presented itself (with some remarkably tall cacti) just above the
Fonte dos Anjos, near Pico Facho. Baron de Humboldt considers
the Dracoena Draco as exclusively indigenous to India, and infers,-
that the Guanches were, or had been, in relation with some Asiatic
race*. I am inclined to think it is also natural to Porto Santo,
and perhaps to Madeira; not of course from thé solitary individual
now remaining in the former island, (which is not seven feet
in circumference) or from the eight or ten larger ones to the north,
and to the east of the town of Funchal, but from the subjoined
account of Cadamosto3) who visited Porto Santo in 1445*.
Cordeyro writes, that the dragon trees of Porto Santo were so
large, that fishing boats, capable of containing six or seven men,
pretty nearly estimated by the quantity of charcoal produced by their woods;
M. Mirbel doubts if this rule would apply to the Baobab and Dragon trees, from the
loose texture of the wood (Elemens de Physiologie végétale, t. 1, p. 375.) I availed
myself of the opportunity of making the expefimént, which I did carefully in an
earthern retort, stopping the mouth, directly the whole of -the gaseous matter had
escaped, and breaking it that I might not loose an atom of the charcoal ; which .was
of a light fibrous texture, resembling horse-hair, and amounting only to 0.05 of the
weight of the wood which.furnished it. Tradition reports, that the dragon tree of
Orotava (forty-five feet in circumference) was as large in 1402, as Baron de Humboldt
found it in 1799 ; and the baobabs of Senegal (upwards of 100 feet in circumference),
are upwards of 5000 years old, if we may trust the calculations of Adanson.
* Tableau de la Nature. Physionomie des Végétaux, t. 2. p. 110.
1 “ .................Acha—se tambemnella sangue de Drago, que se cria em algunias
arvores, e he huma goma, que ellas ëstilâo em certo tempo do anno, e se colhe pôr
esta maneira: fazem alguns golpes com hum cutello no pé da arvore, e no anno
seguinte em certo tempo, as ditas cortaduras estilaô a gomma, que cosem, e purificâo
e assin se fax o Sangue. Esta arvore produz hum certo fruto, que no mez de Marco
estamaduro, e he muito bom para comer, â semelhança de cerejas, mas amarello.”
. . . . Colleçâo de noticias para a historia e geografia dos naçoês ultramarinas que
vivem nos domimos Portuguézes, au Ihes sâo visinhas, publicada pela Academia Real
das Sciendas. Lisboa, 1812. Tom. 2, p. 8.
2 The Portuguese editors have shewn, "in their introduction (p. xii, xiii,) that
Cadamosto s voyage to the coast of Africa, took place in this year, instead of 1454,
asin the first edition of Cadamosto; or 1501, as in the Latin translation of Grynæus.
were made out of the tranks, and that the inhabitants fattened
their pigs on the fruit but he adds, that so many boats, shields,
and corn-measures had been made out of them, that even in his
time there was scarcely a dragon tree to be seen in the island*.
Indeed there are not twenty trees of any kind left standing in the
island at present, and the inhabitants are obliged to make fires of
dried cow dung, when they cannot afford to import fire wood from
Madeira. If . the ancients had visited Madeira and Porto Santo, as
M. Heeren supposesb, would they not, probably, have noticed this
extraordinary tree, which struck Cadamosto so forcibly ?
We shot the falco o esa lo n the upupa capensis, which I presume
was not known to inhabit so far north ; the larus canus, said by the
natives to be blown over from the African coast; the columba lima,
of which there are large flocks; a turdusd; the loxia enucleator,
and a larger carythm%
The temperature of the spring at Araya, (December 13th) was
66° or 42° higher than that of the air, which must be pretty
nearly the mean temperature of Porto Santo. On the sandy
beach of the south side of the island, the thermometer stood at 67°
at half past three P.M., and 60° at sunset.
2 Historia Insulana das Rhas a Portugal Sugeytas no Oceano Occidental, composta
pelo Padre Antonio Cordeyro da Companhia de Jesus, Lisboa, Occidental, 1717.
b He considers them to be the 'Fortunate Islands of Diodorus Siculus. Afrika,
tom. 1. p. 124.
c For its parasitical insect (a ricinus,) see fig. 22; b, the under view, c, the «law,
(both magnified) colour pale brown. The peasantry say, that this falcon makes a
very good soup, and I remarked, that thè stomachs of two which I dissected contained
nothing but insects {gryUi) and grains.
d The back and belly are brown, with patches of yellow, the wings and tail brown ;
the beak is strong, and of a brown colour, except the first half of the lower mandible>
which is yellow.
e It is 16£ inches long: the two first pen-feathers of the wing, are but indistinctly
edged with white ; the five exterior long feathers of the tail are each marked with a
white spot at the end.