6 MADEIRA METEOROLOGIC. PART i. 



departure for the discovery from Lisbon itself, " in three 

 armed ships." The first part of their voyage was bright 

 and sunshiny, so that 



" Along their path, 'mid deep-blue summer seas, 

 The porpoise gambolled and the dolphin flew ; 



" Yet ere two weeks their slender race had run, 

 A cloud of densest vapour seemed to rise 

 Full in their course, as if to blot the sun. 

 And straight the cry arose, and 'gan to swell, 

 That 'twas sulphureous and mephitic smoke 

 Vomited from the yawning gulf of hell ! 

 There to receive them, did they venture on. 



" But Zargo full upon the vapour bore his prow ; 

 When shadowy forms in midst of it appear, 

 And peak on peak careered upon the sight. 

 Now breaks the coast from out the sparkling wave ; 

 A long low promontory eastward falls, 

 Which Zargo, from the protomartyr brave, 

 His ship's great patron, Point Lorenzo calls." 



And then follows his discovery of the bulk of the 

 island, so densely covered with magnificent trees that 

 the ground could only be cleared for cultivation by burn- 

 ing ; and the fire, once commenced, continued for seven 

 years. 1 Nor was the primeval timber entirely destroyed 



1 On p. 43 (line 2) of the " Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society " 

 for April 1870, the primitive Madeiran conflagration is said to have lasted 

 only seven days. This, however, is quite opposed to the concurrence of older 

 authorities, amongst whom Manoel Thomas, a dignitary of the cathedral 

 church of Funchal, wrote his " Insulana " within two centuries of the original 

 period of the island's discovery, and fixed the longer duration of the fire, as 



