88 MILITARY AFFAIRS. [chap. iv. 



even the possession of contraband articles brings the owner 

 within the lash of the law. 



Such restrictions as these are founded, no doubt, on narrow 

 views of commerce and policy : many other particulars might 

 be pointed out, in which the political relations of such coun- 

 tries as Portugal with their colonies, and the condition of 

 civil rights both in the dependencies and the mother country, 

 are far different from, and far inferior to those enjoyed by the 

 subjects of the British crown. There is one respect, how- 

 ever, in which countries that suffer from bad government may 

 perhaps find some compensation for the want of a greater 

 degree of public freedom; and that is, in a nearer approach 

 at least to social and personal equality. Amongst these 

 people, there does not appear to be so hard a line of de- 

 marcation between the different orders of society as in some 

 other countries. The manners of inferiors are less obse- 

 quious, and those of superiors more easy ; the general level 

 of society is more even, and less interrupted by abrupt and 

 impassable barriers. 



MILITARY AFFAIRS. 



Madeira forms the ninth military division of Portugal. 

 The military government of Funchal is committed to officers 

 holding a rank not inferior to that of colonel. The force, 

 which forms the present garrison of Madeira, is composed of 

 the Oth Battalion of Caqadores (light infantry), numbering 

 445 men; a detachment of 21 men, from the 1st Kegiment 



found of late years at Angola, and the other Portuguese settlements on the 

 coast of Africa, the price has fallen to £50 per ton, and little, if any, is now 

 collected in Madeira. It is remarkable that the African orchil is gathered 

 from trees ; any found on the stems of trees in Madeira, and the adjacent 

 islands, was considered worthless as a dye, where none was employed unless 

 it grew on rocks and stones near the sea-shore. 



