g mass of greenery that in this heavenly island makes a garden.
You can do more than this even; for, having penetrated through the
brilliant flower-beds, and recruited exhausted nature under a
fig-tree, you can engage, in true English fashion, in a game of lawn-
tennis, which done, you will again seek the shade of the creeping
vines or spreading bananas, and in a springy hammock take your well-
earned repose.

All these things are the quintessence of luxury, so much so that he
who has once enjoyed them will long to turn lotos-eater, forget the
painful and laborious past, and live and die at "Miles' Hotel." Oh,
Madeira! gem of the ocean, land of pine-clad mountains that foolish
men love to climb, valleys where wise ones much prefer to rest, and of
smells that both alike abhor; Madeira of the sunny sky and azure sea,
land flowing with milk and honey, and overflowing with population, if
only you belonged to the country on which you depend for a livelihood,
what a perfect place you would be, and how poetical one could grow
about you! a consummation which, fortunately for my readers, the
recollection of the open drains, the ill-favoured priests, and
Portuguese officials effectually prevents.

On the following morning, at twelve punctually, Arthur was informed
that the conveyance had arrived to fetch him. He went down, and was
quite appalled at its magnificence. It was sledge-like in form, built
to hold four, and mounted on wooden runners that glided over the round
pebbles with which the Madeira streets are paved, with scarcely a
sound, and as smoothly as though they ran on ice. The chariot, as
Arthur always called it afterwards, was built of beautiful woods, and
lined and curtained throughout with satin, whilst the motive power was
supplied by two splendidly harnessed white oxen. Two native servants,
handsome young fellows, dressed in a kind of white uniform,
accompanied the sledge, and saluted Arthur on his appearance with much
reverence.

It took him, however, some time before he could make up his mind to
embark in a conveyance that reminded him of the description of
Cleopatra's galley, and smelt more sweet; but finally he got in, and
off he started, feeling that he was the observed of all observers, and
followed by at least a score of beggars, each afflicted with some
peculiar and dreadful deformity or disease. And thus, in triumphal
guise, they slid down the quaint and narrow streets, squeezed in for
the sake of shad