I 
MADEIRA. 13 
The dress of the female mountain wooJ-cutters consists of 
a shift, a petticoat, and a thick cap or coarse handkerchief 
tied about the head. The middle class of people, who earn 
a livelihood by keeping shops, b}^ carrying on a petty traffic, or 
by practising some of the handicraft trades, are distinguished 
in their dress from the vulgar by tlie addition of a hat, shoes 
and stockings, and a long black cloak, which frequently con- 
ceals beneath its covering a multitude of rents and patches. 
Their wives and daughters are almost invariably habited in 
black cloth petticoats, and a jacket of the same material, 
with a large hood drawn over the head. It ^v^ould be unrea- 
sonable to expect that the women of this place should exhibit 
the most perfect models of purity and delicacy ; but we w ere 
not exactly prepared to observe these hooded matrons and 
damsels stepping aside, with perfect composure, to the creeks 
and corners of the streets and, like Madame Rambouillet, 
" plucking their roses,'' in open day, and in full view of every 
passenger. 
Nor do the men, who affect to rank among the upper 
classes of society, appear to feel those elevated notions of in- 
dependence which attach to their condition in other countries : 
for instance, they are not ashamed of begging in the public 
streets. The monks of St. Francis profess it por amor de 
Deos ; and the laity beg for the love of themselves. Contrary 
to the custom of our beggars, who assume at least the out- 
ward appearance of being objects of compassion, and fre- 
quently of disgust, a Portugueze puts on his best coat wdien 
he goes a begging. This may not be so much the case in Ma- 
7 
