Leaves from a Madeira Garden 



corn and the vegetables on which the people 

 feed. 



Of the lower slopes of the hills, every available 

 space is terraced and cultivated. The concen- 

 trated industry displayed is very remarkable. 

 There are those who will prate to you of the 

 " lazy Latin races." Let them reflect on the 

 conditions of cultivation in this and similar 

 countries, and recant their heresy. These 

 peasants, scratching the slopes of an extinct 

 volcano — though they knew it not as such — 

 lead simple lives very remote from all modern 

 influences. Many pass their days without even 

 visiting the great city of Funchal. Their 

 ignorance of the very rudiments of education 

 insures their continued adscriptio glehce. For 

 what Mr. Wells calls the "general adventurous- 

 ness of life " in towns, perhaps the chief attrac- 

 tion of town-life to those who have learnt to 

 read and write, they are quite unfitted. Where- 

 fore, as their fathers before them, and their 

 sons to come, they wage their life-long combat 

 with the forces of Nature and the exactions of 

 their landlord. Their religion, with its ordered 

 ceremonies and cheerful festivals, is at once 

 their chief consolation, their sole recreation, and 



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