case in a chilly northern climate), not only from
the pursuits and occupations, but often from
the society of his healthy associates. This, in
my opinion, is one of the many advantages of
Madeira to the invalid. " About mid-day," the
writer goes on to say, "you proceed in your
hammock to the Commercial Rooms." That
depends mainly on the orders you give your
bearers; you might bid them carry you up a
winding road between hedges of sweet
geraniums and thickets of cacti, under arches that
connect rival gardens, golden with the hanging
branches of bignonia, or purple with the regal
blossoms of the Bougainvillœas, to a spot as
sheltered as your own verandah, and there you
may read or listen (if fortunate enough to have
a companion) to something more genial than
"the conversation of Brown, Jones, and Robinson.
"We take it for granted we are speaking
to a traveller who has provided himself with a
few books for his edification in " exile." More
especially as we are told, that conversation turns
on the same melancholy subject which your
physician exhausted in the morning. Although,
be it remembered, in Madeira there is a daily
struggle for life going forward, and it is no
more surprising that the results should be
discussed, than that soldiers should count up the
numbers of those who fall, and who survive, in
a military campaign. The question naturally
arises, Why repair to the reading-room at all?
The joys of a small reading-room in any small
place appear to us problematical, even in that
island we proudly call our home. At all
events, this daily visit is optional. " The
same two miles of level ground," although
the view it commands is ever varying, ever
new, must, we should conceive, become
wearisome on the one hundred and tenth repetition
of the ride; but, as a good canter is
usually the chief reason adduced for frequenting
the new road, I should advise the invalid who
is restricted to a foot's pace, to turn his horse's
head up one or other of the innumerable roads
which intersect Madeira, and I promise him that
every new point of view, will offer some new and
startling feature of picturesque beauty.

The nights are balmy, the sky usually so clear,
that the heavenly bodies gain in apparent size
and brilliancy. It is true that the invalid is
usually ordered home a little before sunset, and
of course if he be so unfortunate as to have
contracted no domestic ties before, or formed no
friendships since his arrival, his evening will be
solitary, as it would be in any other latitude
——with this difference, that in Madeira (on most
evenings) his chair may be placed within reach
of the open window, where the breath of
the night-smelling flowers is laden with soft
messages from the sweet season, even on the
vigil of the holy Christmas festival.

The town of Funchal is squalid and poverty-
stricken. Beggars abound, and lepers are
indeed plentiful; but if the invalid be too
hypochondriacal to bear such sights, let him turn his
horse's hoofs, or his bearers' steps, away from
the town altogether.

And now I would be allowed a few words on
the subject of hired horses, which the article
calls " miserable hacks from the livery-stables
at Lisbon"——where it happens that there are no
livery-stables. In the quinta where I resided
there were several Englishmen, good judges of
horses; and although we changed our hacks
once or twice before we were suited, yet at the
expiration of a very short period our stable
boasted a very (for hired horses) fair stud. As
to the hammock, naturally this is a matter
of opinion, whether as a means of transport it
be tedious and wearisome, or luxurious.

But to proceed to the meteorological and
scientific observations adduced by the writer,
who appears to regard the late Dr. Mason
as the only reliable authority respecting the
climate of the place. He talks of personal
abuse and futile objections, as the only
answers vouchsafed to Mason's statements. The
critical remarks I have met with on the
subject, tend to show what the doctor himself
wished to be clearly understood——that
the results of his hygrometrical observations,
the principal point at issue, cannot be regarded
as applicable to Funchal in general, but only to
the locality where they were made. For
information respecting this locality, I would refer
the writer of the article, and my readers, to a
very able pamphlet on the climate of the island,
by James Mackenzie Bloxam, who, be it observed
is neither a " principal tradesman," nor a
"professional puffer." In this essay, Dr. Mason's
inferences are discussed and reduced to their
true value in a calm and philosophical spirit,
worthy of imitation. For our present purpose
it suffices to state, that it is fully proved that
Mason's hygrometrical results most certainly do
not apply to the parts of Funchal, or the class of
tenements, in which invalids are now
recommended to reside. Dr. Mason's observations were
made in 1835, and since the posthumous publication
of his book in 1850, many able men have
been at work, the result of whose labours may be
found in White's excellent guide-book, and the
well-known works of Barral, and Mittermaier.
None of these writers deny that the climate
of Madeira belongs to the moist section, but
they fully prove Dr. Mason's inferences as to
its extreme humidity, to be overrated. The
author of the article, in a paragraph nearly
copied word for word from the same source,
speaks of iron oxydised, of boots and shoes
covered with fungus, and of damaged clothes.
He gives an extract, showing how Dr. Mason
suffered from extreme lassitude, and many
other symptoms of malaria, when resident at
Funchal; but, from some unaccountable cause,
he entirely suppresses the latter part of the
paragraph, in which the doctor himself
ascribes all this mischief to the existence of the
tank in his own garden, and complains that his
landlord would not believe that the water which
had been kept in it for two months, could
possibly become offensive. This is what we should
call half evidence. The climate of Madeira is
humid; but (let it be clearly understood we