Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



cheque for ^^50. This was the beginning of a 

 continuous stream of charity, which left her for 

 not one moment in trouble about funds. She 

 was enabled to purchase every requisite and 

 comfort for the patients, even toys for the 

 children. And from that moment the plague 

 was stayed. It began to decline in the town, 

 and it did not spread to the remoter parts of 

 the island. Its final disappearance was coincident 

 with an exceptionally strong and intensely hot 

 "Leste," the dry east wind which sometimes 

 blows from the Sahara, and brings its dust 

 across the intervening three hundred miles of 

 sea. 



It is satisfactory to know that Miss Wilson's 

 great services were fully appreciated and publicly 

 recognized. The Queen of Portugal took the 

 lead in doing honour to her, and press and 

 pulpit and private citizens joined in a chorus of 

 gratitude. And surely we English have great 

 reason to be proud of our countrywoman. 



It must not be inferred from the somewhat 

 lugubrious contents of this chapter that we live 

 here in a constant state of epidemic sickness. 

 The reverse is the fact. In spite of all the 

 invitations to zymotic diseases held out by the 



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