THE CANARIES 



271 



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The last time I was in this place was in 1846. All my life 

 lies between the two visits. I was then twenty-one and a half, 

 and I shall be sixty-five to-morrow. The place looks to me to 

 have grown a good deal, but I believe it is chiefly English resi- 

 dents whose villas dot the hill. There were no woods forty- 

 four years ago. Now there is one, I am told, to Camera do 

 Lobos nearly five miles long. That is the measure of Portu- 

 guese progress in half a century. Moreover, the men have 

 left off wearing their pigtail caps and the women their hoods. 



To his Youngest Daughter 



Bella Vista Hotel, Funchal, May 6, 1890. 



Dearest Babs — This comes wishing you many happy re- 

 turns of the day, though a little late in the arrival. Harry sends 

 his love, and desires me to say that he took care to write a letter 

 which should arrive in time, but unfortunately forgot to men- 

 tion the birthday in it ! So I think, on the whole, I have the 

 pull of him. We ought to be back about the 18th or 19th, as I 

 have put my name down for places in the Conway Castle, which 

 is to call here on the 12th, and I do not suppose she will be full. 

 In the meanwhile, we shall fill up the time by a trip to the other 

 side of the island, on which we start to-morrow morning at 

 7.30. You have to take your own provisions and rugs to sleep 

 upon and under, as the fleas la bas are said to be unusually fine 

 and active. We start quite a procession with a couple of horses, 

 a guide, and two men (owners of the nags) to carry the bag- 

 gage; and I suspect that before to-morrow night we shall have 

 made acquaintance with some remarkably bad apologies for 

 roads. But the horses here seem to prefer going up bad stair- 

 cases at speed (with a man hanging on by the tail to steer), and 

 if you only stick to them they land you all right. I have de- 

 veloped so much prowess in this line that I 'think of coming 

 out in the character of Buffalo Bill on my return. Hands and 

 face of both of us are done to a good burnt sienna, and a few 

 hours more or less in the saddle don't count. I do not think 

 either of us have been so well for years. 



You will have heard of our doings in Teneriffe from M . 



The Cafiadas there is the one thing worth seeing, altogether 

 unique. As a health resort I should say the place is a fraud — 

 always excepting Guimar — and that, excellent for people in good 

 health, is wholly unfit for a real invalid, who must either go up- 

 hill or downhill over the worst of roads if he leaves the hotel. 



