The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1922-01-04
An Exile in Paradise.
National Geographical Society
Bulletin,

/ Bulletin.
If Madeira is to be the St. Helena
/ Of the former Emperor Charles and his
wife, as dispatches state, that exiled
pair have achieved good fortune be-
yond any other fallen monarch from
Napoleon to Wilhelm.
| Here is an island where it is nearly
always summer, yet slodges are used
| all the year round; which is far from
the madding crowd, yet before the
war turned all shipping topsy turvy,
one might sit in many a Madeira gar
| den and see vessels from four con-
tinents riding at anchor. The island
is peopled three times as densely as
Connecticut, yet some of it's valleys
are all but UNEMPLOYED. The banana
tree of the tropics and the oak of the
temperate zone grow up together.
The vehicles of Funchal, capital of
Madeira, go on runners instead of on
wheels, because of it's steep and preci-
pitous streets These often are fitted
out as luxuriously as troika of Mos
cow or Petrograd, but they are drawn
by oxen instead of horses. The char
acteristic carrier of Funchal, however,
is low, cushion seated sled, in which
a passenger sits and slides to the bot
tom of the steep streets. The runners
are hauled across grease bag by two
attendants before the passenger is
started on bumpy ride over cobbled
pavements.
Madeira is the chief island of the
Madeira group, which lies about 400
miles west of Morocco. Of the aggre-
gate area of the group, about 315
square miles, all but Is miles is COM
prised in the main island, and prac-
tically all of the 10000 inhabitants
reside there. The island is accounted
one of the most beautiful volcano
formed peaks in any ocean, and its
portion to the size of the tract. One
ridge rises scenery is on magnificent |
scale out of proto more than $500
feet; one valley especially Curral das
Freiras, has the luxuriance and charm
more to be expected upon Tahiti or
the Marquesas. Steep, rugged cliffs
mark the greater part of the coast;
and tiny towns huddle at the foot of
some of these sheer heights. The in
habitants thereof have learned the art
of terrace gardening.
The wine that made Madeira famous
still constitutes its staple industry, but
the annual output has shrunk to a
fourth it's former bulk. Once it was
in demand at fabulous prices, and
tales still are told of how American
clippers carried it around the Horn
and back again to age it. In the SOS
of the last century vine disease
havoc before it was checked,
hen physicians declared that Madeira
was peculiarly conducive to govt, the
war practically cut one of the worlds
most cosmopolitan island ports from
communication, and the 18th amend
nent robbed Madeira of an important
market. Visitors still may see the
natives carrying this wine to cellars
n huge skins slung over their should
,rs, and the primitive wine press is
lsed in it's making. |,
Sugar plantations surround Funchal.
Cactus is grown for rearing the tiny
insect from which cochineal is made
or dvestuff. In recent years the po-
oularity of the island as health re-
;ort has created an industry that bids
air to thrive more vigorously as
steamship lines resume their normal
schedules.