CHAPTER XXI 



THE St Ebba killed a few more whales in the seas 

 between the Azores and Madeira, but they were of 

 no great value seihvale and small sperm and 

 the weather became tempestuous, so she proceeded south- 

 wards. The island of Madeira is thirty-five miles long and 

 six thousand feet high. It was very hot on the south side 

 amongst the sugar-cane crops and vineyards. But on the 

 north side, with wind off the sea, high up in the mountains 

 and riding through oak woods, bracken and heath and 

 roaring burns, it was delightful, and probably more 

 healthy than the slack air and life you have down at 

 Funchal. 



Funchal, the capital, is much the same as Ponta Delgada 

 in the Azores, a white town with red-tiled houses and green 

 blinds round a blue bay. But it is merely an open road- 

 stead and has not nearly such a picturesque inner harbour as 

 Ponta Delgada. It is a very quiet town ; the only sound 

 is the twittering canaries, and the occasional Hush of the 

 Atlantic surge on the boulders. 



There is quite a large contingent of British residents who 

 have gone in for gardening strongly at their quintas. So 

 that Funchal, in almost every month of the year, presents 

 some astonishing flowery spectacular effect. 



Geraniums are the least sensational. They pour over the 

 walls of the lanes everywhere. I noticed one evening a high 

 white wall in shade lit up with pink from the reflected scarlet 

 of geraniums that hung over the opposite wall. 



The jackaranda is the most amusingly pretty flowering 

 tree. One morning you notice its bare indiarubber-like 

 leafless branches, a few days after the bare branches are 

 covered all over with bunches of Neapolitan violets at 

 least, they look exactly like them, and a day or two later the 

 street is carpeted with the fallen blossoms and the golden 

 165 



