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The favourite of the Canaries is, or was, the vidonia, a juicy berry, mostly white, seldom black: the same is the case with the muscadels. The Malvasia is rarely cultivated, as it suffered inordinately from the vine-disease. The valuable Verdelho, preferred at Madeira, is, or was, a favourite; and there are, or were, half a dozen others.
Half-a-dozen boats, some of them neat little feluccas with three masts, are drawn up on the beach: there is not much fishing; the vine-disease has raged, and the staple export consists of maize in some quantities; of cantaria, a grey trachyte which works more freely than the brown or black basalt, and of an impure limestone from Ilheu Baixo, the only calcaire used in Funchal.
The first walk through Funchal shows that it has not improved during the last score of years, and to be stationary in these days is equivalent to being retrograde. It received two heavy blows in 1852 the vine-disease; and, since that time, a gradual decline of reputation as a sanatorium.
It is just the same with the vine propagated too long by layers or cuttings, its health has failed entirely, and it can no longer resist the ravages of the phylloxera or the slow attacks of the vine-disease fungus.
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