Funchal, from the water, presents a very attractive appearance to the traveller who sees it for the first time. I don’t know when I have been more impressed with the beauty of any scene, than when from the deck of our ship, with a delicious atmosphere that obliterated all recollection of the month being December, a setting sun more keenly defining and causing to loom up each object, I looked upon its bright houses, made more so by the deep red of their tiles, as they rose in a terraced crescent, one above another, the convent of Santa Clara, the deep-hued verdure that filled up the interstices of the picture, the Loo Rock fort, and the cathedral in the foreground, with just enough of time-stain on its towers to make more venerable its front, and the tortuous paved road, running up the hills like an immense, stony serpent, terminating at the church of our “Lady of the Mount,” elevated nineteen hundred feet above the sea; and the vineyards in the distance.
Being an open roadstead, with the wind from a certain direction a very heavy sea tumbles into the harbor, and there is at all times a considerable surf breaking on the beach. On going ashore you have to employ Portuguese surf-boats, which are much better constructed for purposes of landing than our own. On either side, not far from the keel, they have projecting pieces resembling the side-fins of a dolphin, which gives them much steadiness in a sea-way, while head and stern they have perpendicular handles as it were. As they near the beach, one of the boatmen jumps over into the water, and, seizing the piece at the prow, keeps the boat head on, when the succeeding swell sets her high, if not dry, upon the sand, and you are ashore. Your way thither may only be delayed a short time, by the officer contrabandista, who, pulling alongside, touches his hat, and proceeds, by an inspection of your boat, to see whether his aquatic countrymen are not attempting to smuggle ashore such things as soap and tobacco, which his most gracious sovereign of Portugal has been pleased to reserve as a government monopoly. When the weather is rather rough, the customary place of landing is the Pontinha, a steep rock terminating an arched causeway, or kind of breakwater, from which the coal is usually embarked for the steamers stopping at the island. The scene presented, or the horrible clamor that salutes your ears, is not particularly calculated to prolong the pleasant illusion which the more distant sight of the place gave you. You no sooner put your foot on the stone stairs than your winding way of ascent is beset by innumerable lazzaroni most offensive in habit and appearance, whose rabid importunities for alms will not permit you to say them nay. Once through this crowd of “dago” pauperism—the most squalid and effete of all pauperism, your movements on the causeway are impeded by the boisterous calls of the Borro Querros, with their horses already saddled and bridled for “gentlemin” to ride. The bellowing guttural of one fellow provokes your attention to his steed, in whose praises he is loud, having gotten which, he digs him in flank, and dashes off over the stony pavement, to show you his paces. Your charger selected (I had a weakness in the matter of a fine bay myself,) the din ceases. Our party, consisting of five or six well mounted, determined on a gallop to the “Petite Coral,” calling on the polite and hospitable consul on our way thither. One peculiarity strikes you on starting, that is, that your dago friend, of whom you obtained your charger, acts as a kind of equerry during your ride, and the better to enable him to accompany you, when you are inclined to give your horse the rein, he seizes that animal by the tail with one hand, keeping off the flies with a wisp in the other, or uses it as an accelerator on his haunches, holding on meanwhile with a grip which the Kirk Alloway witches would have envied when they brought about that _finale_ to “poor Maggy.”