60 MADEIRA METEOROLOGIC. PARTY. 



Both of those western lines of coast in the southern 

 hemisphere have been the ruination of all attempts to 

 colonise and farm them for commercial profit, or to sup- 

 port permanently more than a handful of wretched 



North America ; where shade from above seems alone sought for, and is 

 effectually obtained by their huge sombrero hats, with brims as broad as 

 many umbrellas, and without a vestige of cloth to be wrapped around the face. 



But on these principles how fares it with the very opposite extreme of 

 both climate and country, viz. with Madeira, where the sun is so generally 

 clouded ; and, when it does shine, has the sting taken out of the red, or heat, 

 end of its spectrum, by the unequalled amount of invisible watery vapour in 

 the island air ? 



The answer is given at once, by Madeira having evolved for herself 

 through three centuries a headgear unknown to all the rest of the world ; 

 and in the construction of which, both solar radiations, parching air, and 

 unruly winds must have been the last things thought of. It is called in the 

 island a " carapusa." But that word is merely the Portuguese for " a cloth 

 cap ;" and is equally used in the Azores for what the men there cover their 

 heads with, but which is a something most widely different ; for it has a 

 formidable peak in front, nearly a foot long, to shade the eyes, and a 

 curtain at the back to protect the nape of the neck, from wind as well as 

 sun. (See the picture thereof in Sir Wyville Thomson's Voyage of the 

 Challenger ; vol. ii.) 



But the Madeiran " carapusa " is a ridiculous little skull cap, ending in a 

 tube above, so that it is very much in the shape of an apothecary's glass 

 funnel inverted ; and gives no protection whatever to the face from any solar 

 radiations, whether coming from above, or below, or anywhere around. 

 And, further, while the women of the Azores are remarkable for protecting 

 their heads and faces with enormous hoods, coming out so far and so long 

 drawn out to the front, that an old-fashioned English cottage poke-bonnet 

 is nothing to them, the equally Portuguese-descended women of Madeira 

 have for their head-dress merely another Madeiran carapusa, just like that 

 of the men ; so exactly indeed, that, when a youth and a maiden become 

 engaged, they exchange carapusas in token thereof, and no one need know 

 the fact but themselves. 



