When the island of Madeira is first approach- 1768. September. ed from the fea, it has a very beautiful appearance; the fides of the hills being entirely covered with vines almost as high as the eye can diftinguish; and the vines are green when every kind of herbage, except where they shade the ground, and here and there by the fides of a rill, is entirely burnt up, which was the cafe at this time. On the 13th, about eleven o'clock in the fore- Tuesday 13. noon, a boat, which our failors call the product boat, came on board from the officers of health, without whose permiffion no person is suffered to land from on board a fhip. As foon as this permiffion was obtained, we went on fhore at Funchiale, the capital of the island, and proceeded directly to the house of Mr. Cheap, who is the English conful there, and one of the most confiderable merchants of the place. This gentleman received us with the kindness of a brother, and the liberality of a prince; he infifted upon our taking poffeffion of his houfe, in which he furnished us with every poffible ac commodation during our stay upon the island: he procured leave for Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to fearch the ifland for fuch natural curiofities as they fhould think worth their notice; employed persons to take fish and gather shells, which time would not have permitted them to collect for themselves; and he provided horses and guides to take them to any part of the country 1768. September. country which they should chufe to vifit. With all these advantages, however, their excurfions were seldom pushed farther than three miles from the town, as they were only five days on fhore; one of which they spent at home, in receiving the honour of a vifit from the governor. The feafon was the worst in the year for their purpose, as it was neither that of plants nor infects; a few of the plants, however, were procured in flower, by the kind attention of Dr. Heberden, the chief physician of the island, and brother to Dr. Heberden of London, who also gave them fuch specimens as he had in his poffeffion, and a copy of his Botanical Obfervations; containing, among other things, a particular description of the trees of the island. Mr. Banks inquired after the wood which has been imported into England for cabinet work, and is here called Madeira mahogany: he learnt that no wood was exported from the island under that name, but he found a tree called by the natives. Vigniatico, the Laurus indicus of Linnæus, the wood of which cannot eafily be distinguished from mahogany. Dr. Heberden has a bookcafe in which the vigniatico and mahogany are mixed, and they are no otherwise to be known from each other than by the colour, which, upon a nice examination, appears to be fomewhat lefs brown in the vigniatico than the mahogany; it is therefore in the highest degree probable, that the the wood known in England by the name of Madeira mahogany, is the vigniatico. There is great reafon to fuppofe that this whole island was, at some remote period, thrown up by the explosion of fubterraneous fire, as every stone, whether whole or in fragments, that we saw upon it appeared to have been burnt, and even the fand itself to be nothing more than afhes: we did not, indeed, see much of the country, but the people informed us that what we did fee was a very exact specimen of the rest. The only article of trade in this island is wine, and the manner in which it is made is so simple, that it might have been used by Noah, who is said to have planted the firft vineyard after the flood: the grapes are put into a square wooden veffel, the dimenfions of which are proportioned to the size of the vineyard to which it belongs; the fervants then, having taken off their stockings and jackets, get into it, and with their feet and elbows, prefs out as much of the juice as they can the ftalks are afterwards collected, and being tied together with a rope, are put under a fquare piece of wood, which is preffed down upon them by a lever with a stone tied to the end of it. The inhabitants have made fo little improvement in knowledge or art, that they have but very lately brought all the fruit of a vineyard to be of one fort, by engrafting their vines there feems to be in mind as there 1768. September. 1768. September. there is in matter, a kind of vis inertia, which We We faw no wheel-carriages of any fort in the place, which perhaps is not more owing to the want of ingenuity to invent them, than to the want of industry to mend the roads, which, at prefent, it is impoffible that any wheel carriage fhould pass: the inhabitants have horfes and mules indeed, excellently adapted to fuch ways; but their wine is, notwithstanding, brought to town from the vineyards where it is made, in veffels of goat-fkins, which are carried by men upon their heads. The only imitation of a carriage among these people is a board, made fomewhat hollow in the middle, to one end of which a pole is tied, by a ftrap of whit-leather: this wretched fledge approaches about as near to an English cart, as an Indian canoe to a fhip's longboat; and even this would probably never have been thought of, if the English had not intro duced wine veffels, which are too big to be carried by hand, and which, therefore, are dragged about the town upon these machines. One reafon, perhaps, why art and industry have done fo little for Madeira is, Nature's having done fo much. The foil is very rich, and there is such a difference of climate between the plains and the hills, that there is fcarcely a single object of luxury that grows either in Europe or the Indies, that might not be produced here. When we went to vifit Dr. Heberden, who lives upon a confiderable afcent, about two miles VOL. II. from 1768. September. |