A RAMBLE ALONG THE COAST
THE vegetation along the seashore is naturally very different to that at a higher altitude. Wherever it has been found possible, the ground has been brought into cultivation, even up to a height of 2,500 feet. Pressed by the ever-increasing population, and the consequent need of more food for more mouths, the country-people are continually bringing into cultivation fresh patches of ground. No minute piece seems to be wasted, and many an odd corner and neglected patch which, from its steepness or the poor quality of soil, escaped cultivation in years gone by, being rejected as incapable of bringing any return for the vast labour which has to be applied to it in the first instance, has been, as it were, pressed into service of late years. The larger expanses of cultivated ground have been utilized for the profitable and ever-increasing sugar crop, and these tiny terraces, when the stones have been dug out or the rock blasted, and walls built to support possibly only a few square yards of the levelled ground, will grow a scanty crop of some article of food. Thus bit by bit the cultivation has crept up the hills, and has done much to mar the beauty of the island. The peasants are very primitive in their modes of cultivation, and as long as the ground receives occasional irrigation during the hot, dry months, and the surface is roughly broken with their native hoe, it is all they consider necessary, and are strongly averse to every kind of innovation. It is small wonder that even in such a climate the crop suffers; the earth becomes impoverished and the vegetables produced are of a most inferior quality. Their principal root crops are the ordinary potato; the sweet potato (Batata edulis), a plant of the convolvulus family; and the inhame, a kind of yam. The sweet potato is one of their staple articles of food, and the native appears to consume an inordinately large quantity of batatas. The tuberous roots yield three or even four crops annually. In situations where the ground can be kept constantly so supplied with moisture as to be in a swampy condition, the inhame (Colocaria antiquorum) is grown even up to a very high elevation, some 2,500 feet. It is quite different to the West Indian yam, and belongs to the arum family; indeed, its leaves at once suggest those of arum lilies, only the roots are edible. These are another most important article of food. Other crops are haricot beans, the ripe seeds of our French beans, whose young pods are nearly always in season; but with the Portuguese it is the ripe seeds (feijoens) which are most valued for making their sopas, or vegetable soups. Lupines, lentils, and the chickpea (the grao de bico of the Portuguese), broadbeans, and peas, come into market in the winter months, but are of very poor quality and singularly tasteless, even when gathered young, which it is very difficult to persuade the peasant cultivator to do. That they need not be poor in quality and flavour, if more pains were taken in their cultivation, is proved by the fact that in private gardens where fresh seed is imported from England or America excellent peas can be grown. Another most important article of food is derived from several varieties of the pumpkin tribe, and in summer over every trellis, and even on the straw roofs of the peasants’ huts, the gourd-bearing plants are trained, and their aboboras, as they are called, are carefully tended. Mr. Lowe writes: “For at least six months in the year (August to January) the aboboras constitute almost one-third of the daily nourishment of all classes; and from their facility of combination by boiling with fatty substances, together with their large supply of saccharine, besides their farinaceous material, afford a most nutritious food, evinced by the surprising muscular power of the Madeiran peasantry.” The pearshaped, green, wrinkled fruit called pepinella (Sechium edule), or chou-chou by the English, is not unlike a cucumber, and yields a constant supply in the winter months. Spinach, cabbages, and cauliflowers are, I believe, only grown for the requirements of the English, and to provision the passing ships, and with these the list of vegetables closes—and somehow is a disappointing one—and many an English person longs for the fresh vegetables from a home-garden.
Nor is the list of fruits a long one. The orange-tree has practically died out. The apathy of the native made him consider the task of fighting the disease called scale, induced by an insect, too arduous a one, as constant washing of the trees is necessary to prevent its ravages; and he remained content to see all the orange-groves disappear, and the fruit is now imported from the Azores, Portugal, and even South America. At one time, we are told, the vast banana plantations gave quite a tropical aspect to the gardens about Funchal; they have been largely replaced of late years by sugar-cane, and are no longer so extensively cultivated as the facilities due to cold storage on ships flooded the European market with bananas of the West Indies. Several varieties are grown, but the fruit of the silver banana, a tall growing kind, is most prized and fetches a higher price than that of the dwarf Musa Cavendishii. In an old account of Madeira, printed in Astley’s “General Collection of Voyages and Travels,” the following curious account of the plant appears: “The banana is in singular esteem and even veneration, being reckoned for its deliciousness the forbidden fruit. To confirm this surmise they allege the size of its leaves. It is considered almost a crime to cut this fruit with a knife, because after dissection it gives a faint similitude of a crucifix; and this they say is to wound Christ’s sacred image.”
Sufficient lemons and citrons are grown to supply the requirements of the island. The custard apple, Anona cherimolia, ranks high among the island fruits, and is hailed with delight when it first appears in the market in late autumn. In common with the guava, it was originally imported from America; while the mango, whose fruit leaves room for much improvement, came from India. Guavas are extensively used, either uncooked, stewed, or possibly in the most favourite form, made into a clear, transparent jelly. The loquat bears abundantly, and as it is very readily increased from seed, has become a very common tree, though I do not consider the fruit to be as good as those of the Italian loquats. The pittanga, mentioned previously, being the fruit of a kind of myrtle, Eugenia Braziliensis, and the avocado pear, an insipid fruit, generally eaten with pepper and salt, are both, to my mind, fruits which require an acquired taste in order to appreciate them. Among European fruits, the best is possibly the fig, of which there are several varieties, the most popular having a nearly black fruit. The trees, which grow mostly near the seashore, assume curiously distorted and stunted shapes, and spring from the clefts in the rocks, often overhanging the sea. They are particularly noticeable on the road between Funchal and the seaside village of Camara do Lobos. Granadillos, the fruit of different varieties of passion-flowers, some having purple fruit, others orange, suggest an exaggerated gooseberry, as the fruit when cut has much the same appearance, with large seeds embedded in a pulpy consistency. The insipid fruit of the common cactus, or prickly-pear, is much relished by the natives in hot weather, who, I was assured, gather it in the early morning, and before handling it, roll it about under their callous feet in a tub of water to get rid of the spines. The Cape gooseberry, the fruit of Physalis Peruviana, is prized for making preserves, and the plant has become naturalized. Many of our European fruits are cultivated, but produce fruit of a very inferior quality, the trees being seldom, if ever, pruned, and receiving little attention; but apples, pears, plums, apricots, and peaches, all come into the market in the course of the summer and autumn, while strawberries continue in bearing from the end of March till September.
The fruit-trees are more valued for the beauty of their blossoms than their fruit by the English as a rule; and in spring, when the peach and apricot trees are laden with their pink blossoms, the country near the seashore, especially on the east side of the town, is very beautiful. The rocky nature of the ground in many places has made cultivation impossible, and stretches remain where the natural rock, covered with crustaceous lichens, appears. The shallow soil only provides a home for cactuses, which grow to an immense size; but now and then a peach-tree or a little colony of almond-trees have found sufficient soil in which to get a hold. The trees may be twisted and distorted, storm-bent by the strong winds that sweep in from the Atlantic, but for that reason are all the more picturesque; while here and there a group of stone-pines, or a group of cypresses—sentinels, guarding a little silent graveyard—give variety to the landscape, and stand out in admirable contrast to the deep blue sea below. Such plants as an occasional Euphorbia piscatoria, a cheiranthus, a lavender, (Lavandula pinnata), the Madeira stock (Mathiola Maderensis), some of the sedums, Sonchus pinnatus, of the sow-thistle family, a native of the island, and a long list of other more or less insignificant wild-flowers, may all be noticed. But by far the most beautiful and showy is the Echium fastuosum, pride of Madeira, which is to be seen on the cliffs along the New Road, though never with as large and perfect heads of bloom, or so deep in colour, as when cultivated. Another variety, candicans, has flowers of a darker blue, but is only to be found in the hills. Among this rough ground, and unfortunately in many a ravine and wall which was formerly clad with ferns and plants of a far more interesting nature, the rank-growing Eupatorium adenophorum seems to have taken complete possession, and threatens to become a very serious eyesore and enemy to the natural vegetation. The Portuguese have christened it Abundancia, and it is well named, as there seems to be no end to its abundance; its dirty-coloured fluffy heads of blossom spread their seed in all directions. It was an evil day when it was first introduced to the island as a treasure, carefully installed in a pot. Other horticultural pests have been introduced in the same way, such as the rosy purple Oxalis venusta, whose little flowers are pretty enough in their way, but its far-spreading roots have become a most troublesome weed in cultivated ground; and the yellow double-flowered Oxalis cornuta is even worse, taking complete possession in some places of any sort of grass-land. The dreaded coco, a grass growing from a tiny bulb, which throws out long and far-reaching roots, runs in the ground, till once thoroughly established, there is no end to it; this also was imported, probably accidentally, not much more than twenty years ago. The most serious of all pests in the island, the tiny black ants, the despair of house-keepers, fruit-growers and gardeners alike, were also imported from Brazil, and have gradually spread from the lower to the higher altitudes, until now I believe there is scarcely a district left in the island which is free from their ravages.
