MADEIRA. 
poverty of their food, which chiefly consists of fish, pumpkins, 
and sour wine, or pernicious spirits ; to a life of drudge r}-^ and 
exposure to great vicissitude of chmate, by daily ascending 
the steep and lofty mountains in search of fuel ; and, above 
all, to a total disregard of cleanliness. As a corroborative 
proof of this being the case it may be mentioned, that almost 
all the natives are infected with what the}'' consider an in- 
curable cutaneous disease, a species of itch, which is attended 
with an extraordinary degree of virulence and inflammation. 
I do not remember to have seen or heard of any remarkable 
instance of longevity ; and the chances are, that Dr. Price, 
in speaking of the mortality of this island as one in fifty only 
of the population, while that of London he considers as one 
in twenty, is not less inaccurate in these instances than in 
many other of his calculations. 
The peasantry, however, like all other mountaineers, are a 
strong, healthy, hardy race of men, whose chief employment 
consists in the various occupations of agriculture, but more 
particularly in the cultivation of the vine. When the vintage 
is over, and the labours of the vineyard suspended for the 
season, several hundreds may daily be seen descending the 
mountain paths, in their way to the town, with their borrachas, 
or goat-skin bags of wine, slung on a stick across the 
shoulder. 
In all countries where little progress has been made in the 
refinements of civilization, the drudgery of labour is unfairly 
thrown on the weaker sex. In our excursions amons the 
mountains of Madeira, we observed great numbers of women, 
c 2 
