88 THE VOYAGE : PASSING IMPEESSIONS 
tops of the Mts. more sub-divided into conical peaks than 
the Scotch hills and covered with grass ' : the mingled tropical 
and temperate fruits growing in the island : the joy of the 
crews on arrival when * all hands were busy spreading Bananas 
on our bread instead of butter and rehshing grapes more 
than tea ' : though he found little in his dihgent search for 
Alpines on the extremely dry and barren rocks of the Curral, 
for ' Neither the season nor place were favourable to botanising.' 
Here he received the warmest of Scotch welcomes from a 
Mr. Muir, formerly a Glasgow merchant, and a great friend of 
his grandfather, ' who had charged me particularly to call 
upon him,' finding his house by the help of a passing Enghsh- 
man, after his enquiries, couched in Dog-Latin with Portuguese 
terminations, had produced no effect on the natives- 
Though unable to accept Mr. Muir's instant invitation 
to stay at his Quinta as long as the ships lay off Funchal, he 
was constantly there, and notes wdth special pleasure, in the 
little parties got up to meet him, the absence of ceremony 
among the British families living there. Indeed there were so 
many Scotch and Glasgow acquaintances dining one night 
with another friend, that ' the conversation w^as wholly upon 
Glasgow or Britain, and Mr. Shortridge had a long discussion 
with me concerning the respective merits of Mr. Almond and Mr. 
Montgomery [two Glasgow ministers] ; distance lent energy 
to the cause, and I supported the former with much more 
warmth than I should have done at home perhaps.' 
A party from the ships now carried out a long cherished 
plan of visiting the famous mountain glen known as the Curral. 
On the way. Hooker's unceasing interest in the practical side 
of economic botany, already stirred by the discovery that the 
coffee served him at diimer was home grown, made him pay 
special attention to the * Jardine,' a tea plantation among the 
chestnut woods some 2000 feet above the sea, belonging to the 
late British Consul, Mr. Veitch. In this temperate region, 
with a soil composed of a fine vegetable mould over volcanic 
detritus, he notes that * neither bananas, coffee, nor dates will 
grow here, but the climate seems peculiarly w^ell adapted to 
the cultivation of Chinese plants ; Camellias flom^ish, including 
