MADEIRA. T7 



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 cooking 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 meet over the centre of the channel. The 



