The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-08

of the best quintas are leased every year to wealthy foreigners, who comoeo
 to pass the winter in the islands. That
 the majority of them are Englishmen
 may be inferred from the fact that En- gIish money is as current here as the Inative coin and decidedly more plenti-
 ful. Of course the native money is Portuguese, the same as in Brazil, With huge pieces, heavy as paper-weights, but of infinitessimal value. During the financial depression caused by the tall~ | ure of the grape crop few years ago, the Madeirans subsisted almost entirely l upon the gains from temporary visit 1 ors, without which many would have | been reduced to absolute penury So | it has come about that a great many
 well-to-do people rent their ancestral
 halls" during the season, and placards ! announcing the fact are as common on | house-fronts as in Washington, D. C., l but with this great difference-that while Washington rents are extremely high, these are absurdly low. You
 may get furnished house here for a
 year for less money than would be de-
 manded for a month in our National l capital. Everything else is corre~ 1 spondingly cheap--provisions, servants hire, etc. and merely as matter of l economy wonder why more Americans
 do not spend their winters in this para disc, to which "the glorious climate of California" cannot hold candle.
 | We have been making a visit to Sant | Ana, on the north side of the island. 1 The road thereto, by the celebrated Tnr- | rinnas gorge, is considered good one l in Madeira, but everywhere else most of it would be thought impossible As to the method of transit, we decided tn favor of the familiar donkey, but wisely | took in tow a couple of hammocks and | their bearers for use in case of emer- gency, Most travellers make all their island jaunts in hammocks, for the nov city of the thing; but while that vehicle, if one may apply thoe word,-borne on the shoulders of men, is very well for
 short excursion, it is the most back aching contrivance for an all-day's trip,
 unless you He flat on your back and
 thereby miss the magnificent views. Then there is the carro or bullock sledge which the natives generally use. It is oldest looking carriage imagin-
 able, like two clumsy sleighs, made of i basket work and joined at their dasher
 ends There is a little black wooden
 door on either side, and on the door the
 nunabof of the carro is painted in great
 yellow figures This awkward body is
 mounted on low wooden runners, with
 rounded ends, big and rudely fashioned.
 The cushions are covered with turkey
 red cotton and an iron frame work sup
 ,-te Tn, xyI1i ia, q n h1lnlS
 elled cloth. Curtains of white cotton
 drape the front. back and sides of the
 basket, and may be tied together with
 tapes, or left to flap in the breeze, as
 the occupant desires. Sometimes the
 top is dispensed with altogether; but.
 strange to say, you have to pay nearly
 double for a carro without a top
 whether because scenery is at pre-
 mium here, or the lazy drivers demand good recompense for their trouble in re-
 moving the ugly framework, I cannot
 say In either case there is neither
 front nor back to the vehicle; and the team-a pair of yellow bullocks-may be hitched at either end. The yoke, apparently hewed out of a tree with dull axe, is the most conspicuous fea- ture of the outfit, and the tongue of the sledge is fastened by primitive thongs of ox-hide with the hair on. A man with g. heavy goad walks alongside and a boy with q horse-hair switch | runs ahead to keep the flies off the cat 1 tie (not so much for humantys sake as to prevent the animals becoming wild and unmanag geable under the sting 1 ine pests); and also to guide them with | the butt end of the switch and his in- | cessant cries of ca, ca, ca, ooa, ca para | mi boa! The business of the man Is to | keep the sledge from sliding wrong on the steep hills and to steer it safely | around street corners; and he has his hands full to do it. Now he thrusts his goad under the runner; now braces his shoulders against the body of the carro; and anon he runs ahead and throws down under the runners a great bag of grease, to make the passage easier.
 distinctive feature of Madeira are these sledge drivers striding through the street and hurling good-natured yells at their teams Naturally, they are without coats, but the surprising thing about their costume is that they always wear disfiguring vests above their clean white shirts. Needless to say, the "shirt-waist- man" has not yet reached Madeira-unless he comes oe- casionally among American tourists.
 As there are various kinds of carri- ages between a barouche and an open buggy, so there are sledges and sledges One variety, which holds two poole, is like carra cut in halves-a wicker body on low runners, like the rockers of a chair, which project little at both ends and are rounded at the points to accident. Two men guide each sled by stout ropes extending from the point of each runner to the hand of the guide on either side If one of those ropes should break on swift descent with a precipice perlously near, the coaster would probably arrive at Glory by the shortest of routes. Mother