of life. He does not
appear to be much of a valetudinarian himself, or he would hardly have
been able to venture on and report for our benefit so wide a range of
travel and experience; but his preference obviously is for the island
most thoroughly tempered to the needs of an enfeebled constitution, and
which welcomes most wooingly those whose first craving is to keep
alive--Madeira. Such of us as associate their earliest recollections of
the name with the annual cask of wine will read with interest that
though the wine, thanks to the oidium or some malady of that sort, is a
thing of the past, the spot retains many other charms ample to justify a
trip to its shores by a more roundabout way than the slow and direct or
costly and circuitous routes laid down by Mr. Benjamin. Teneriffe ranks
close to Madeira, and the Valley of Orotava, scooped out of the flank of
the famous peak, is recommended as simply perfection for sufferers from
"pulmonary complaints, rheumatism or neuralgia," and beneficial even in
Bright's disease. The thermometer in this happy valley stops at
fifty-eight degrees in winter, and averages from sixty-eight to
seventy-two degrees in summer. Should you find this temperature too
inclement, you can descend to the port at its mouth and luxuriate in a
range of sixty-four to eighty degrees. Where we write the figure at this
moment is ninety degrees in the shade, and those semi-tropical outposts
of the anciently-known world seem arctic.

Bermuda, New York's onion- and potato-garden, is presented to us in a
less fascinating light, owing possibly, in part, to the fact that Mr. B.
does not like onions, and was nearly stifled on his return by the odor
of that nutritious esculent under battened hatchways. But he sees a
great deal to delight sound travellers, and objects mainly in behalf of
the sick to the climate, which is only a modification of that of the
continent, with an extra tempest or two thrown in. In protesting against
the antiquated mode of landing maintained by Bermudan conservatism, he
thinks a more modern, rational and convenient plan would be hooted down
by the wharf-mob in the spirit of "Demetrius the coppersmith." We
believe the Ephesian was a maker of silver images, though Alexander may
have been actuated by a like motive in opposing Paul's proceedings as
not good for trade.

Speaking of landing-places, that of Columbus is transferred, in a
notable note on the Bahamas, from Cat Island to Watling's