces of them in remote
fields and unfrequented woods ; and many of

254

Mountains and Islands

the highways of our own day follow their
course, and are laid on their very foundations.
The genesis of the road, not the great trunk-
roads deliberately made for military or trade
purposes, but of the ordinary highways, takes
us back to the very beginning of things. The
first man took the easiest route, the line of
least resistance, skirting the hills or descending
into the vales as appeared to him least trouble-
some ; his successor followed in his footsteps,
and so the road was made. Man and beast
conspired to give it its permanent direction ;
succeeding generations spent their labour in
strengthening its foundations, improving its
surface, and bridging the obstacles in its course.
It was once my lot to take an ox-waggon
through an out-of-the-way corner of Matabclc-
land. Probably no white man had ever ex-
plored the district, and of course there was
no road. So we had to make one. M}'
"mate" and I rode ahead with axes ready to
cut down obnoxious trees, and the waggon
drawn by eighteen oxen came lumbering after,
the whole "outfit" crashing over minor shrubs
and leaving an obvious trail behind. When
we came to a river we had to make a " drift,"

■03

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

or ford, by shovelling down the steep banks on
either side to make the water shallow, and
provide a means of descent and ascent, a some-
what lengthy job. So we made a road. And
the next man who passed that way no doubt
followed in our tracks ; why should he trouble
to cut fresh trees and make fresh drifts } And
with each succeeding traveller the road became
better defined. I should not be surprised to
hear that it is now frequented by motor-cars.

To return to our Madeira road. If you
follow its course across the moorland, and turn
westv7ards into a mountain track a little short
of the top of the pass, you will not be long in
reaching a plateau of considerable extent on
which stands an unused observatory. Here if
you are riding you will leave your horse, and
an easy climb will take you in an hour, first
through some giant bilberry bushes, and then
up a stony slope to the summit of Pico Arriero.
This point is 5893 feet above sea-level, and
considered the second highest in the island.
The view is very fine ; both the northern and
the southern seas are spread before you and all
around are jagged peaks, some of them quite
inaccessible. You are at the head of the Grand

256

Mountains and Islands

Curral on the one side, though little of it can
be seen for an intervening peak ; on the other
you may peer over a giant precipice into the
awful depths of the Metade valley, not so
supremely lovely as when seen from below,
but full of grandeur and mystery. No general
survey of the mountain scenery can be so easily
and satisfactorily obtained as this.

It frequently happens that while a thin belt
of clouds hangs round the mountains and over
the sea at an elevation of three or four thousand
feet, the peaks themselves stand clear above it.

" As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, —
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

And then perchance the spectator may behold
a wonderful sight ; gazing out to sea, as far as
the eye can reach, he may look down upon the
sunlit upper surface of the cloud-belt, an ocean
of fleecy brilliance. Such a glorious spectacle
is no mean compensation for the loss of a view
of the lower hills and the coast.

Few Englishmen are now found to confess
agreement with Lord Chesterfield that "all
those country sports, as they are called, are the

257 s

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

effects of the ignorance and idleness of country
esquires, who do not know what to do with
their time, but people of sense and knowledge
never give in to those illiberal amusements."
The poor country esquire is now constrained to
let his sporting rights to " people of sense and
knowledge" — great lawyers, "captains of in-
dustry," and even distinguished men of letters.
And however much an Englishman may delight
in these mountain solitudes, however highly he
may appreciate the contrast of the stern rocks
above and the sylvan shades below, he will
generally regret the absence of something to kill.
The uninhabited islands, the Desertas, which
are such a prominent object in the view from
Funchal and the hills above it, are free from
this reproach. They contain a race of wild
goats, descendants, it is said, of domestic goats
placed on them by Columbus. Columbus is,
of course, the magnet to which local traditions
attach themselves, like Homer in ancient
Greece, and Jowett in modern Oxford. These
goats are fine big fellows, carrying grand heads,
and often nearly black in colour. The islands
are private property and the shooting is pre-
served, a fairly easy matter considering the

=58

Mountains and Islands

difficulty of access to them. It is a journey of
some three hours in a steam-launch from Fun-
chal to the usual landing-place, and if there is
much surf, landing there is by no means a
certainty at the end of it, and it may be neces-
sary to scramble ashore at the foot of some
inhospitable cliff, and make one's way up as
best one can. The islands have very little
vegetation and less fresh water, but goats arc
not very particular. The scenery has a very
weird, unfinished appearance, suggesting a pic-
ture of the world after the subsidence of the
Deluge. The usual method of shooting is to
take one's stand on the narrow plateau at the
top of the island, almost iioo feet above the
sea-level, and to shoot down at the goats which
are driven along the rocks almost perpen-
dicularly below — not a very easy kind of
shootino; for those unaccustomed to it.

The caves of the larger island are inhabited
by a species of seal (Monac/ius albiventer)^ the
only mammal, with the exception of two species
of bat, indigenous to the Madeiras. Mr.
Yate Johnson states that the caves they haunt
have their mouths under water, and can only
be approached by diving. When the fishermen,

259

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

who regard the seals as enemies of their nets,
and wage war upon them, enter the caves, they
find the seals stretched asleep on the floor, and
he appropriately quotes Virgil —

" Sternunt se somno diversae in Htore phocae."

Sometimes a seal is captured alive. A year
or two ago one was offered for sale in Funchal.
It was purchased and placed in a pond in a
garden some four hundred feet above the sea.
It speedily became very tame, and would take
its food from the hands of the young ladies of
the house. But it sighed (if seals sigh) for the
freedom of its native Atlantic, and the comfort-
able cave in the Desertas wherein to repose,
perhaps for the society of its kind. And one
night it made a dash for liberty. It was un-
aware of the uses of roads, or it might have
frightened the late-returning roysterer out of
his remaining senses. It took the right direct-
tion, but alas ! it fell over a cliff, and through
a pergola into a peasant's garden. It must
have astonished the good man in the morning ;
truly a strange animal to have fallen from the
clouds. It was brought back to its pond, but its
plea for liberty was not in vain ; and shortly

260

Mountains and Islands

after a British admiral undertook to return it
to the sea in the neighbourhood of the Desertas,
where we may hope it found its mate still
faithful to its memory, and lives happy ever
after.

261

Chapter XIY—^^PRIL

The Garden tn its Glory

"When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything."

Shakespeare. Sonnets.

THE Madeira garden in April exhibits
at once a high midsummer pomp,
and the exuberant if delicate fresh-
ness of spring. Most of the stan-
dard garden flowers, however manfully they
have striven to shed glory on the winter
months, are greeting April with a redoubled
show of vigour. The garden beds are a mass
of brilliant colour — salvias, petunias, stocks,
snapdragons, geraniums, pelargoniums, and a
hundred others are in full bloom. And to the
gardener it is a joy to see his children so strong
and healthy and happy.

" For 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes."

Various kinds of mesembryanthetnum are flower-

262

The Garden in its Glovij

ing. Their artificial-looking blooms, suggest-
ing straw as their material, are of diverse
hues ; one of a brilliant magenta almost hurts
the eye, so strong is its metallic lustre. An
extensive tract among palms and shrubs we
have planted with a small and simple red pelar-
gonium. This in the freshness of its foliage
and the profusion of its pretty little blossom
makes a very attractive carpet. Another useful
plant for the same purpose is a small-growing
mauve lantana^ which flowers throughout the
winter and the spring. And heliotrope, if it
likes its situation, above all if It is permitted
to hang over a wall in full sun, will grow to a
.great size, and exhibit a surprisingly lovely
mass of sweet-scented blossom.

Lilies of many kinds are coming up, though
May is perhaps the month of their pre-emi-
nence. But a beautiful speckled amaryllis, of
which we imported a few bulbs some years
ago, has multiplied Itself a hundred-fold, and
has chosen April as its flowering season.
Azaleas flower earlier if planted out, but they
do not do so well as those in pots. Some of
Messrs. Veitch's red varieties, double and
single, are now making a very fine show. It

263

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

is always a matter of doubt at what season a
new importation will flower or fruit in this
climate. The absence of well-defined seasons
causes many newly introduced plants to lose
their heads, and it may be years before
they settle down to a regular life. Some
time ago a very learned horticulturist im-
ported a number of gooseberry bushes, and
their first crop was produced in the month
of February. The grower sent a basket to
Covent Garden, and received in reply a tele-
gram asking him to send more, as they had
fetched a high price. Our cultivator hugged
to himself visions of an easy fortune ; London's
welcome to gooseberries in February would no
doubt continue to be a warm one, the only
trouble was to grow enough. But he reckoned
without his bushes ; the following year they
produced their fruit in May, when it did not
pay for the carriage, and the year after in July,
when it was valueless. Yet perhaps a gardener
with ample leisure and some ingenuity would
discover how to bend the seasons to his will.
Something remains to be essayed in this direc-
tion, as in many others here.

In a sense we have no spring ; we have no

264

The Garden in its Glorij

winter to make a true spring possible. For
that splendid awakening from a long sleep we
must go north — to England It may be In late
April or early May ; better still perhaps to
Norway In early June. We have a semblance
of it In the upland gardens, where daffodils and
anemones and violets rival or surpass their
English brethren, and the leafless branches
of the magnolias are smothered in delicate
blossoms. But In the lowlands spring smiles
perennial — wherefore It Is not spring.

" Hie ver assiduum, atque alienis raensibus aestas,"

if It be permissible to disregard the parlia-
mentary maxim, " Don't quote Latin," a tongue
no longer generally understanded of the
members. We miss that peculiar freshness
of the spring-flowering shrubs, the sudden
burst of colour in the rock-garden, the rainbow
tints of the spring bulbs. Even tulips are
implacable. Such spring flowers as we have,
if they have not bloomed at Intervals during
the winter months, lack the foil which the still
wintry aspect of the surrounding vegetation
supplies at home. Nor does the countryside
show anything to approach that glorious wealth

265

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

of wild flowers which in Alpine countries suc-
ceeds the melting of the snow, when all the
little becks are coming down in flood, and the
snow still lingers in patches among the topmost
fir-trees. One spring delight we may indeed
enjoy ; the flowering of some of the fruit trees,
especially the peach, is magnificent. They have
had the good sense to retain their due seasons
of flowers and fruit.

Roses we have had always with us, but since
December not in such a glorious profusion as
now. An arch clothed with Marechal Niel,
hano-in^ its delicate blooms in hundreds is a
very beautiful sight. "William Allen Richardson
has risen from a well-earned repose to cover a
long pergola with buds of a richer and deeper
hue. The single white le-vigata is sprinkling
our fences with discs of snow-white purity ;
Reine Marie Henriette queens it among her
rivals ; in velvety richness Bardou Job asserts
an unquestioned pre-eminence. April is here
certainly

" the month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes
And pleasant smells the noses."

Three very beautiful species of Bignonia are

266

WISIAUIA

The Garden in its Glonj

now flowering. The splendid chirere is in
perfection, but not very commonly seen. The
soft yellow Tweediana is everywhere, a blaze of
colour at many a street-corner. If less insistent
in colour than the glorious orange venustiij the
queen of December and January, it may yet in
its great refinement be more pleasing to many
eyes. Purpurea^ a species with mauve flowers of
exquisite refinement, offers a pleasant contrast.

At nightfall these climbers are visited by
flights of the Convolvulus Hawk Moth, which,
poised on fluttering wings, shoot an uncoiled
proboscis inches long into the heart of flower
after flower. I have counted a score of these
interesting insects at work within a few paces.

At this season nothing is more supremely
lovely than the IVistaria, now in the full pride
of its vernal freshness, and endowed with a
notable grace and distinction which are all its
own. Its delicate shading and its variations of
hue in difl^erent lights, make it the despair
of almost all the many artists whose efibrts to
depict it we watch with interest. It has been
freely planted of recent years, and may now be
seen everywhere, with a serene impartiality
hangino: over dull walls in mean streets, and

267

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

clambering over tall magnolia trees in stately
gardens. Perhaps it is most charming when
covering a long railing on a terrace. In such a
situation you may look down upon, or up to,
its dense masses of bloom, as the fancy takes
you. Where with constricting coils it over-
masters a growing tree, there is a note of
cruelty, a shadow of impending doom, a hint
of that desperate struggle for life which fills
with sadness the tropical forest — a struggle in
which at last the destroyed and the destroyer
fall together. The variety alba is remarkable
for the quality of its pure opaque white, but it
fails to wrest the palm of loveliness from its
better-known cousin. Nor does it grow with
such strength and freedom.

Of white blossoms none surpass in delicacy
and grace the hanging bells of the Datura.
Throughout the winter they have appeared
once a month to greet the full moon, but for
the April moon they have reserved their most
liberal profusion. And now they give forth
their most pungent odours — odours almost
overpowering at nightfall, when all the garden
scents are strongest. This habit of flowering
at the full moon appears to be not merely

268

The Garden in its Glory

legendary, but fact ; and the Datura would seem
to be gifted with a feminine capacity for knowing
what becomes her, for she never shows her
beauties to greater advantage than by moonlight.
The rise of the full moon over the Desertas,
with a garden for foreground, and her broad
belt of silvery light upon the sea beyond, Is
indeed a glorious spectacle, perhaps hardly to
be matched elsewhere. And the splendid sky
of the northern hemisphere, " the mild assem-
blage of the starry heavens," is to be seen at its
best in this clear air. The heavenly bodies are
not merely points of light on a flat surface, they
appear almost in perspective ; you feel that
there is space behind them. And the brightness
of the planets is extraordinary. You may make
out Jupiter's moons quite easily with a race-
glass ; some persons of abnormal vision are said
to have seen them with the naked eye. Pro-
bably ordinary people are able to see far more
stars than in England. Moon or no moon, the
hours

" From evensong to daytime
When April melts in Maytime,'

are fairer than the day, however fair. And the
pleasant hour of nightfall lacks in this equable

269

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

climate that dangerous chill which is common
in Mediterranean and African countries. The
twilight is, of course, less prolonged than in
more northern lands, but the night comes with
less haste than in the tropics ; and even if
clouds have obscured the mountain-tops during
the day, they generally disperse at sunset, and the
line of peaks stands hard and clear against the
sky.

The gardens of Funchal and Its neighbour-
hood are not only, as noted in a former chapter,
all different, they are, in fact, of quite sur-
prisingly various character. Some are remark-
able especially for their collections of trees
and shrubs from many countries and many
climes ; others for the dignity imparted by
the growth of a century ; others again for
the success with which flowering plants
are cultivated, the plants, not only of our
English gardens, but of our stoves and
greenhouses. Some own the special charm
of that heightened repose which the contrast
of busy streets immediately adjacent suggests.
The garden of the Quinta do Deao, "the
Deanery," perhaps bears the palm in more
than one of these qualities. It is situate close

270

The Gaj'den in its Glory

to a busy part of the town, from which it is
secluded by trees and shrubs of considerable
age, and the whole earth has been laid under
contribution to fill it with the wonders of the
vegetable kingdom. Not only the garden-
lover but the trained botanist will find plenty
of food for admiration and study. The
Quinta d'Achada, "the Level," is described
by its name. It is unique among Madeira
gardens in occupying a nearly level tract on
the top of a ridge between two ravines. With
its fine and spacious old house, its magnificent
groups of such shrubs as Strelitzia augusta, here
of a size and perfection not to be met with
elsewhere, its pleasant walks, its wealth of
water, and the view from its terrace over the
eastern half of the city and of the hills above,
it may perhaps strike the visitor as the most
desirable of all the Quintas of Funchal. The
Quinta da Sta. Luzia is noteworthy as the
typical Madeira garden, evolved by the in-
clusion of terraced land on a steep hillside.
This formation has the advantage that from
an upper terrace you may look down upon
roses and other climbers growing on pergolas,
and appreciate the abundance of their bloom,

271

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

often missed when looked at from below.
This garden has long been kept with intelligent
care at the very acme of cultivation, and it is
unrivalled in the richness of its colour, the
luxuriance of its creepers, and the profusion
of its flowering plants of every description. It
enjoys that pleasant element of surprise to
which the terraced formation especially lends
itself. You turn the angle of a wall and find
yourself in a Moorish garden of blue flowers,
with tiled walks and a tiled fountain in the
centre — suggesting memories of Granada ; you
descend a few steps from a croquet-lawn, and
enter a little pleasance with flagged paths and
box-edged beds, bright with flowers of
every hue, recalling with a difi^erence an old-
fashioned English garden of herbaceous flowers.
This Quinta, in this happy month of April,
presents a series of pictures not readily sur-
passed or forgotten. The Quinta do Til has
a charming formal garden, suggesting in its
structure, in the architecture of its buildings,
and in the pleasant plash of its fountains the
gardens of Italy. If one may make believe
that the sea is the Campagna, it is possible,
with no great stretch of the imagination, to

272

The Garden in its Glory

dream that one is standing on the terrace of
a sixteenth-century villa at Frascati. The
Quinta S. Joao is remarkable for the quiet
dignity of the approach from the entrance gate
to the house — a perfectly level and straight
road bordered by palms and tropical trees, a
delicious line of restful greenery. The Quinta
Vigia, possessing in former days perhaps the
most admired and famous of Madeira gardens,
has fallen from its high estate. It was put
for some years to the base uses of a Casino,
and subsequently was purchased by the German
company. Having been first vulgarized, and
since left more or less derelict, it has lost much
of the beauty which it once enjoyed. But its
fine trees still remain, and nothing can impair
the charm of its unique position on a cliff
above the port.

These gardens are but a tithe of those which
surround the town on all sides, gardens greater
and less, gardens English and Portuguese,
gardens of varying purpose and differing ideals.
But the traveller who is fortunate enough to
see them will carry away an impression of horti-
cultural variety and beauty which is probably
unique. And of each it may be emphatically

273 T

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

said that it is the right thing in the right
place. Each is appropriate to the position
it occupies, to the house of which it is the
pleasure ground ; there is no straining after
unnatural effect; no "laying-out" by a land-
scape gardener with theories to illustrate.

With the ancient contest between the
"formalist" and the "naturalist" we have
little concern. The gardens are one and all
of necessity formal ; the retaining wall insures
that. They are also, judged by an English
standard, quite small ; and ground is too valu-
able, and the result too poor, to induce the
wise man to try for large stretches of lawn.
" Naturalization " is quite out of place where
the soil has to be held in terraces. Where it
is appropriate, as on the rocky cliffs of ravines,
which sometimes serve as boundaries of gardens,
it may be eminently successful. In such situa-
tions aloes, and cactus, and "Pride of Madeira,"
and valerian, and heliotrope will clothe the rocks
with wild luxuriance, and fight a desperate
struggle for the mastery. A charming effect of
this sort may be seen at the Quinta Palmeira,
which lies behind the town, bowered in its
ancient trees, some seven hundred feet above

274

The Garden in its Glonj

the sea. Here are a few fine old cypresses, the
general absence of which is a serious loss to the
Madeira landscape. Those who can recall
the dignity which they lend to certain Medi-
terranean cities, such as Constantinople, and
the fine contrast of their dark foliage in a sunny
land will regret that they are not planted on
many of the hills above Funchal.

The pergola, or corridor, is here in its natural
home. It was primarily built in the unso-
phisticated days for one of two purposes, often
combined, either to shade a path from the hot
summer sun, or to afford a support for vines.
It was then constructed of square stone pillars
with an open roof of chestnut wood. It has
unfortunately been found cheaper, and in native
opinion neater, to substitute iron rods for the
stone columns. A more sightly, if rougher,
pergola may be made with the uprights as well
as the roof of chestnut, and with some attention
it will last for many years. There has been a
great vogue of building pergolas in England in
recent years ; but they are, as a rule, a sad
travesty of the real thing. For roses they seem
in the English climate distinctly inferior to
pillars with or without connecting rods or

275

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

chains. If solidly built and densely covered
they suggest a certain dankness. If lightly
built of fir-poles they are often of a flimsy
appearance, and too soon become rickety. In
Madeira, where the chief glory of our gardens
is their wealth of brilliant-flowered climbers, and
shade from the sub-tropical sun is a necessity,
there is no question as to their appropriateness.
And the hilly nature of the country constantly
affbrds an opportunity of seeing them from
above. To present a really fine appearance a
pergola should be solid and long and level, and
be covered from end to end with one kind of
climber. Such a long line of Bignonia venusta
in January, or of Solandra grandiflora in March,
is one of the most charming garden sights
imaginable.

The arrangement of garden paths is a some-
what elaborate and expensive business, but it is
a matter of first cost only. No gravel is to be
had, and the small pebbles from the sea-beach
or river-beds do not bind and are unpleasant to
walk upon. The orthodox plan is to pave the
paths with small flattish cobble-stones which
are rammed into the earth in close proximity,
so as to form a solid pavement. According to

276

TJie Garden in its Glory

ancient custom, patterns are formed of lines
and circles, often of lighter coloured stones. The
effect is pleasing, and a good solid path is the
result. If it is laid in cement it is free from
the trouble of weeds, but wanting the slight
"give" of the natural earth it is not so agree-
able in use. The public roads are paved in
the same way with large cobble-stones, or with
chipped blocks of quarried rock, which, if rough
and unpleasant for wheeled vehicles, are very-
suitable for the sledges drawn by oxen, which
are the staple means of transport in the island.
Hundreds of miles of country roads are so
paved, representing in the aggregate an enormous
amount of labour. With the retaining walls,
the paved paths, and the cemented channels for
irrigation purposes, the building of a garden is
almost as serious a matter as the building of
a house. To these must be added the outer
walls — hedges or fences are not the fashion
except for humble properties — and a solidly
built tank for storing water. It is no wonder
that the mason's trade is a very important one,
and that the craftsmen exhibit a high pitch of
efficiency. The "maestro" is usually a very
intelligent and obliging workman ; his work as

277

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

far as I have had experience of it is well and
solidly done, with no suspicion of scamping.
From the gardener's point of view it is all too
neat ; it lacks that element of roughness which
suits a garden best ; but neatness and symmetry
are Portuguese ideals. The Portuguese house
to be in the mode must have the same number
of windows each side of a central door, and
they must be equi-distant. Bacon's dictum
that houses are built to live in, not to be looked
upon, wherefore let use be preferred before
uniformity, finds no echo here.

This passion for regularity is one of our
minor garden troubles. If you tell your
gardener to plant out fifty stocks in a bed, you
will find them in rows at equal distances, care-
fully measured to an inch. And if he can stick
a fuchsia in between each pair he will be the
better pleased. He will perhaps learn in time
that you like them planted irregularly in
clumps, but the practice will never have his
approval, and he will regard it as only one
more of your incomprehensible fads. One of
our gardeners had an appalling taste for build-
ing wooden supports for climbing roses in
the shape of gigantic chairs, tables, and such

278

The Garden in its Glory

irrelevant articles — a very nightmare of ugliness.
It is cruel work having to order the demolition
of such erections in which the creator takes an
artist's pride.

It may be that a reliance on regularity and
symmetry in decoration is a note of an un-
educated mind or an unimaginative nature.
Certainly to arrange things in pairs, lines, or
rows, or circles calls for less intellectual effort
than arranging them unsymmetrically. It is
easy to set out daffodils in a border ; it calls
for some ingenuity to plant them in the grass
with a natural "drift." Yet it seems also to
be a trait of the educated Latin mind, for
nowhere may it be seen in greater perfection
than in Italian architecture. Perhaps we may
conclude that it has its due place, but that it is
unsuitable to the arrangement of plants in a
garden.

Great as is the garden's April glory, we are
conscious that we are in the habit of leaving it
a little short of perfection. Perfection, we are
told, is to be found in May. After that the
heats of summer prevail, the garden is dried
up, and, until the autumn rains come, no great
wealth of garden flowers is to be looked for,

279

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

however brilliant the wild flowers of the hills.
But May has its charms elsewhere ; even the
London parks are " bad to beat." The truth
is that the perfect gardener should never leave
his garden ; every month, every day has its
due labour and its due reward. But this is an
impossible ideal, and all we can do is to make
the best of what we have and be thankful.

2S0

Chapter XV—z^PRIL
Departure

" Absence makes the heart grow fonder ;
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well ! "

T. H. Bayley.

THE winter has passed without any
of the excursions and alarms which
have provided excitement in former
years. Plagues and rumours of
plagues have been happily absent ; and after
the terrible catastrophe of the Franco regime
last February, Portuguese politics have only
reached the simmering point of a ministerial
crisis, and have left us cold. All fears of
German aggression, whether they were well-
founded or baseless, seem to have been dis-
pelled for the time, and the absurd buildings
which the German company erected stand
tenantless as a monument of folly, or worse.
And it is noticeable that the number of German
visitors is far smaller than in the palmy days
of the German bubble, a fact not regretted by

281

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

the English community, to which the German
language and German middle-class manners are
unpleasant. But every year the German flag
becomes a closer rival of the English on the
vessels calling at the port, a phenomenon
doubtless to be observed elsewhere. And it
is said that the small import commerce of the
island becomes Increasingly German, a result
due to superior methods of business and to
our stupid retention (alone amongst civilized
nations) of a non-decimal system of weights
and measures and currency. The Portuguese
importer knows what a kilo is, and finds it
no great matter to turn a quotation in marks
Into terms of mj, even If the German shipper
does not do it for him ; but a quotation of
so many tons, hundredweights, quarters, and
pounds, at so many pounds, shillings, and
pence per ton, is a problem which no foreigner
can be expected to grapple with. But one who
is not engaged In business will properly speak
with diffidence of such high matters.

If the German visitors diminish, there Is no
doubt that the English increase. The old
days when families came here for the winter
and rented Quintas and set up house are past.

282

Departure

Not only is the servant difficulty acute, but
the world is in too great a hurry nowadays for
such leisurely experiments. But the number
of strangers who pay a visit for a few weeks
or a month or two is ever growing. There
was a period this winter when the hotel accom-
modation was strained to the utmost. The
hordes of strangers which now swarm in the
more attractive parts of the earth's surface, in
their due season, suggest a question as to the
future of these resorts. These crowds tend
to destroy the very amenities of which they
are in search, to reduce everything to the same
dead level of vulgarity. Perhaps in a better
organized world the choicest spots will be
reserved for those who can prove that they
possess an aesthetic faculty of duly appreciating
the beauties of the earth, and an inclination
to treat them reverently. It is sad to think
of the Victoria Falls becoming a second Niagara.
Here the absence of roads, the expense of
travel, and the want of enterprise of the country
folk in the matter of accommodation act as
a natural protection to the mountain fastnesses,
a fact which the lover of primitive nature will
not deplore. And doubtless the " Casino

283

Leaves from a Madeira Gay^den

habit " anchors many to Funchal. Towards
the middle of April the pressure diminishes ;
the homeward-bound steamers are full of
passengers, and for eight or nine months the
land will have rest.

The number of more or less leisured people,
or people who are able to take a holiday of
some weeks at this season, appears to have
increased enormously of recent years. And
the money they spend abroad even for food
alone must represent a serious loss to our
purveyors, perhaps inadequately made up by
the money strangers spend in the British Isles.
When we have a Tariff Reform Government it
might appropriately ordain that every British
subject temporarily absenting himself from
British soil should be required to procure a
permit, costing, say, a pound sterling for each
week. This would make up to the country
what it loses by his absence ; It would enable
the tourist to feel that he was leaving his
country for his country's good ; it would
produce a considerable revenue, and tend
at the same time, with that happy double-
barrelled effect of protective measures, to
protect the English hotel industry — and, it must

284

Departure

unfortunately be added, the German waiters.
But it would then be not unreasonable to put
an import tax on such introductions. And re-
ciprocal arrangements might be entered into
with the colonies, and help to promote mutual
knowledge among citizens of the Empire. It
is a beautiful idea. Indeed, the possibilities
that present themselves as soon as one begins
to consider the reform on scientific lines of our
antiquated and unimaginative fiscal system are
endless. And, as the reader will have gathered,
there is much to be learned from a study of
Portuguese models. A visit to Madeira is
recommended to politicians in search of rest
and recreation combined with instruction.
Mr. Chamberlain himself (more fortunate than
Napoleon Bonaparte) spent some hours on
shore here in the course of his voyage from
South Africa, spoliis oneratus opimis^ a few months
before he promulgated his great scheme to
make the foreigner pay for old age pensions.
Alas ! how far off it all seems now. And it is
not to be supposed that he neglected the
opportunity of inquiring into the workings of
" Insular Protection " which such a remarkable
and compact example affords.

285

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

With such musings beguiled, the time draws
on to the day of our departure. The garden
we have tended for four months will be handed
over to the unrestrained care of our excellent
Carlos for the next eight, and Heaven only
knows what he will do with it. He will be
busy with his marrying, and it may be that we
shall suffer. But we must take our chance,
and in this easy-going land it is quite useless
to fuss. We ourselves have other fish to fry,
and to catch before we fry them. And until
the fogs of November fill us with a longing for
the sun, and send us to the steamship office for
our passages, Madeira will be but a distant isle
of the sea, an isle of pleasant memories and
flattering hopes. So may our lives be divided
into water-tight compartments.

And as the picture of his mistress that the
lover carries in his heart may be fairer than the
lady herself, so it may be that in the blue haze
of the distance the Isle of Beauty will loom
more lovely even than she appears to a closer
view. We may recall the never-failing perfume
of the flowers and forget the occasional odours
of the streets ; memory may revel in the golden
haze of a sunset, and find no place for the mist

286

Departure

that chilled us on the hills. In memory which
dwells on the agreeable and dismisses the un-
pleasant, in hope which anticipates as good or
better days to come, are to be found two chief
ingredients of happiness. It is wiser to forget
than to repent, whatever the preachers may say ;
better to be confident of heaven than apprehen-
sive of hell.

The months of our sojourning have hurried
by too quickly ; and no public or private
calamity has marred their passage. Disappoint-
ments there have been, cherished projects of
mountain excursions and " north-side " explora-
tions have had, for one reason or another, to
be deferred. I had nourished a hope of being
able to fish with rod and line for the gigantic
tunny which visit the coast in spring. The
professional fishermen catch them with coarse
hand-lines ; the more sporting method of rod
and fine line has never as far as I am aware
been tried with success in these waters ; but
I have no doubt it can be done. These fish
sometimes weigh several hundred pounds ;
they are reported to fight with great dash and
endurance, and they have the inestimable
advantage over the tarpon of being useful as

287

Leaves from a Madeira Garden

human food. To kill for the mere sake of
killing, and to leave your gallant quarry to rot
upon the strand when killed, must surely be
repugnant to the sportsman's instincts. All
sport has its origin and its excuse in a desire
inherited from barbaric forefathers either to rid
the earth of vermin, whether lions or foxes, or
to procure food, whether deer or salmon. And
any sport which does not however remotely
fulfil one condition or the other, lacks senti-
mental justification. But the tunny is a very
warrantable prey. Perhaps the wise angler
who goes forth to angle for these gigantic fish
will not use too fine a tackle, even if he does
not equip himself as suggested by Sir William
Davenant —

*' For angling rod he took a sturdy oake ;
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke ;
His hooke was baited with a dragon's tail,
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale."

As the " run " only occurs at the moment of
my departure, I have an opportunity to exercise
those distinguishing qualities of the angler,
patience and hope. He is held by the un-
sympathetic to possess at least one vice ; no
one denies him these virtues.

288

Departure

It may not be a universal truth that absence
makes the heart grow fonder ; it may even
rather be that partir cest mourir tin pen ; yet
whatever may be the case as regards human
relations, on some natures countries, places, or
climates once visited and enjoyed exercise a
powerful attraction. In our hot youth perhaps
** the call of the wild " is strongest ; it may be
the abounding waters, the sombre fells, the
deep-set fjords of Northern Europe that
summon us most loudly ; it may be the limit-
less distances of the African veldt sweltering
beneath its pitiless sun. In our later age we
may be drawn rather to reseek the shady side
of Pall Mall, the quays by the Arno, or a
Madeira garden. And perhaps he is a wise
man who cultivates, and represses not, such
cat-like attachments. To every one upon this
earth death cometh soon or late ; but before it
comes it is given to some to reach old age, not
it may be the least pleasant period of life, but
depending for much of its contentment on
simple joys. And among these not the least
may be reckoned the love of a garden, a pride
and pleasure in the successful growth of the
trees and shrubs and flowers you have planted

289 u

Leaves from a Madeira Gai^den

yourself, in the smiling plenty of the wilderness
you have tamed.

From faery lands forlorn we take ship upon
perilous seas. We leave our garden and our
well-beloved island at their best ; never has
spring smiled a sunnier smile ; never has a
garden been more prodigal of colour and
perfume. In the turmoil of the busier life to
which we are returning, we shall surely keep
their memory green.

THE END

WALKS AND PEOPLE IN TUSCANY. By

Sir Francis Vane, Bart. With numerous
Illustrations by Stephen Haweis and S.
Garstin Harvey. Crown 8vo. 5^. net.

*„,* This hook treats of many walks and cycle rides,
practically describing, if not co-icring, the whole of
Tuscany. It has been written with the especial object
of setting before the reader not only the characteristics
of the landscape, but no less the ifihabitants of all
classes, whom the author encountered. Not only, how-
ever, does he describe the people afid the scenety, but he
has placed on record his thoughts about them in a frank
and bold manner. The author also has a cotisiderable
acquaintance with history, heraldry and genealogy,
which proves usefttl to him in dealing zvith the social
system of Italy in the past and of to-day. The general
scheme of the work is to take the two centres, Florence
the capital, and the siiinmer resort, Bagi de Lucca, and
he has made his expeditions from these, consequently cover-
ing with an effective network of raids the inountains
and valleys between.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. By Maud M.
HoLBACH. With 48 Illustrations by Otto
HoLBACH and a Map. Uniform with " Dal-
matia." Crown Svo. ^s. net.

*^* This interesting companion volume to Mrs.
Ilolbach's "Dalmatia" will appeal to a xvider public
than did its forei-tinner, for political eve?tts recently
awakened a world interest in this part of the Balkans,
and, now that peace is restored, doubtless many travellers
will want to visit the scenes where history has so recently
been made, and welcome the author's guidance to what
is best worth seeing in this part of the Near East. Nor
is ''Bosnia" lacking in interest for those who stay at
home, for the author has as happy a knack of making
her pen pictures real as her husband of interpreting
the life of a country through the medium of his camera,
so that those who cannot go to Bos?iia in person will not
have much difficully in transplanting themselves thither
in imagination as they turn the pages of this bright
little book.

THE ISLE OF MAN. By Agnes Herbert,
Author of " Two Dianas in Somaliland " and
" Two Dianas in Alaska " (in collaboration
with a Shikari). With 32 full-page Illustra-
tions in colour by Donald Maxwell. Demy
8vo. loi-. dd, net.

*^* Hitherto our journeys with Diana of Somali-
land fame have been to distant lands, where " the great
waste places " merge 2vith the far-fu7ig line of zuilderness,
but on this travel-tour Miss Herbert takes her readers
Oft a?i alluring ramble over her island set in the Irish
Sea, the fascinating little world tuhose rocky shore is
beloved of so very matiy. In swift baninous aerial
phrases, a?id glintitig flashes of nature'' s metaphors,
*^ the qualities of the isle ^' are brought to our notice ifi
engaging kaleidoscopic array, and this magnetic colour
book, touched by remembrance, will appeal to all who
have ever seen Manxland, and ?nake those who stand
upon the order of their going, go at o?tce. Of the charms
and natural beautifs, the ancient and royal history of
the small territory of the Phynnodderees and mermaids,
custo?ns grave and gay, worthies high and loiv. Miss
Herbert writes as one who holds them dear. The inter-
mediate something between a thought a?id a thing is
provided by Mr. Maxwell. The Immortal One asked
^^ Dost thou love pictures?'''' ^' Here, then, are works
of air, earth, sea, and sufi,^' full of picturesque character,
and artistic purpose — an idyll of Manx beauty.

STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND.
By C. E. Sherrill, Author of '• Stained Glass
Tours in France." With 15 full-page Illus-
trations. Demy 8vo. 7^. 6d. net.

*^* There are here set forth a series of delightful
excursions in search of stained glass. Although the
writer brings to this book thorough kfiowledge of his
subject, he suppresses as 7nuch as possible of technical
detail, ajid his artistic enthusiasDi is so catholic that
afiy one interested in the fascinating remains of the
historic past will find delight in rambling with him
thfvtigh the cathedrals, churches, universities, guild-
halls, etc., visited in the course of the tours here described.
It is the first attempt to tell those who love stained glass
ruhere they tnay find the best examples iti Englarid a?ui
how they may most easily be visited. Many novel bits
of history, etc., are introduced, so that the book is not
only a useful and valuable companion to the traveller,
but is likewise distinctly readable beside the library fire.

SECOND EDITION.

LEAVES FROM A
MADEIRA GARDEN

By Charles Thomas -Stanford, F.S.A,,
Author of " A River of Norway," etc.
With 1 6 Full-page illustrations. Crown
8vo, 5/- net.

PRESS OPINIONS.

Daily T'elegrap/i. — " Mr. Stanford knows his Madeira, and
he writes of it with the easy confidence of an habitue.
An unfailing vivacity lends charm to every page."

Li-verpool Courier. — " One of the most charming books of
this sort we have ever met. ' Leaves from a Madeira
Garden ' is a book to take up at any time."

Sunday Times. — " Mr. Stanford deals entertainingly with
Madeira. He is at home when he is telling us of the
splendours of its gardens."

Liverpool Post. — " All through this delightful volume we
feel the charm of the island. A special word of praise
is due to the author for his charming and appropriate
quotations. A really admirable piece of work."

Daily Nenvs. — "This is a pleasant, chatty book. It will
appeal to all garden lovers, even to those ot them
who have never owned a garden. The book contains
many excellent and artistic photographs."

PRESS OPINIONS

{continued^)

Daily Mirror. — " A delightful book. Far superior to
anything that has been done in the same style. Many
people will learn much from this charming essay,"

Daily Graphic. — " This charming book."

Morning Post. — " The book is full of facts and serious
interest."

Standard. — " The delights of a Madeira garden are allur-
ingly described in this delightfully written volume."

Morning Leader. — " A pleasanter, fresher little volume
could scarcely be found. The highest compliment
that can be paid to Mr. Stanford's descriptions of
Madeira gardens is that they positively make one
yearn to see them."

Western Morning Neivs. — " A pleasant, discursive story.
It is a book which any lover of nature and of garden
may read with great enjoyment."

Trut/i. — " A delightful book."

Westminster Gazette. — " Any one thinking of visiting
Madeira cannot do better than invest in the book."

World. — " One of the pleasantest books we have read for
a long time is ' Leaves from a Madeira Garden/ "

Spectactor. — "There is much pleasant reading in the book."

Pall Mall Gazette. — " A great deal of interesting informa-
tion, pleasantly given, is to be found in the book."

Globe. — " This delightful description of a delightful land."

Manchester Courier. — " The book is written brightly, and
with charm, and its fascination will extend to many
who are not gardeners. Many illustrations supple-
ment this delightful volume."

JOHN LANE, BoDLEY Head, Vigo St., W.

THE WORKS OF
ANATOLE FRANCE

i] T has long been a reproach to
England that only one volume
by ANATOLE FRANCE
has been adequately rendered
into English ; yet outside this
country he shares with
TOLSTOI the distinction
of being the greatest and most daring
student of humanity living.

II There have been many difficulties to
encounter in completing arrangements for a
uniform edition, though perhaps the chief bar-
rier to publication here has been the fact that
his w^rirings are not for babes — but for men
and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his
Eastern romances are written with biblical can-
dour. " I have sought truth strenuously," he
tells us, " I have met her boldly. I have never
turned from her even when she wore an

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

unexpected aspect.** Still, it is believed that the day has
come for giving English versions of all his imaginative
v/orks, as well as of his monumental study JOAN OF
ARC, which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the
world of letters to-day.

^ MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that
the following volumes are either already published or are
passing through the press.

THE RED LILY

MOTHER OF PEARL

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS

THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRK HONNARD

BALTHASAR

THE WELL OF ST. CLARE

THAIS

THE WHITE STONE

PENGUIN ISLAND

THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE

BROCHE
JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL
THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN
AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE
THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD
MY FRIEND'S BOOK
THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN
LIFK AND LETTERS (4 vols.)
JOAN OF ARC (2 vols.)

^ All the books will be published at 6/- each with the
exception of JOAN OF ARC, which will be 25/- net
the two volumes, with eight Illustrations.

II The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired.
The size is Demy 8vo (9 x 5|), and they arc printed from
Caslon type upon a paper light in weight and strong of
texture, with a cover design in crimson and gold, a gilt top,
end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley and initials by
Henry Ospovat. In short, these are volumes for the biblio-
phile as well as the lover of fiction, and form perhaps the
cheapest library edition of copyright novels ever published,
for the price is only that of an ordinary novel.

^ The translation of these books has been entrusted to
such competent French scholars as MR. Alfred alunson,

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS,
MR. A. W. EVANS, MKS. FARLEY, MR. LAFCADIO HEARN,
MRS. W. S. JACKSON, MRS. JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH,
MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS
M. P. WILLCOCKS.

^ As Anatole Thibault, dit Anatole France, is to most
English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that
he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring
surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire,
Paris, kept by his father. Monsieur Thibault, an authority on
eighteenth-century history, from whom the boy caught the
passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his
mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled
in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers
of old books, missals and manuscript ; he matriculated on the
Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and objels d'art;
he graduated in the great university of life and experience.
It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his
youthful impressions ; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large.

II He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His
first novel was JOCASTA & THE FAMISHED CAT
(1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD
appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned
by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896.

H His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and
psychology ; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit,
the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every
subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery
never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own
GARDEN OF EPICURUS : " Irony and Pity are both of
good counsel ; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable,
the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I
invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor
beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth
disarms anger and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and
fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate."

f Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over
mere asceticism, and with entire reverence ; indeed, he
might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity,
just as he has been termed a " pagan, but a pagan
constantly haunted by the pre-occupation of Christ."
He is in turn — like his own Choulette in THE RED
LILY— saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity.

THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE

At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and
hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said : " You will
find in my writings perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent
I do not possess), much indulgence, and some natural
affection for the beautiful and good."

H The mere extent of an author's popularity is perhaps a
poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this
author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOU-
SAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH
THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently
described as " Monsieur France's most arid book " is in its
FIFTY-EIGHT-THOUSAND.

^ Inasmuch as M. FRANCE'S ONLY contribution to
an English periodical appeared in THE YELLOW BOOK,
vol. v., April 1895, together with the first important English
appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice
Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition
of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head.

ORDER FORM.

To Mr :' ___ „_.... _.„

Bookseller.

Please send me the following works oj Aiuihle France:

THAIS PENGUIN ISLAND

BALTHASAR THE WHITE STONE

THE RED LILY MOTHER OF PEARL

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS

THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD

THE WELL OF ST. CLARE

THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE-

BROCHE
THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL
THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN
JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT
JOAN OF ARC (2 Vols.)
LIFE AND LETTERS (4 Vols.)

for vohich I enclose ^ .

Name _ _ _

Address _ _

JOHN LANE, Pl BLisHER The Bodlev Head, Vigo St.. London.VV.

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY ARTHUR H. ADAMS.

GALAHAD JONES. A Tragic Farce. Crown 8vo. 6/-

With 16 full-page Illustrations by Norman Lindsay.

IVcstminsler Gazette. — "There is something extraordinarily fresh about
Galahad Jones."

Times. — "With skilful touch."

Alheticeuin. — "Mr. Adams has written a really charming and tender
romance."

A TOUCH OF FANTASY. Crown 8vo. 6/-

BY FRANCIS ADAMS.

A CHILD OF THE AGE. Crown 8vo. i/- net

Pall Mall Gazette — " It comes recognisably near to great excellence. There is
a love episode in this book which is certainly fine. Clearly conceived and
expressed with point.

BY JEAN AICARD.

THE DIVERTING ADVENTURES OF MAURIN. Cr. 8vo. 6/-

Translated from the French by Alfred Allinson, M.A.

]Vestmi)istci Gazette — Maurin, hunter, poacher, boaster, and lover of women,
is a magnificently drawn type of the Meridional, who is in some ways the Irishman
of France. . . . a fine, sane, work. . . . The translation is excellent."

Morning Leader — " Indubitably laughable. An encyclopaedia of the best
form of foolishness."

MAURIN THE ILLUSTRIOUS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Translated from the French by Alfred Allinson, M.A.

Evening Standard — "If he had never done anything else M. Aicard would
have earned his seat in the French Academy by his creation of Maurin. For
Maurin is an addition to the world's stock of fictional characters — to that picture
gallei'y where no restorer is ever wanted."

BY GRANT ALLEN.

THE BRITISH BARBARIANS. Crown Svo. 3/6 net

' Also Canvas Back Library 1/6 net.

Saturday Revieiv — " Mr. Allen takes occasion to say a good many things that
equire saying, and suggests a good many reforms that would, if adopted, bring
pur present legal code more into harmony with modern humanity and the
Exigencies ofits development."

BY MAUD ANNESLEY.

FHE WINE OF LIFE. Crown Svo. 6/-

Pall Mall Gazette—"' The story is full of life and interest and the startling
tenouement is led up to with considerable skill."i

ItHE DOOR OF DARKNESS. Crown Svo. 6/-

j Pall Mall Gazette— ^^ An enthralling story, powerfully imagined and distin-
guished for artistry of no mean order.

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY W. M. ARDAGH.

THE MAGADA. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Pall Mall Gazelle—'' 'The Magada' is a store-house of rare and curious learn-
ing ... it is a well-written and picturesque story of high adventure and deeds
of derring-do."

Observer— ''The book has admirably caught the spirit of romance."
Daily Chroittclc—" ' The Magada' is a fine and finely toid story, and we
congratulate Mr. Ardagh."

BY A. ARNOTT.

THE DEMPSEY DIAMONDS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON.

SENATOR NORTH. Crown 8vo. 6/-

New York Herald—" In the description of Washington life Mrs. Atherton
shows not only a very considerable knowledge of externals, but also an insight
into the underlying political issues that is remarkable."

Outlook— "The novel has genuine historical value."

THE ARISTOCRATS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Also in paper boards, cloth back, at i/6.

The Times — " Clever and entertaining. . . . This gay volume is written by
some one with a pretty wit, an eye for scenery, and a mind quick to grasp natural
as well as individual characteristics. Her investigations into the American
character are acute as well as amusing."

THE DOOMSWOMAN. Crown Svo. 6/-

Moniiiig Post— " Pi. fine drama, finely conceived and finely executed
AUicnaum—" Eminently picturesque . , . gorgeous colouring."

A WHIRL ASUNDER. Paper Cover. i/- net

Bvstander—" It can be recommended as a fine romance. . . . There is plenty
of incident."

OHtlook—"The story is a curious achievement in the violently .and crudely
picturesque style that is peculiar to the author writer."

BY EX-LIEUTENANT BILSE.

LIFE IN A GARRISON TOWN. Crown Svo. i/- net

The suppressed German Novel. With a preface written by the
author whilst in London, and an introduction by Arnold White.

7,-„/;j_" The disgraceful exposures of the book were expressly admitted to
be true by the Minister of War in the Reichstag. What the book will probably
sus/gest to you is. that German militarism is cutting its own throat, and will one
day be hoist with its own petard."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY HORACE BLEACKLEY.

A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Athcncenm. — " It has plenty of spirit and incident."

Weshniiistcr Gazette— "Mr. Bleackley knows his period well, and we are
grateful to him for investing a well-worn theme with interest and refreshment."

Times. — "Breezy and stirring."

BY SHELLAND BRADLEY.

ADVENTURES OF AN A.D.C. Crown 8vo. 6/-

VVestniinster Gazette—" . . . makes better and more entertaining reading
than nine out of every ten novels of the day. . . . Those who know nothing about
Anglo-Indian social life will be as well entertained by this story as those who
know everything about it."

Times—" Full of delightful humour."

BY JOHN BUCHAN.

JOHN BURNET OF BARNS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

7/-H//1— "In short, this is a novel to lay aside and read a second time, nor
I should we forget the spirited snatches of song which show that the winner of the
j Newdigate has the soul of the poet."

A LOST LADY OF OLD YEARS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Atheiiceum—" Written in strong and scholarly fashion."

Morning Post—" We have nothing but praise for Mr. Buchan. The book is
of sterling merit and sustained interest."

Evening Standard—" Stirring and well told."

BY DANIEL CHAUCER.

SIMPLE LIFE LIMITED. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Moriiing Post.—" One of the most delightful novels we have read tor a
long time."

Pail Mall Gazette.- ' So distinguished in style that the reader devours it with
avidity. It is a modern novel with a sparkle'and freshness which should set
everybody perusing it. The author ought to feel proud of his achievement."

BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON.

THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL. Crown 8vo. 6/-

With 6 Illustration.s by W. Graham Robertson.

Datl^'AIail—" Mr. Chesterton, as our laughing philosopher, is at his best in
[this delightful fantasy." i> s f f ,

i th ^'^ff'"'"-^^"*' Gazette—" It is undeniably clever. It scintillates— that is exactly
I the right word — with bright and epigrammatic observations, and it is written
throughout with undoubted literary skill."

BY T. B. CLEGG.

THE LOVE CHILD. Crown 8vo. 6/-

7";M//i— "A singularly powerful book. . . . The painful story grips you from
first to last.

^Z'^-y Telegraph— " A strong and interesting story, the fruit of careful
thought and conscientious workmanship. . . . Mr. Clegg has presented intensely
dramatic situations without letting them degenerate into the melodramatic."

THE WILDERNESS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

^"I^V Telegraph—" A really admirable story."
I Athenceum— "Mr. Clegg claims the gift of powerful and truthful writing."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY T. B. CLEGG — continued.

THE BISHOP'S SCAPEGOAT. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Athenceum — " Inspired with a deep sense of the beautiful in Nature and the
instinctive goodness of the human heart, and the divine meaning of life."

Daily Mail — " A really good novel. It is so good that we hope Mr. Clegg
will give us some more from the same store."

JOAN OF THE HILLS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Tinics — "Another of Mr. Clegg's admirable novels of Australian life."
Globe— " A good story, interesting all through."

BY W. BOURNE COOKE.

BELLCROFT PRIORY. A Romance. Crown 8vo. 6/-

IVorld. — " Exceedingly well-written and admirably constructed."
Evening Standard.— ' Good TQaAin^ , . . It has originality."

BY E. H. COOPER.

MY BROTHER THE KING. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Pall Mall Gazelle.— ''The story is admirably told. The book should be in
everyone's hands."

Daily Telegmp/!.— "The story is admirable, full of life and touched with
real feeling "

BY FREDERICK BARON CORYO-

IN HIS OWN IMAGE. Crown 8vo. 6/-

IVestmins/cr Gazette— "The book is cleverly written and the author has
obviously a very prettj' literary talent."

Fall Mall Gazelle—" Always delightful and well worth reading."

BY VICTORIA CROSS.

THE WOMAN WHO DIDN'T. Crown 8vo. i/- net

Speaker — " The feminine gift of intuition seems to be developed with uncanny
strength, and what she sees she has the power of flashing upon her readers with
wonderful vividness and felicity of phrase. ... A strong and subtle study of
feminine nature, biting irony, restrained passion, ar.d a style that is both forcible
end polished."

BY A. J. DAWSON.

MIDDLE GREYNESS. (Canvas-back Library). i/6 net

Daily Telegraph— "The novel has distinct ability. The descriptions of up-
country manners are admirable."

MERE SENTIMENT Crown 8vo. 3/6 net

Pall Mall Gazelle — "There is some clever writing in Mr. Dawson's short
stories collected to form a new ' Keynotes ' volume under the title of Mere Senti-
ment.' ... A very clever piece ot work. . . . Mr. Dawson has a pretty style
shows dramatic instinct."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION
BY GEORGE EGERTON.

KEYNOTES. Crown 8vo. Ninth Edition, 3/6 net

SI. James's Gasei/c -" This is a collection of eight of the prettiest short
stories that have appeared for many a day. They turn for the most part on
feminine traits of character ; in fact, the book is a little psychological study 01
woman under various circumstances. The characters are so admirably drawn,
and the scenes and landscapes are described with so much and so rare vividness,
that we cannot help being almost spell-bound by their perusal."

DISCORDS. Crown 8vo. Sixth Edition. 3/6 net

Daily Tt/t'^jn/)/;— "These masterly word-sketches."

Speaker—" The book is true to human nature, for the author has genius, and
let us add, has heart. It is representative ; it is, in the hackneyed phrase.
a human document."

SYMPHONIES. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 6/-

5/. James's Gazette— "There is plenty of pathos and no little power in the
volume before us."

Daily Netvs-" The impressionistic descriptive passages and the human
touches that abound in the book lay hold of the imagination and linger in the
memory of the reader."

FANTASIAS. Crown Svo. Also Canvas Back Library 1/6 net. 3/6

Daily Chronicle— "These ' Fantasias ' are pleasant reading— typical scenes or
tales upon the poetry and prose of life, prostitution, and the beauty of dreams
and truth."

BY MARION FOX.

HAND OF THE NORTH. Crown Svo. 6/-

^t-nrftfw;^.— "This stirring tale . . . is very interesting."
Evening Standard.— "Thisbook should prove an acceptable gift."

BY A. C. FOX-DAYIES.

THE MAULEVERER MURDERS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Also i/- net.

Evening Standard-" An entertaining blend of the Society novel and the
detective story."

Wcsltninstcr Gazette—" We heartily recommend this book for a holiday 01 a
railway journey. An exciting and ingenious tale."

THE FINANCES OF SIR JOHN KYNNERSLEY.

Crown Svo. 6/-

Punch—" I read every word of the book, and enjoyed nearly all of them.'
Morning Post—" Mr. Fox-Davies' extremely clever and entertaining book.

BY HAROLD FREDERIC.

MARCH HARES. Crown Svo. Third Edition. 3/6 net

Daily C/ironiclc—" Buoyant, fanciful, stimulating, a pure creation of fancy
and high spirits. ' March Hares ' has a joyous impetus which carries everything
before it ; and it enriches a class of fiction which unfortunately is not copious."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY HAROLD FREDERIC-co/;//»;(.</.
MRS. ALBERT GRUNDY. Observations in Philistia.

F'Cap. 8vo. Second Edition. 3/6. net

Pali Mall Gazelle—'' Mr. Frederic is at his very best in this light and delicate
satire, which is spread with laughter and good humour."

BY RICHARD GARNETT.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS AND OTHER STORIES

Crown Svo. Second Edition. 6/-

Daily Chronicle — " A subtle compound of philosophy and irony. Let the
reader take these stories as pure fun — lively incident and droll character — and he
will be agreeably surprised to find how stimulating they are."

Times — " Here is learning in plenty, drawn from all ages and most languages,
but of dryness or dulness not a sentence. The book bubbles with laughter. . . .
His sense of humour has a wide range."

BY ELIZABETH GODFREY.

THE WINDING ROAD. Crown Svo. 6/-

Literary WoWt/—" A carefully written story. . . . Miss Godfrey has the mind
of a poet ; her pages breathe ot the beautiful in nature without giving long
description, while the single-hearted love between Jasper and Phenice is des-
cribed with power and charm."

THE BRIDAL OF ANSTACE. Crown Svo. 6/-

ll'eshninster Gazette — "An individual charm and a sympathetic application
have gone to the conception of Miss Godfrey's book, a remarkable power ol
characterisation to its making, and a refined literary taste to its composition."

THE CRADLE OF A POET. Crown Svo. 6/-

Spectalor. — -'T\\e. whole story is pleasing and Miss Godfrey's ' Seascapes' are
executed with great realism."

Pall Mall Gazette— "■' . . . the charm of beautiful writing, which cannot
fail to enhance Miss Godfrey's literary reputation.

BY A. R. GORING THOMAS.

MRS. GRAMERCY PARK. Crown Svo. 6/-

Wo>W—" In the language of the heroine herself, this, her story, is delight-
fully 'bright and cute. ' '

Observer — " Fresh and amusing."

THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR. Crown Svo. 6/-

Athenaum.—'' . . . drawn with a humour that is distinctly original. Mr.
Goring-Thomas has the rare Dickensian gift of imparting life and personality to
his characters."

Daily C/irouicle.—" Mr. Goring-Thomas says many shrewd and clever things,
and, blending comedy with pathos has written an enjoyable book."

BY HANDASYDE.

FOR THE WEEK-END. Crown Svo. 6/-

StitndatJ-" Only a woman, surely, would write such deep and intimate
truth about the heart of another woman and the things that give her joy when a
man loves her."

A GIRL'S LIFE IN A HUNTING COUNTRY. Crown Svo. 3/6
Daily News—" A sweet and true representation of a girl's romance."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY HENRY HARLAND.

THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF BOX. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Ulustrated by G. C. Wilmhurst. 165th. Thousand.

.,4a7rft'wi>'— "The drawings are all excellent in style and really illustrative oJ
the tale."

Pall Mall Gazette—" Dainty and delicious."
Tinus—" A book among a tnousand."

MY FRIEND PROSPERO. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 6/-

J UHLS—" There is no denying the charm of the work, the delicacy and
fragrancy of the style, the sunny play of the dialogue, the vivacity of the wit, and
the graceful flight ot the fancy.' ,^

IVorld— "The reading of it is a pleasure rare and unalloyed.

THE LADY PARAMOUNT. Crown 8vo. 55lh Thousand. 6/-

Times — "A fantastic, delightful love-idyll."

Spectator—" A roseate romance without a crumpled rose leaf."

Daily Mail—" Charming, dainty, delightful."

COMEDIES AND ERRORS. Crown Svo. Third Edition. 6/-

Mr. Henry James, in Fortiiiiihtly Review— "Ur. Harland has clearly thought
out a form. . . . He has maslerecl a method and learned how to paint. . .. His
art is all alive with felicities and delicacies."

GREY ROSES. Crown Svo. Fourth Edition. 3/6 net

Daily Telegraph—" ' Grey Roses ' " are entitled to rank among the choicest
flowers of the realms of romance. "

Spectator-" Really delightful. ' Castles near Spain ' is as near perfection as
it could well be."

Daily Chronicle—" Charming stories, simple, full of freshness."

MADEMOISELLE MISS. Crown Svo. Third Edition. 3/6

Speaker—" All through the book we are pleased and entertained."
Bookman-" An interesting collection of early work. In it may be noted the
undoubted delicacy and strength of Mr. Harland's manner."

BY E. CROSBY HEATH.

HENRIETTA. Crown Svo. 6/-

BY ALICE HERBERT.

THE MEASURE OF OUR YOUTH. Crown Svo. 6/-

Evening Standard — "A very human, intelligible book. . . . exceedingly
clever and earnestly real."

Morning Post — " Reveals an unusual clearness of vision and distinction ol
style and thought."

BY MURIEL HINE.

HALF IN EARNEST. Crown Svo. 6/-

Daily Telegrafih— "This is written with great spirit and a considerable
power ot story-telling. It has sufficient attractive qualities to make it a readable
piece of work."

Pall Mall Gazette. — " The character-drawing throughout, indeed, is of unusual
merit."

Mornins Post. — " Miss Muriel Hine is to be congratulated."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION
BY ARNOLD HOLCOMBE.

THE ODD MAN. Crown Svo. 61-

Monnng Post — " One of the most refreshing and amusing books that we have
read for some months. ... ' The Odd Man ' is a book to put on one's shelves
and Mr. Holcombe's is a name to remember.'

BY ADELAIDE HOLT.

THE VALLEY OF REGRET. Crown Svo. 6/-

Timcs. — " Strong individualities, freshlj' conceived and firmly drawn. . . .
The book is one which augurs well for the writer; for she certainly has the gift
of reaching the reader's heart."

BY WILFRID SCARBOROUGH JACKSON.

NINE POINTS OF THE LAW. Crown Svo. 6/-

Manchesler Guardian — "The kindly humorous philosophy of this most divert-
ing story is as remarkable as its attractive style. "There is hardly a page without
something quotable, some neat bit of phrasing or apt wording of a truth."

HELEN OF TROY. N.Y. Crown Svo. 6/-

Daily Chronicle— '■^ The story is at once original, impossible, artificial, and
very amusing. Go, get the work and read."

TRIAL BY MARRIAGE. Crown Svo. 6/-

J-f^orld—" One can confidently promise the reader of this skilfully treated and
unconventional novel that he will not find a page of it dull. It is one that will be
not only read but remembered."

BY MRS. JOHN LANE. |

KITW^^K. Crown Svo. 6/-

A Story with numerous illustrations by Howard Pyle,
Albert Sterner and George Wharton Edwards.

Times — " Mrs. Lane has succeeded to admiration, and chiefly by reason of
being so much interested in her theme that she makes no conscious effort to
please. . . . Everyone who seeks to be diverted will read ' Kitwyk ' for its
obvious qualities of entertainment."

THE CHAMPAGNE STANDARD. Crown Svo. 6/-

Morning Post — " The author's champagne overflows with witty sayings too
numerous to cite."

Pall Mall Gazette — " Mrs. Lane's papers on our social manners and foibles are
the most entertaining, the kindest and the truest that have been oflered us for a
longtime. . . . The book shows an airy philosophy that will render it of service
to the social student."

BALTHASAR AND OTHER STORIES. Crown Svo. 6/-

Translated by Mrs. John Lane from the French of Anatole France

Daily Graphic — "The original charm and distinction of the author's style has
survivedf the difficult ordeal of appearing in another language. . . . 'The Cure's
Mignonette" is as perfect in itself as some little delicate flower."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY MRS. JOHN LAIHE— continued.

ACCORDING TO MARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Telegraph— " A more entertaining, companionable, good-natured, and
yet critical piece of portraiture we have not had the good luck to encounter these
many seasons. . . . 'According to Maria' is as fresh, amusing, and human a
book as any man, woman, or girt could desire to bewitch a jaded moment, or drive
away a fit of the dumps."

Daiiy Chronicle— ''This delightful novel, sparkling with humour. . . . Maria's
world is real. . . . Thackeray might have made such sheaves if he had been

a woman.

TALK O' THE TOWN. Crown 8vo. 6/-

BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.

THE BOOK BILLS OF NARCISSUS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net

Second Edition.

C. di B. (Mr. Bernard Shaw) in the S/ar—" If an unusually fine literary instinct
could make it a solid book, Mr. le Gallienne would be at no loss lor an enduring
reputation . . . Nothing could be prettier than his pleas and persuasions on
behalf of Narcissus and George Muncaster."

THE WORSHIPPER OF THE IMAGE. Crown Svo. 3/6

Daily Chronicle— " Coniains passages of a poignancy which Mr. Le Gallienne
hus never before compassed.'"

THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL. Cr. Svo. 6/-

Fifteenth Edition.
Daily News— ''A piece of literary art which compels our admiration."
Mr. May. Beerhohm in Daily Mail— " Mr. Le Gallienne's gentle, high spirits,
and his sympathy with existence is exhibited here. . . . His poetry, like his
humour, sufi'uses the whole book and gives a charm to the most prosaic objects
and incidents of life. . . . The whole 'book is delightful, for this reason, that no
one else could have written a book of the same kind."

THE ROMANCE OF ZION CHAPEL. Crown Svo. 6/-

^-^———^■^——^-^^—^~~^~^~'~^~' Second Edition.

St. James's Gazette—" Mr. Le Gallienne's masterpiece."

Times—" Extremely clever and pathetic. As for sentiment Dickens might
have been justly proud of poor Jenny's lingering death, and readers whose heai ts
I have the mastery over their heads will certainly weep over it."

PAINTED SHADOWS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Scotsman—" Material and workmanship are of the finest." ,
Queen—" Really delightful stories, Mr. Le Gallienne writes prose like a poet."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY RICHARD LE GALLlE^UE-conUnncd.

LITTLE DIXXERS WITH THE SPHINX. Cr. 8vo. 6/-

Daily Telegraph — " Here is the same delicate phrasing, the same tender revela-
tion of emotions, always presented with a daintiness of colouring that reveals the
true literarj' artist."

Star — " Mr. Le Gallienne touches with exquisite tenderness on the tragedy of
things that change and pass and fade."

BY A. E. J. LEGGE.

MUTINEERS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Speaker — "An interesting story related with admirable lucidity and remark-
able grasp of character. Mr. Legge writes with polish and grace."

BOTH GREAT AND SMALL. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Saturday Review — " We read on and on with increasing pleasure."
Tunes — " The style of this book is terse and witty."

THE FORD. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 6/-

SUindard — "An impressive work . . . clever and thoughtful. 'The Ford,"
deserves to be largely read."

BY W. J. LOCKE.

DERELICTS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Chronicle — "Mr. Locke tells his story in a very true, very moving, and
very noble book. If anyone can read the last chapter with dry eyes we shall be
surprised. ' Derelicts ' is an impressive and important book."

Morning Post — Mr. Locke's clever novel. One of the most effective stories
that have appeared for some time past."

IDOLS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Punch — " The Baron strongly recommends Mr. W. J. Locke's ' Idols ' to all
novel readers. It is well written. No time is wasted in superfluous descriptions;
there is no fine writing for fine writing's sake, but the story will absorb the
reader. ... It is a novel that, once taken up, cannot willingly be put down
until finished."

A STUDY IN SHADOWS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Chronicle — "Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this noveL
He has struck many emotional chords and struck them all with a firm sure hand."

Athcnauni—^^The character-drawing is distinctly good. All the personages
stand out well defined with strongly marked individualities."

THE WHITE DOVE. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Times — "An interesting story,, full of dramatic scenes."

Morning Post — "An interesting story. The characters are strongly con-
ceived and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully realized."

THE USURPER. Crown 8vo. 6/-

IVorld — "This quite uncommon novel."

Spectator — " Character and plot are most ingeniously wrought, and the con-
clusion, when it comes, is fully satisfying."
Times — "An impressive romance."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY W. J. LOCKE— continued.
THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE. Cr. 8vo. 3/6

AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily C/;)-o«!V/e— "The heroine of this clever story attracts our interest. . .
She is a clever and subtle study. . . . We congratulate Mr. Locke."

Morning Post— " A cleverly written tale . . . the author's pictures of
Bohemian life are bright and graphic."

WHERE LOVE IS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Mr. James Douglas, in Star—" I do not often praise a book with this
e.Kultant gusto, but it gave me so much spiritual stimulus and moral pleasure that
I feel bound to snatch the additional delight of commending it to those readers
who long tor a novel that is a piece of literature as well as a piece of lite."

Si'.riidaid—" A brilliant piece ol work."

7"n;;ts— " The author has the true gift ; his people are alive."

THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE. Cr. 8vo. 6/-

Mr. C. K. Shorter, in 5/</i(.)t—" A book which has just delighted my heart.

Truth.—'' Mr. Locke's new novel is one of the most artistic pieces ol work I
have met with for many a day.'

Daily C/iroiiicie.—" Mr. Locke succeeds, indeed, in every crisis of this most
original story."

THE BELOVED VAGABOND. Crown Svo. 6/-

7-,-,<//j._" Certainly it is the most brilliant piece of work Mr. Locke has done."
Evening Standard.—'' Mr. Locke can hardly fail to write beautitully. He has
not failed now."

SIMON THE JESTER. Crown Svo. 6/-

Dailv Tflfgraph.—" . ■ . something of the precision of the pendant, com-
bined with an'easy garrulity which is absolutely charming, and a literary style
which carries us from the beginning to the end with unfailing verve and ease
. . . Certainly you will not put down the book until you have read the last
pacje . . . The style, the quality of the writing, the atmosphere of the novel,
the easy, pervasive charm . . . make us feel once more the stirring pulses
and eager blood of deathless romance."

THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA WING. Crown Svo. 6/-

BY INGRAHAM LOYELL.

MARGARITAS SOUL. Crown Svo. 6/-

Pm»67;.— "There have been a great many ingenues (mock or real) in modern
fiction, and doubtless one or two in actual lite ; but there never was one inside a
book or out of it who came within a four mile cab radius ot Margarita. 1 he book
is well worth reading." , , • n

Westminster Gazette.— " A book which does not let the readers interest flag
for a moment. It is full of laughter and smiles, of seriousness, comtortable philo-
sophy and a few tears."

BY CHARLES LOWE.

THE PRINCE'S PRANKS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Evenmg Standard-" The 'pranks' are good reading. All his adventures
go with a swing, and the escapes are as exciting as anything we have read lor a
long time." . ,_ •,,

Daily Ch'onicle—" The book is always bright and often brilliant.
Globg — "A very readable and pleasant book."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTIO

BY LAURA BOGUE LUFFMAN.

A QUESTION' OF LATITUDE. Crown 8vo. 6,

BY A. NEIL LYONS.

ARTHUR'S. Crown 8vo. 6,

Tunes. — " Not only a very entertaining and amusing work, but a very kind
and tolerant work also. Incidentally the work is a mirror of a phase of the lo
London life of to-day as true as certain of Hogarth's transcripts in the eighteeni
century, and far more tender."

Punch. — " Mr. Neil Lyons seems to get right at the heart of things, and I co:
fess to a real admiration tor this philosopher of the coflTee-stall."

SIXPENNY PIECES. Crown 8vo.

Pall Mall Gazette. — " It is pure, fast, sheer life, salted with a sense of humour

Evening Standard. — "' Sixpenny Pieces' is as good as 'Arthur's', and th;

is saying a great deal. A book full of laughter and tears and hits innumerab

that one feels impelled to read aloud. ' Sixpenny Pieces ' would be very hai

indeed to beat."

COTTAGE PIE. A Country Spread. Crown 8vo. 6/

Daily Graphic. — "Mr. Lyons writes w-ell and has literary talent."
Daily Express. — "Every story is masterly, clear, clean, complete. Mr. Lyor
is a rare literary craftsman and something more."
Athcncemn. — " 'Cottage Pie' is an achievement."

BY FIONA MACLEOD (William Sharp).

THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. Crown 8vo. 6/ 1

Literary World. — " We eagerly devour page after page; we are taken captiv
by the speed and poeti-j' of the book."

Graphic. — '" It is as sad, as sweet, as the Hebridean skies themselves, bt ,
with that soothing sadnessof Nature which is so blessed a relief after a prolonge
dose of the misery of ' mean streets.' "

BY FREDERICK NIYEN.

THE LOST CABIN MINE. Crown 8vo. 6/ 1

Athenceuni. — " The book should be read by lovers of good fiction."
Westminster Gazette. — "The whole story is told with an amount of spirit an
realism that grips the reader throughout." !

THE ISLAND PROVIDENCE. Crown 8vo. 6/

Daily Graphic. — " Its descriptive power is remarkable. The author 'spring
imagination,' to use George Merediths words, and springs it with no more tha;,
the lew words prescribed ty that master."

Academy. — " Vigorous writing."

BY FRANK NORRIS.

THE THIRD CIRCLE. Crown Svo. 6/-

Morning Post. — "As a sketch by a great artist often reveals to the amateu ,
more of his power and skill than a large finished work in which the effect is con;
cealed, so in these virile little studies we are made to realise quite clearly wha.
powers of observation and what a keen eye for effective incident Mr. Norris had.

Spectator. — "A series of remarkable sketches and short stories by the lat<
Mr. Frank Norris . . . well worth reading."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION
BY JOHN PARKINSON.

A REFORMER BY PROXY. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Chronicle. — " For a first it is quite an excellent effort.

Morning Leaiiei . — "A very promising book."

Literary World. — "A thoroughly sound, matured piece of work.

OTHER LAWS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

*jf* This book is distinctly the outcome of the latest "intellectual" move-
ment in novel-writing. The hero, Hawkins, is an African explorer. During a
holiday in England he falls in love with and captivates Caroline Blackwood, a
woman of strong personality. Circumstances prevent him from entering upon a
formal engagement ; and he departs again lor Africa, without proposing marriage.
Caroline and Hawkins correspond fitfully for some time; but then a startling
combination of events causes Hawkins to penetrate further and further into the
interior ; a native village is burned, and a report, based apparently upon fact is
circulated of his death. Not until seven months have elapsed is he able to return
to E gland. He finds Caroline married to a man who has found her money
useful. Here the story, strong and moving throughout, moves steadily to the
close, describing delicately and analytically the soul conflict of a man and a
woman, sundered and separate, with a yearning for each other's love.

BY F. J. RANDALL.

LOVE AND THE IRONMONGER. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Telegraph. — "Since the gay days when Mr. F. Anstey was writing his
inimitable series of humourous novels, we can recall no book of purely farcical
imagination, so full of excellent entertainment as this first effort of Mr. F. J.
Randall. ' Love and the Ironmonger' is certain to be a success."

Times — " As diverting a comedy of errors as the reader is likely to meet with
for a considerable time."

Mr. Clement Shorter in The Sphere — " I thank the author for a delightful
hour's amusement."

THE BERMONDSEY TWIN. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Pall Mall Gazette. — " Merry and bright farce. The incidents are most deftly
handled."

Westminster Gazette. — "There is a good deal of humour in some of the
situations."

Daily Telegraph. — "Mr. Randall has written a wonderfully clever and
thoroughly aniusing humorous novel. The Bermondsey Twin is a notable
addition to the ail-too-sparse ranks of novels that are frankly designed to
amuse."

BY HUGH DE SELINCOURT.

A BOY'S MARRIAGE. Crown 8vo. 6/-

£w;n';;i,' iVrtwrffrrrf—" Exceedingly realistic . . . but does not give the impres-
sion that anything is expatiated upon for the sake of effect. A daring but sincere
and simple book. . . . likely to attract a good deal of attention."

Athenaeum — "The best points in Mr. de Selincourt's novel are his delicacy of
treatment and sense of character. . . . He has the making of a fine novelist."

THE STRONGEST PLUME. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Academj—" An uncomfortable story for the conventionally minded. It deals
a deadly blow to the ordinary accepted notions of the respectable."

Daily Telegrapfi—'' The story is a very commendable as well as a very inter-
esting piece of work."

Daily Mail—^^ A neat, artistic story."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY HUGH DE SELmCOURT— continued.
THE HIGH ADVExNTURE. Crown 8vo. ej-

Eveiiing Standard.— " A. novel for all lovers of the poetry of life ' uttered or
unexpressed."

Morning Post.—'' Mr. de Selincourt certainly has a talent for describing rather
nice young men.'

Observer. — "A clever and refreshing story.'

THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Morning Post. — " Ihe book has moments of grace and charm that few contem-
porary writers give us."

Pall Mall Gazette. — " ' The Way Things Happen ' confirms a long-settled con-
viction that among the young generation of writers there are lew who can compete
with Mr. de Selincourt ior pride of place."

Times. — " Reading this book is a surprising and a rare experience."

A FAIR HOUSE. Crown 8vo. 6/-

At/ienoeian.^-- 'ihe book is tender and pathetic, and occasionally exhibits
considerable literary skill.'

Evening Standard.— "A skilful study of life. Mr. de Selincourt has a graceful
style and moreover, he possesses the power to make his reader share in his
emotions. The book is clever, and something more and better "

Morning Post.—" 'A Fair House' undoubtedly is a pretty book."

BY G. S. STREET.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BOY. F'cap. Svo. 3/6 net

Fifth Edition.

Pall Mall Gazette. — " A creation in which there appears to be no flaw."
Speaker.— " The conception is excellent and the style perfect. One simmers
with laughter from first to last."

THE TRIALS OF THE BANTOCKS. Crown Svo. 3/6

IVestnunster Gazette. — '' Since Mr. Matthew Arnold left us we remember
nothing so incisive about the great British Middle, and we know of nothing ot
Mr. Street's that we like so well."

Saturday Review.—" Mr. Street has a very delicate gift of satire."
Times.-" A piece of irony that is full of distinction and wit."

BY HERMANN SUDERMANN.

REGINA : or THE SINS OF THE FATHERS. 6/-

Crown Svo. Also Canvas Back Library t/6 net. Third Edition.

A Translation of " Der Katzensteg," by Beatrice Marshall.

St. James's Gazette.— " A striking piece of work, full of excitement and strongly
drawn character. "

Globe.— "The novel is a striking one, and deserves a careful and critical
attention."

BY MARCELLE TINAYRE.

THE SHADOW OF LOVE. Crown Svo. 6/-

Translated from the French by A. R. Allinso.n, M.A.
*^f* Of the newer French novelists Marcelle Tinayre is perhaps the best
known. Her work has been crowned by the French Academy and she possesses
a very large public in Europe and in America. The story deals with a girl's love
and a heroic sacrifice dictated by love. "The Shadow of Love" is a book of
extraordinary power, uncompromising in its delineation of certain hard, some
might say repulsive facts of liie, yet instinct all through with an exquisitely
tender and beautiful passion of human interest and human sympathy.

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY CLARA YIEBIG.

ABSOLUTION. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Timcs.—" There is considerable strength in 'Absolution' . . . As a realistic
study the story has mnch merit."

Dailv Telegraph.— The tale is powerfully told . . .^ the tale will prove absorb-
ing with'its mmute characterisation and real passion."
OUR DAILY BREAD. Crown 8vo. 6/-

AthenauMt.—" The story is not only of great human interest, but also extremely
valuable as a study of the conditions in which a large section of the poorer classes
and small tradespeople of German cities spend their lives. Clara Viebig manipu-
lates her material with extraordinary vigour. . . . Her characters are alive.

Daily Telegraph.—" Quite excellent."

BY H. G. WELLS.

A NEW MACHIAVELLI. Crown 8vo. 6/-

1 Mr. Robert Ross in Bvslander.—'' It may safely be prophesied that igii is not

'likely to produce another literary sensation of so permanent a kind. It is

1 impossible to lay down ' The New Machiavelli' for longer than a few moments.

. . . The most various novel that has appeared since -Vanity Fair. ... A

great piece of literature." . • /• i

The Tillies.— ''The book is without doubt the most important piece of work
that Mr. Wells has yet given us. . . . The most finished example of the form
which the novel has gradually arrived at in his hands. . . . Margaret, the
betrayed and deserted wife, is possibly, the most finely touched portrait that
Mr. Wells has drawn."

BY MARGARET WESTRUP.

ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN. Crown 8vo. 6/-

i3«i7j' rf/<7e>-a*A.-', The book is charming . . . the author . . . has a delicate
fanciful touch, a charming imagination . . . skilfully suggests character and
moods . . . is bright and witty, and writes about children with exquisite know-
ledge and sympathy."
HELEN ALLISTON. Crown 8vo. 6/-

i Pall Mall Gazette.— "The book has vivacity, fluency, colour, more than a
touch of poetry and passion. ... We shall look forward witn interest to future
work by the author of ' Helen Alliston.' "
THE YOUNG O'BRIENS. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Saturday Review.— " •De\\gh\.i\A . . . the author treats them (the Young
O'Briens) very skilfully."
PHYLLIS IN MIDDLEWYCH. Crown 8vo. 6/-

■ Daily Telegraph.-" The author of ' Elizabeth's Children 'has really excelled
herself in this" volume of stories in which Phyllis Cartwnght figures. Fhyllis
who is called a little angel by her mother and a little devil by her lather, has cer
tainly a double share of the power of moving people to wrath or mirth.

BY EDITH WHARTON.

THE GREATER INCLINATION. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Daily Telegraph.—" Teems with literary ability and dramatic force."
OM//oo/t.— ^' ^Iiss Wharton writes with a sympathy, insight and understanding
that we have seldom seen equalled."

JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION

BY IDA WILD. "

ZOE THE DANCER. Crown 8vo. 6/-

Tinics. — "The literary style is a feature. There is a pleasing originality
about the arcTunt of the career of Zoe." We should certainly like to hear again
from the author-"

Morning Lender. — " Miss Wild can write, not only English, but good English.
Her style is often clever and brilliant. It shews a real sense and mastery of
words and idiom."

BY M. P. WILLCOCKS.

WIDDICOMBE. Crown Svo. 6/-

Evening Standard.—'^ Wonderfully alive and pulsating with a curious fervour
which brings round the reader the very atmosphere which the author describes.
. . . A fine, rather unusual novel. . . . There are some striking studies of women."

Queen. — " An unusually clever book."

THE WIXGLESS VICTORY. Crown Svo. 6/-

Ttntes.—" ."juch books are worth keeping on the shelves even by the classics,
lor they are painted in colours that do not fade."

Daily Telegraph. — "A novel of such power as should win for its author a
position in the front rank of contemporary writers of fiction."

A MAN OF GENIUS. Crown Svo. 6/-

Daily Tclcgiaph.—" 'V>J\dLd\comhe' was good, and 'The Wingless Victory"
was perhaps better, but in ' A Man of Genius ' the author has given us something
that should ssure her nlace in the front rank of our living novelists.

Punch.—"' There is no excuse for not reading ' A Man of Genius ' and making
a short stay in the 'seventh Devon of delight."

THE WAY UP. Crown Svo. 6/-

Morning Pos/.— " Admii-able . . . 'The Way Up' grips one's attention
more completely than any of Miss Willcocks' three previous novels."

World. —'•'t\\c author has given us her best. This is a real literary achieve-
ment, a novel in a thousand and a work of art."

Literary IVorld.— "This is a novel that on every page bears the hall-mark
of a genius."

BY F. E. MILLS YOUNG.

A MISTAKEN MARRIAGE. Crown Svo. 6/-

Pall Mull Gazette. — " It is a very sincere and moving story. The heroine
claims our sympathies from the first, and we follow her fortunes with absorbed
interest."

CHIP. Crown Svo. 6/-

Morning Post. — " Original, vivid and realistic."
Athenaiim. — "A tale . . . of unusual romantic interest."

ATONEMENT. Crown Svo. 6/-

Morhing Leader.—" The book is certainly very powerful, and the end is
extraordinarily moving. The characters are human beings, and the wholte thing
has the stamp of strong rugged life. ... an exceptional and strong book,'^

Daily Chronicle, — " A vigorous and striking story . . . unusally wfell told.
The author's power to describe places is as clear and incisive as it is in defining
his characters."

SAMS KID. Crown Svo. ,r '^ * " 6/-

16 V, ^

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