ed _Funchal_ being given to Zarco, and the other moiety,
named _Machico_, to Vaz.

In the year 1420 Zarco began the plantation of Madeira, and being much
impeded in his progress by the immense quantity of thick and tall trees,
with which it was then everywhere encumbered, he set the wood on fire to
facilitate the clearing of the surface for cultivation. The wood is
reported to have continued burning for seven years[6], and so great was
the devastation as to occasion great inconvenience to the colony for many
years afterwards, from the want of timber. Don Henry appears to have been
a prince of most uncommonly enlarged and liberal views; not only capable
of devising the means of making maritime discoveries, which had never
been thought of before his time, but of estimating their value when made,
and of applying them to purposes the most useful and important for his
country. Reflecting upon the reported fertility of the soil, and the
excellence of the climate of Madeira, and comparing both with the
judicious foresight of a philosopher, politician, and naturalist, in
reference to the most valuable productions of similar climates and soils,
he wisely conceived, and successfully executed the idea of introducing
the cultivation of sugar and wines into this new colony; For these
purposes, Portugal would readily supply him with vines; and with people
conversant in their management: But he had to procure sugar canes, and
persons experienced in their cultivation, and in the process of
manufacturing sugar from their juice, from the island of Sicily, into
which that article of culture had been introduced by the Arabs.

So great was the success of this new subject of industry in Madeira, that
the fifth part of the produce of one district only, little more than nine
miles in circumference, which proportion the prince reserved as the
patrimony of his military order, amounted, in some years, to 60,000
arobas of twenty-five pounds each; giving the entire acknowledged produce
of one district only, of the island at 7,500,000 pounds, or 2350 tons.
This, at the modern price of eightpence a-pound, amounts to the enormous
sum of L. 250,000 value of merchantable produce, from a district which
could not contain above 5760 English acres; or above the value of L. 43
of average yearly value from every acre of that district. This
astonishingly valuable produce was in the infancy of the sugar trade,
when that bland and wholesome condiment was still a