The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-19

Of wine Is the almost exclusive busi-
 ness of Madeira Island and more
 drunk natives are seen In a day there
 than in a year in Birmingham. Dr.
 George R. Stuart writes The Age
 Herald in the second Cf series of
 letters describing his trip to NTedlter-
 ranean countries. From Madeira, pr.
 Stuarts party journeyed to Lisbon,
 the capital of Portugal, and his next
 letter will tell of his discoveries and
 Impressions there. His ship Is the
 "Tuscania," Cunard line.
 The letter from Madeira follows:
 After eight days of voyage on a peaceful sea with delightful compan-
 ions, we reach our first stop a little
 before sunrise. Many are on deck
 eager for the first glimpse of land which appeared with the dawning- but huge rock" someone com
 plains We are approaching the lar
 gest of the five and the only one of any importance. It is about 15 miles wide and 30 miles long and has about 100000 inhabitants. It appears like thousands of feet above the sea and so it is.
 As the ship approaches the per pendicular cliffs of brown stone that rise out of the water slope off into a mountain side with patches of white stone houses like flocks of sheep scattered over It's side. We approach the largest of which Funchal is the capital and Cnly city on the island. It looks like a village nestling in a vale of the mountain but Is city of 24. GOO. The island is as noun taln- ous and broken as the country visible from peak of Red Mountain look ing east and much resembles 1t. The ship anchors in a quiet little bay unique thing about the island-there is rto wharf. The ship anchors half a mile out and passengers are ctn- veyed ashore by large motor boats called tenders" which were the newest type of modern motorboats. As soon as the ship stopped 25 or go small rowboats made dash from the shore and race to cur ship. No one knew what the race meant till they reached us. We noted that each boat had two passengers in slight boating suits-one a man and one small boy. They began to wave their hands and chatter. calling the pas sengers to toss coins into the sea. No matter where they were throwR these divers would capture them. Rising out Of the water, they would exhibit the recovered coins in palm of the hand and beg for more. This was the first unique thing.
 The second we discovered was that where we landed. instead of the white sandy beach found everywhere, we found there a beach of gray peb bles from the size of a partridge egg to the size of a mans head-the hen egg and goose egg size predominant ing. The third distinctive feature was in the material and construction of the streets and sidewalks, both of which were quite narrow and both built of these blue pebbles. The dirt is made smooth and the pebbles are set up on send and by hand pushed into the dirt till they stood up. When they are set orderly close against each other in rows, they are driven down by large wooden tampers till the structure becomes solid mass of rock with pretty corrugated surface so smooth that a sled scoots along over them as if 1t were run ming on ice and much of the traffic of the city is carried on with sleds large and small drawn by oxen and horses and mules. There are no street cars. With the exception of a few automobiles and horse carriages, the public conveyances are sleds with the old-fashioned carriage, body like a sleigh drawn by oxen. The OK sleighs carry four passengers sitting two to a seat facing each other. A small boy runs in front leading the oxen and a man follows behind With a stick to poke them up and they often go in a galiop. The sidewalks are very narrow, most of them not over three feet and are laid so evenly with the pebbles the size of goose egg that they look like tile and are pleasant and smooth to walk on. graceful little water drain joins the street and sidewalk forming one solid structure, strong, pretty and perma- nent, every pebble of which is care fully placed one by one by hand.
 Cog Railroad Feature.
 The fourth feature of novel inter est is a cog railroad that carries pas sengers from the heart of the city to the ton of the mountain $500 feet high through a succession of the most indcscribably beautiful scenery to be found on our globe-vineyards, flow CT gardens and all tropical growths of leaf and vine and bloom varied and entrancing. The queer little train of two cars winds up the noun tain at every turn revealing some new and interesting house and gar den. On top the country for miles is visable. Our party of 300 took lunch at an American Club house on top of the mountain around which in terrace after terrace Is the most artStlCatlY aTTdHEeu anu lioSb SA agently~decorated series of gar dens I have ever seen. After an ela- borate course, we face the fifth up- ique thing Madeira offers to her thousands of visitors. Beginning at the top of the mountain and wind ing to the base, the natives have laid a pebble road nine feet wide which is a sure enough cpriously. in road building. It is built out of the little gray pebbles out of which all the streets and walks of the city are built. It is built in a series of ridges like sweet potato or cotton rows. The
 ridges are so perfectly built that sieds ran over their crests as smooth Iy as on a railroad. When one glanoes down the mountain road with rocky
 ridges two feet from crest to crest and is informed that he is to get
 in a toboggan and ride down that
 corrugated precipitous proposition, a
 shudder comes over him. But when
 pretty wicker baby carriage Like
 car with sled runner is offered, the
 chill quiets down, when a heavy rope
 is attached to each front corner and
 n0nrono ShgaRIrrn