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Updated: May 9, 2025
For out of seven hundred men in the ship Worcester the same that sank in the Bay of Funchal there was not so much as a powder-boy but could understand every word that I said, whereas on shore there is many a great jolterhead, like thyself, who might be a Portugee for all the English that he knows, and who stares at me like a pig in a hurricane if I do lint ask him what he makes the reckoning, or how many bells have gone.
During the stay at Funchal the dogs had two good meals of fresh meat as a very welcome variety in their diet; a fair-sized carcass of a horse disappeared with impressive rapidity at each of these banquets.
One of the most beautiful houses of worship I have ever seen, is the English church, just outside of the city of Funchal. The edifice has no steeple or bells, these being prohibited by the treaty between Portugal and Great Britain, which permits the English protestants to erect churches.
The queer old views of Machim's landing and of Funchal Bay still amuse visitors. Daily observations for meteorology are here taken at 9 A.M. and 3 and 9 P.M.; the observatory standing eighty feet above sea-level.
Whilst they were at Funchal, Banks spent five days with the English Consul, and he describes the place as very pretty, but the people as primitive, idle, and uninformed; all their instruments of the rudest make; and he thought that the appliances used in the manufacture of wine must have been similar to those used by Noah, "although it is not impossible that he might have used better if he remembered the methods he had seen before the flood."
The public ways were of a scrupulous cleanliness, as if, with so many English signs glaring down at them, they durst not untidy out-of-doors, though in-doors it was said to be different with them. There are three thousand English living at Funchal and everybody speaks English, however slightly. The fresh faces of English girls met us in the streets and no doubt English invalids abound.
And it was by no means bad; at anyrate it was always possible to get fruit, including loquats, strawberries, custard apples, bananas, oranges, and the passion-flower fruit, which is not enticing on a first acquaintance, and resembles an anæmic pomegranate. Eggs, too, were twenty-eight for tenpence; fish was at nominal prices. But there is nothing to do in Funchal save eat and swim or ride.
"Je suis Catholique parce que mon père l'étoit, et parce que c'étoit la religion de la France." He also once or twice expressed to Campbell scorn of the popular creed: and during his last voyage, as we have seen, he showed not the slightest interest in the offer of a priest at Funchal to accompany him. At St.
A rough voyage across the Bay of Biscay, a view of the Tagus, a brief run on shore to look at the picturesque capital of Portugal, a gaze at the spot, which marks the memory of the scene of the fearful earthquake of 1755, which destroyed most of the town, and 50,000 of its inhabitants; a short stay at the lovely island of Madeira, sufficient to glance at its beautiful scenery, to breathe its balmy air, to taste its delicious fruits, and to land at its pretty town of Funchal, to see some of its charming surroundings; a passing peep at Teneriffe, which is now receiving so much attention in Europe as an attractive health resort; a few days' run of exhausting heat through the tropics; a visit to Saint Helena, enough to allow of a drive to Longwood, and a look at the room, where the first Napoleon breathed his last leaving there the legacy of the shadow of a mighty name to all time on this "lonely rock in the Atlantic"; a few days more of solitary sailing over a stormy sea, a daily look-out for whales, porpoises, dolphins, flying fish, sharks, and albatrosses; a glance upward, night after night, into the starry sky, to gaze on the Southern Cross, so much belauded, and yet so disappointing in its appearance, after the extravagant encomiums lavished on it; and at length, on the early morning of May 24, I safely reached Cape Town.
My friends were very much pleased with the cleanly appearance of the town and good pavement, affording a striking contrast to Funchal, which, like most Portuguese towns, was dirty and badly paved.
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