surge, which breaks with violence on a rough pebbled beach,
the passenger enters directly into the irregular and meanly
built town of Funchal, whose streets are narrow, crooked, and
duty, some paved with small pointed pebbles, that seem to
p.erce through the soles of the shoes at every st¿p, and others
without any pavement but the ridges of schistose lava breaking
through the surface, whose points are not less sharp than the former.
The mountain rills trickle through some of the streets in
their passage to the bay ; but, instead of contributing to the
cleanliness of the town, these little streamlets are productive
of every kind of nuisance. Here the inhabitants wash their
clothes, clean their fish, deposit the offals of butchers' shops,
empty the contents of their night-machines, and, in short
bring together -all the filthy and offensive materials that are’
collected or generated in the town. The number of hogs that
are attracted by this plentiful supply of provender, and that
are suffered to run loose about the streets, is another source
of annoyance to the passenger; for these four-legged gentry
are so familiar, that he who happens to walk the length of a
street without being gently brushed by some of them may
consider himself as being in great luck.
The few good dwelling-houses that are found in the town
are those which are occupied by the British merchants, who
have established themselves here in the wine trade; these
houses are in general sufficiently spacious, but neither commodious
nor comfortable. These and a few others excepted,
all'the rest have rather a mean appearance. Their roofs
fire chiefly covered with tiles, on which large loose stones are
laid to prevent their being carried away by the blasts of
M A D E I R A . 7
wind that occasionally blow with great violence from the
mountains behind the town. The extent of Funchal may be
nearly a mile in a line parallel with the beach, and rather
more than half a mile in depth. I t is said to contain two
thousand houses, occupied by about twelve thousand inhabitants.
There are besides six other small towns or villages |
on the island, the whole population of which, including
Funchal, is estimated to amount to about ninety thousand
persons.
At a little distance behind ,the government-house, which
stands within the fort Lorenco, and overlooks the bay, is the
Passao Publico, the public mall, a short but very pretty walk,
well shaded with orange or lime trees, willows and poplars.
On one side of the entrance stands the theatre, which is seldom
opened, and on the other the hospital. Funchal, like
other towns and cities of Roman Catholic countries, has no
scarcity of churches and convents; but we met with little in
any of them that could be considered as deserving of particular
notice. The beams and the roof of the cathedral are
pointed out to strangers as being of cedar, a species of. tree
with which it is said the island was at its discovery nearly
covered. Another curiosity which is shewn in the town is a
chamber in one of the wings of the Franciscan convent, the
walls and ceiling of which are completely covered with rows
of human skulls and human thigh bones, so-arranged that
in the obtuse angle made by every pair of the latter, crossing
each other obliquely, is placed a skull. The only vacant
space that appears is in the centre of the side opposite to
the door, on which there is an extraordinary painting above