And now we have been at Funchal two days, and the third, on which we are to take our departure for St. Helena, has arrived. In taking leave of the pleasant isle of vine and bower, the writer regrets that he can not, for the benefit of those of a more sentimental mood than himself, follow the example of others, and say something about the Santa Clara convent, that stands embosomed by deep foliage on the hill, and tell in touching tones about the fair and unhappy Donna Clementina, who, besides being admired because Heaven had vouchsafed to her a visage blonde, when those around were brunette, was also loved for other qualities, for which _vide_ her devotees—how she “would be a nun,” and how she “wouldn’t be a nun;” and how some “young Lochinvar,” who they say came “out of the west,” once wished to do something both romantic and desperate, and rescue the fair lady from the holy precincts where, it was represented, she was most unwillingly detained; but, with Mr. Aminadab Sleek, in the play, “we are really afraid we can’t.”
Good-by, Madeira, whose tropical beauty was so fresh to me, and the picture of whose loveliness will be ever in mind.
“Long, long be my heart with such memories filled.”
On the afternoon of the 15th of December, all hands being on board, with coal dust, and wine for distinguished functionaries in the U. S. on our decks, an orange and banana smell over the ship, and six little Madeira bullocks, who, upon being hoisted in by the horns, no sooner reached the decks, than they indulged in a series of cavortings, to the no small amusement of the old shell-back denizens of the forecastle, we lifted anchor, and steamed away from Funchal, to the south. At nightfall Madeira’s lines of green, and basalt, and red soil, were lost to view.