4 L I E U T E N A N T C O O K ’s V O Y A G E
1768. When the if land of Madeira- is firft approached from the’
, — _ feav it has a very beautiful appearance; the fides of the hills.
being entirely covered with vines almoft as high as the eye
can diftinguifh; and-the vines are green when every kind
of herbage, except where they fhade the ground, and here
and there by the fides of a rill, is intirely burnt up, which-
was the cafe at this time..
Tuefday 13. On the i jtli, about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, a boat,.
which our failors call the product boat,.came on board from
the officers of health, without whofe. permiflion no perfon is
fufFered to land from on board a fhip. As foon as this per—
million was obtained, we went on fhore at Funchiale, the
capital of the ifland, and proceeded directly to the houfe o f
Mr. Cheap, who is the Englilh conful there, and! oneof the
moft eonfiderable merchants o f the place. This gentleman
received us with the kindnefs of a brother, and the liberality
of a prince ; he infilled upon our taking-pofieflion of his
houfe, in which he furnifhed us with every poffible accommodation
during our Hay upon the ifland: he procured leave
for Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to fearch the ifland forfuclr
fiatural curiofities as-they fhould think worth their* notice;
employed perfons to-take fifh and gather fliells, which time
would not have permitted them-to collect for-themfelves;
and he provided horfes and guides to take them to any part
of the country which they Ihould chufe to vifit. With alb
thefe advantages, however, their excurfions were feldom
pufhed farther than three miles from the town, as they were
only five days on fhore; one of which they fpent at home,
in receiving the honour of a vifit from the governor. The
feafon was the worfl in the year for their purpofe, as it was
neither that of plants nor infedts ; a few of the plants, however,
were procured in flower, by the kind attention of Dr.
Heberden,
.Heberden, the chief phyfician of the ifland, and brother to
Dr. Heberden of London, who alfo gave them fuch fpeci- >-----—
mens as he had in his pofieffion, and a copy of his Botanical
Obfervations ; containing, among other things, a particular
defcription of the trees of the ifland. Mr. Banks enquired
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 ifland under that
name, but he found a tree called by the natives Vigniatico,
the Laurus indicus of Linnseus, the wood o f which cannot
eafily be diftinguifhed from mahogany. Dr. Heberden has
a book-cafe in which the vigniatico and mahogany are
mixed, and they are no otherwife 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 higheft degree probable,
that the wood known in England by the name of
Madeira mahogany, is the vigniatico.
There is great reafon to fuppofe that this whole ifland
was, at fome remote period, thrown up by the explofion of
fubterfaneous fire, as every ftone, whether whole or in fragments,
that we Taw upon it appeared to have been burnt,
and even the fand itfeif to be nothing more than afhes: we
did riot, indeed, fee much of the country, but the people
informed us that what we did fee was a very exact fpecimen
of the reft.
The only article of trade in this ifland is wine, and the
manner in which it is made is fo Ample, that it might have
been ufed by Noah, who is faid to hav-e planted the firft
vineyard after the flood: the grapes are put into a fquare
wooden, veflel, the dimenfions of which are proportioned to
the fize of the vineyard to which it belongs; the fervants
B 2 then,