Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/76

 54 WEST AFRICA. Topography. The presence of all these wealthy strangers could not fail to transform the town where they take up their abode. Thanks to them, Funchal, capital and only town in the island, has assumed a neat and elegant appearance, with pleasant walks and charming villas dotted over the slopes and crests of the surrounding hills. Lying on a roadstead open to the south, and deep enough for large vessels, and slightly protected by a fortified islet from the south-west, Funchal will soon possess a thoroughly sheltered harbour enclosed by a breakwater connecting the island with the mainland. It has the further attraction of surprisingly fertile gardens, and the picturesque valley of the Socorridos with its magnificent amphitheatre of cultivated slopes commanded by a semicircle of hills, whence the streams flow in gorges converging on the town. The entrepot for all the produce of the island, Funchal is also the seat of three large colleges — the lyceum, the seminary, and the medical school preparatory for the University of Coimbra. These schools are pretty weU attended, but in the rest of the archipelago great ignorance prevails, more than half of the population being entirely illiterate. Next to Portuguese, the most widespread language is English, mother-tongue of most of the visitors and passing seafaring population. Porto-Santo, ruined by the "colonial contracts," which secured half of all the produce to the landed proprietors, has only 1750 inhabitants altogether. Neverthe- less its capital, Bateira, takes the title of city. Like the Azores, Madeira forms administratively an integral part of the kingdom of Portugal, constituting a separate province under the name of Funchal, its capital, since the arrival of the first settlers. Although geographically belonging to the Canaries, the little Selvagcns group are usually considered as a dependence of Madeira, from which they are distant about 180 miles. Of these uninhabited and worthless islets a Funchal family claims the ownership. They comprise the Great Piton, 5 miles in circumference, and the Little Piton connected with it by a chain of rocks and reefs, frequented by myriads of aquatic birds. The Caxary Archipelago. Lying much nearer the continent than the other Atlantic groups, the Canaries, which are within 64 miles of the nearest Maroccan headland, have been known since the commencement of the historic period. They are the Fortunate Islands of the Greek poets, the abode of departed heroes, who here enjoyed everlasting life under a delightful climate, never checkered by storms or biting frosts. But in those days no geographer could indicate the precise locality of those blissful islands, which in the imagination of the ancients were confused with all the Atlantic lands lying in the "ocean stream" beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Strabo tells us that the Phoonieians knew them well, but kept the secret of their discoveries to themselves. Even in the Periplous of Hanno, the Carthaginian,