PART v. VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 57 



in possessing so courteous and able a mercantile house as 

 that of Messrs. Blandy Brothers, the chosen agents of 

 seven steamship companies ; while Consuls of no less 

 than thirteen nations reside here. 



But chiefly, and above everything else, is Madeira a 

 health station for consumptive patients. In and around 

 Funchal, more especially, it might almost be said that 

 attendance on the sick is the profession, or calling, or 

 occupation, of most of the living ; and how well they per- 

 form their parts ! The Portuguese mind or nature lends 

 itself beautifully to the employment. More faithful and 

 more naively sympathetic attendants are nowhere to be 

 found ; they seem all to step softly, and speak low ; to 

 be kindly affectioned one to another ; at the same time 

 that they vie in devotion by night and by day to gratify 

 the least wish of the poor sick one, fading gradually 

 away ; or, it may be, steadily reviving. For the climate 

 is largely favourable; and where, out of 100 cases sent 

 to the Brompton Consumption Hospital at home, 78 have 

 died within thirty months, of the same number sent to 

 Madeira, only 34 have proved fatal. 



Yet are not by any means all consumptive patients to 

 be shipped off indiscriminately to Madeira. For, as the 

 so -early -cut -off Dr. Mason admirably indicated in his 

 day, there are cases of consumption requiring a dry, just 

 as much as others do a humid, atmosphere. So that for 

 the former, Madeira is as decidedly the wrong, as for the 

 latter, it is the right, place ; and he has left behind him 



