Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



of improvement perhaps much of the attraction 

 of Madeira lies. As far as essentials are con- 

 cerned, we might be living in the eighteenth 

 century ; and we now learn how few of the 

 inventions of the nineteenth are necessary to 

 comfort or contentment. One need never be 

 in a hurry ; for most things to-morrow will do 

 as well as, or better than, to-day. And being 

 accustomed to go about the town in a car on 

 runners, not wheels, drawn by two oxen, one 

 is inclined to resent the recent introduction of 

 two or three motor-cars, especially as the streets 

 are narrow and twisted. As their operations 

 are limited by the nature of the country to 

 certain parts of the town, and a road along the 

 coast about six miles in length, and as the 

 cobble stones and ridged hills must be very 

 trying to their tyres and machinery, there are 

 reasonable grounds for hoping that they will 

 not endure very long. 



There is indeed a certain old-world charm 

 about the cobbled and grass-grown streets of 

 Funchal. The houses are irregular in con- 

 struction ; many of them, especially in the 

 centre of the town, are of considerable an- 

 tiquity ; and though most are more or less 



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