90 HABITATIONS OF THE POOR. — DRESS. [chap. it. 



HABITATIONS OF THE POOR. 



The habitations of the poor in Madeira are of the hum- 

 blest sort ; a few stones piled one above the other, a few 

 pine-sticks raised into a high roof, bound together with willow 

 twigs and thatched with straw, form the ordinary style of the 

 tenements of the lower classes. At a distance, these huts 

 are often almost invisible from their colour, and you may 

 appear to be at the first glance in a lonely country, which, on 

 closer inspection, you discover to be thickly covered with 

 these habitations. Near the shore sometimes, where there 

 are seams of tufa, which is easily worked, the inhabitants 

 scoop hovels for themselves out of the rock : at Camera de 

 Lobos these habitations seen from the sea have the appear- 

 ance of a rabbit-warren. 



DRESS. 



The dress of the peasantry is as scanty as is consistent 

 with decency ; a pair of linen drawers full and reaching 

 down to the knees, together with a loose linen shirt, is the 

 common dress of the men ; sometimes a jacket is thrown 

 loosely over the left arm. The more genteel have adopted 

 trowsers, and long yellow boots turned over at the top cover 

 the toes of such as are ashamed of producing them. The 

 cap resembles an inverted funnel, covering no more than the 

 crown of the head, and made of blue cloth lined with red. 

 With southern civility they doff their carapii^a to every one 

 they meet ; they might put to shame many a would-be gen- 

 tleman by the graceful ease with which they salute each 

 other, and the unassuming uncringing manner with which 

 they comport themselves towards either equals or superiors. 

 The dress of the women is simple and pretty; the native 



