It Has Been Found For The Moment
That Madeira Is Bad For The Gout, And This Discovery Of The Doctors
Is
bad for the peasants (already cruelly overtaxed by Portugal), who are
leaving their homes in great numbers and seeking
Their fortunes in both
of the Americas, as well as the islands of all the seas. It must be a
heartbreak for them to forsake such homes as we saw in the clean white
cottages, with the balconies and terraces.
But there were no signs of depopulation either of old or young. Smiling
mothers and fathers of all ages, in their Sunday leisure and their
Sunday best, watched our ascent as if they had never seen the like
before, and our course was never so swift but we could be easily
overtaken by the children; they embarrassed us with the riches of the
camellias which they flung in upon us, and they were accompanied by
small dogs which barked excitedly. Our train almost grazed the walls of
the door-yards as we passed through the succession of the one- and
two-story cottages, which dotted the mountain-side in every direction.
When the eye could leave them it was lured from height to height, and at
each rise of the track to some wider and lovelier expanse of the sea. We
could see merely our own steamer in the roadstead, with the Portuguese
war-ship, and the few other vessels at anchor, but we could never
exhaust the variety of those varied mountain slopes and tops.
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