276 



Maria R****** was the daughter of William Woodley, Gover- 

 nor of St. Kitts and the Leeward Islands. In 1791 she married 

 Walter Riddell, of Woodley Park, four miles south of Dumfries, 

 Scotland. The lady was only nineteen, but having a taste for 

 literature, published a lively account of her voyages under the 

 title as given above. 



The youthful authoress dedicates her book to Mr. William 

 Smellie, member of the Antiquarian and Royal Societies of 

 Edinburgh, and with becoming modesty states that " it is by no 

 means so correct as I could have wished ; for, although a great 

 part of it was written on an island, where I lived in almost total 

 seclusion from society and dissipation, yet my marriage (which 

 took place soon after) by obtruding on me a number of domestic 

 occupations, interrupted my course of study, and prevented me 

 from finishing, with any degree of accuracy, an undertaking that 

 required more time and labour than I had then leisure to bestow 



Miss Woodley left England on the eleventh of April, 1788, on 

 the merchant ship Britannia in company with her father and 

 mother and five other passengers, bound for Madeira. Land- 

 ing there she proceeds with a fair amount of detail to give an 

 an account of the mass in " The Great Cathedral," of various 

 convents and monasteries of the island, of the fort, and of the 

 island generally, including some entertainments given in their 

 honor. She speaks of " Tropical and European fruits," " lem- 

 ons of a prodigious" size, "strawberries that grow wild in the 

 mountains with astonishing profusion," " grapes which are as 

 large as our common plumbs " and oranges that are of a "san- 

 guine red." She mentions the cedar tree as having furnished 

 most of the ceilings and furniture of Madeira, speaks of the 

 dragon tree and other trees, and also adds the fact that "flowers 

 nursed in the English greenhouses grow wild here in the fields." 

 A few notes are also made on "birds and fishes. She tells of a 

 little hermitage on the mountains and is mnch impressed with 

 fountains and cascades. She attends an "elegant ball and a 

 concert" at the governor's and at the close of her visit, so as tc 

 omit nothing of interest that took place on the island, had th« 



