MADEIRA. 17 



mated at 115,000. The lower classes are industrious, sober, 

 and honest. They are supposed to be a mixture of Moors, 

 Negroes, and Portuguese. Dark hair, eyes, and complexion 

 are most common. The character of the features is usually 

 a broad face, high cheek-bones, full lips, and good teeth. 

 The men are very muscular, about the middle height, very 

 erect, strongly built, and capable of enduring great fatigue. 

 The women are not good looking, which is no doubt owing, in 

 part, to the hard labor required of them. 



The men wear loose trowsers, descending to the knee, made 

 of coarse linen cloth manufactured on the island, a shirt, and 

 a jacket of gaudy color. They sometimes wear boots or shoes 

 made of white leather, but generally they go without either. 



The women are dressed in bodices, with short petticoats of 

 a variety of colors. Both sexes wear a blue cloth cap of very 

 small dimensions, tied under the chin. 



The houses of the peasantry are little better than huts ; 

 they are constructed of stone, one story high, with a roof 

 rising on all sides to a central pole are thatched with straw, 

 and beneath the same roof are included the parlor, kitchen, 

 and sleeping-room, without any intervening partitions. The 

 only aperture for light or smoke is the door. Perhaps there is 

 no need for chimneys, as fire is seldom required, and the cook- 

 ing is usually done out in the open air. 



Funchal is the capital of the island. It is built along the 

 margin of a small bay, the houses in some parts rising one 

 above the other on steep hills, and contains above 20,000 

 inhabitants, of which 500 are foreign residents. It is inter- 

 sected by three rivers, which are kept in their course by strong 

 thick walls, from ten to thirty feet in height. Most of these 

 streams have pleasant walks along their raised banks, shaded 

 with large overhanging plane-trees, whose branches almost 



