and
afterwards invited me to see him. This smattering of Portuguese I found
more useful still in Madeira, or at Funchal--its capital--for I stayed
in native hotels. It is the only possible way of learning anything about
the people in a short visit. Moreover, the English hotels are full of
invalids. It is curious to note the present prevalence of consumption
among the natives of Funchal. It is a good enough proof on the first
face of it that consumption is catching. There is a large hospital here
for Portuguese patients, though the disease was unknown before the
English made a health resort of it.

Funchal has been a thousand times described, and is well worthy of it.
Lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible from the
sea, as the houses grow fewer and fewer upon the slopes of the lofty
mountain background, it is curiously theatrical and scenic in effect. It
is artistically arranged, well-placed; a brilliant jewel in a dark-green
setting, and the sea is amethyst and turquoise.

I stayed in an hotel whose proprietor was an ardent Republican. One
evening he mentioned the fact in broken English, and I told him that in
theory I also was of that creed. He grew tremendously excited, opened a
bottle of Madeira, shared it with me and two Portuguese, and insisted on
singing the Marseillaise until a crowd collected in front of the house,
whose open windows looked on an irregular square. Then he and his
friends shouted "Viva la partida dos Republicanos!" The charges at this
hotel were ridiculously small--only three and fourpence a day for board
and lodging. And it was by no means bad; at anyrate it was always
possible to get fruit, including loquats, strawberries, custard apples,
bananas, oranges, and the passion-flower fruit, which is not enticing on
a first acquaintance, and resembles an anaemic pomegranate. Eggs, too,
were twenty-eight for tenpence; fish was at nominal prices.

But there is nothing to do in Funchal save eat and swim or ride. The
climate is enervating, and when the east wind blows from the African
coast it is impossible to move save in the most spiritless and languid
way. It may make an invalid comparatively strong, but I am sure it might
reduce a strong man to a state of confirmed laziness little removed
from actual illness. I was glad one day to get horses, in company with
an acquaintance, and ride over the mountains to Fayal, on the north side
of the island. And it was curious to see the ob