76 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



A number of what I imagined to be decayed gentry, whose 

 daily routine seemed to be to do nothing all the morning, and to 

 rest themselves in the evening, were lounging before the principal 

 church, or along the torrent wall, in rusty black coats and washed- 

 out nankeens, set off by a large cane. These I was told were 

 Morgados or Proprietors, to whom industry of any kind would be 

 a stain, and who can only condescend to superintend their own 

 properties, that is, to watch how many eggs the hens of their hard- 

 working tenants lay, in order that they may exact the rigorous 

 half of every thing produced, not only by, but wpon their estates. 

 I called upon one of these grandees a Uttle after eight o'clock in the 

 mor)iing, to inquire about a chalybeate spring which was described 

 to be in his ground, and such a scene I never before witnessed. 

 The house seemed as if it would fall about our ears every moment, 

 many of the stairs were broken in, and there was no door to the 

 chamber in which I discovered the taper figure of the proprietor, 

 floating about in a ragged dressing gown, whilst his lady (a huge 

 deformed woman, her yellow visage begrimed with dirt, her neck 

 uncovered, and her wiry black hair likening her to a Medusa) was 

 attempting to draw her unwholesome fingers, instead of a comb 

 (occasionally using her nails), through the thick, matted, uncut 

 locks of four squalid, unwashed, and almost naked children, who 

 slipped away to take another roll on one of the two filthy 

 mattresses, which still lay on the rat-eaten floor of tliis family sty. 

 A pen and ink, and a few papers in the window-seat, gave my 

 friend the Genoese occasion to whisper, that this Morgado gained 

 a few pistrines occasionally as a lawyer; be that as it may, he 

 almost overwhelmed me with his sweeping bows, which I was 

 compelled to return with a liberal discount, and stiff" circum- 

 spection, lest I should slip a leg through one of the gaps, which 

 threatened me with a sort of infernal region below. AVhat a 

 dehght it was to breathe the fresh air again, and to sit down to 



