50 LONGEVITY. [chap. hi. 



LONGEVITY. 



Judging from the registrar's return of deaths in Madeira, 

 one would say the people are comparatively short lived. 

 There are reasons for this peculiar to the native popula- 

 tion, and not leading to any just inference against the healthi- 

 ness of the climate when fairly tested. The inhabitants are 

 poorly fed, poorly clothed, and hard-worked. At the age when 

 most nourishment is required, least is often obtained. The 

 growing child frequently lives on cabbage broth. The natives 

 are also subject, from their habits, to very sudden alterna- 

 tions of temperature, and to exposure to wet and cold, from 

 which the kind of garments that they wear is a poor pro- 

 tection. Men, women, and children, having been employed 

 from sunrise in collecting fuel, amid soaking mists and pierc- 

 ing blasts in the mountains, carry clown their burdens, under 

 the heat of a mid-day sun, into the warm town for sale, and 

 then return to their cold mountain dwellings. What consti- 

 tution could stand this long ? and, when insufficient feeding 

 is added, is it to be wondered at, that few attain to an advanced 

 age ? By studying the returns it will be found that there is 

 less longevity, in proportion, in the northern and colder parts 

 of the island ; and the parish of Santa Anna, which is remark- 

 able for mist and rain, is remarkable also for a shorter average 

 of life. The clothing, too, is of the scantiest nature ; it is 

 never varied in proportion to heat, cold, or damp, and the 

 wretched huts in which the people live are ill calculated to 

 keep out the weather *. 



* Hear the words of the Governor of Madeira, speaking of the labouring 

 classes: — "At the age of sixty the constitution generally breaks down, few 

 are able to work at seventy, and many, in the country districts, are entirely 

 incapacitated for labour at fifty. In the city and villages it is rare to see the 

 physical and intellectual powers impaired by premature hard work ; in the 

 country, however, you meet with many examples of mis-shapen people, 



