The group is too windy for cereals, but it grows spontaneously
orchil and barilla (Mesembryanthemum nodiflorum),
burnt for soda. Few strangers visit it, and many
old residents have never attempted the excursion.
It is not, however, unknown to sportsmen, who land—with
leave—upon the main island and shoot the
handsome ‘Deserta petrels,’ the cagarras
(Puffinus major, or sheerwater), the rabbits,
the goats that have now run wild, and possibly a seal.
A poisonous spider is here noticed by the guide-books,
and the sea supplies the edible pulvo (octopus)
and the dreaded urgamanta. This huge ray
(?) enwraps the swimmer in its mighty double flaps
and drags him to the bottom, paralysing him by the
wet shroud and the dreadful stare of its hideous eyes.
MADEIRA (continued)—CHRISTMAS—SMALL
INDUSTRIES—
WINE—DEPARTURE FOR TENERIFE.
The Christmas of 1881 at Madeira could by no means
be called gay. The foreign colony was hospitable,
as usual, with dinners, dances, and Christmas trees.
But amongst the people festivities seemed to consist
chiefly of promenading one’s best clothes about
the military band and firing royal salutes, not to
speak of pistols and squibs. The noise reminded
me of Natal amongst the Cairene Greeks; here, as in
the Brazil, if you give a boy a copper he expends
it not on lollipops, but on fireworks. We wished
one another boas entradas, the ‘buon’
principio’ of Italy, and remembered the procession
of seventeen years ago. The life-sized figures,
coarsely carved in wood and dressed in real clothes,
were St. Francis, St. Antonio de Noto, a negro (Madeiran
Catholics recognise no ’aristocracy of the skin’);
a couple of married saints (for even matrimony may
be sanctified), SS. Bono and Luzia, with half
a dozen others. The several platforms, carried
by the brotherhoods in purple copes, were preceded
by the clergy with banners and crosses and were followed
by soldiers. The latter then consisted of a battalion
of cacadores, 480 to 500 men, raised in the
island and commanded by a colonel entitled ‘Military
Governor.’ They are small, dark figures
compared with the burly Portuguese artillerymen stationed
at the Loo Fort and Sao Thiago Battery, and they are
armed with old English sniders.
Behind the Tree of Penitence and the crosses of the
orders came an Ecce Homo and a bit of the ‘true
Cross’ shaded by a canopy. The peasantry,
who crowded into town—they do so no longer—knelt
to kiss whatever was kissable, and dodged up and down
the back streets to gain opportunities. Even
the higher ranks were afoot; they used to acquire in
infancy a relish for these mild amusements. And
one thing is to be noted in favour of the processions;
the taste of town-decoration was excellent, and the
combinations of floral colours were admirable.
Perhaps there is too much of nosegay in Madeira, making
us remember the line—
