92 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



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 the soUtary indivi- 

 dual 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 Cadamosto^, 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 Physiologic vegetale, t. 1, p. 375.) I availed 

 myself of the opportunity of making the experiment, 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 Vegetaux, t. 2. p. 110. 



^ " Acha — se tambem nella sangue de Drago, que se cria em algumas, 



arvores, e he huma goma, que ellas cstiiao em certo tempo do anno, e se colhe por 

 esta maneira : fazem alguns golpes com hum cutello no pe da arvore, e no anno 

 seguinte em certo tempo, as ditas cortaduras estilao a gomma, que cosem, e purificao 

 e assin se faz o Sangue. Esta arvore produz hum certo fruto, que no mez de Margo 

 esta maduro, e he muito bom para comer, a semelhan§a de cerejas, mas amarello." 

 .... Collegdo de noticias para a historia e geografia das nagoes ultramarinas que 

 vivem nos dominios Portuguezes, ou Ihes sdo visinhas, publicada pela Academia Real 

 das Sciencias. Lisboa, 1812. Tom. 2, p. 8. 



^ 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, 

 as in the first edition of Cadamosto; or 1501, as in the Latin translation of Grynaeus. 



