6 
MADEIRA 
I was surprised, after the different accounts I had read, to find 
that there was not even so much surf on the beach as there is 
usually at Deal. We landed without the least difficulty ; and after 
being politely hustled by a posse of English merchants, their clerks, 
and partners, enquiring for letters, and after having gone through 
the usual forms of producing our passport, and proving to the Board 
of Health that we were not come from the Mediterranean, and 
therefore were probably free from the plague, we proceeded to the 
house of the Consul, Mr. Pringle. I had letters for him ; in con- 
sequence of which he very politely requested me to make his house 
my home during my residence in the Island ; an offer which I 
accepted. 
Mr. Murdoch, one of the principal merchants of the place, a 
gentleman with whom Gapt. Weltden had business to transact, on 
this day, the festival of St. Peter, gave a dinner at his country 
house, to which Mr. Pringle was engaged ; I therefore consented to . 
accompany him. Fortunate was it that we arrived on St. Peter's 
day, for the good fishermen would on no account work on the fes- 
tival of their patron, therefore we were secure on shore, as the wine 
could not till the next day be put on board. The delays of office 
prevented our sending for our friends as soon as we could have 
wished; and a calm coming on, the ship drifted so far from the 
shore, that they were not able to arrive before four o'clock. Mr. 
Salt and I immediately set off with Mr. Pringle to mount the hill, 
to Mr. Murdoch's. It unfortunately rained, sufficiently to prevent 
our enjoying the scene, which was not only beautiful in itself, bi^t 
had also all the charms of novelty to me, who had never before 
seen the banana, fig-tree, orange, guava, and pomegranate, growing 
