a virtuous
Woman--"
_Suspicious Husband_.

"Let us no more contend
Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love, how we may lighten
Each other's burden in our share of woe."
MILTON.

I do not know a spot on the globe which astonishes and delights, upon
your first landing, as the island of Madeira. The voyager embarks, and
is in all probability confined to his cabin, suffering under the
dreadful protraction of seasickness. Perhaps he has left England in the
gloomy close of the autumn, or the frigid concentration of an English
winter. In a week, or even in a shorter period, he again views that
terra firma which he had quitted with regret, and which in his
sufferings he would have given half that he possessed to regain. When
he lands upon the island, what a change! Winter has become summer, the
naked trees which be left are exchanged for the most luxuriant and
varied foliage, snow and frost for warmth and splendour; the scenery of
the temperate zone for the profusion and magnificence of the tropics;
fruit which he had never before seen, supplies for the table unknown to
him; a bright sky, a glowing sun, hills covered with vines, a deep-blue
sea, a picturesque and novel costume; all meet and delight the eye, just
at the precise moment, when to have been landed even upon a barren
island would have been considered as a luxury. Add to all this, the
unbounded hospitality of the English residents, a sojourn too short to
permit satiety and then is it to be wondered that the island of Madeira
is a "green spot" in the memory of all those who land there, or that
they quit it with regret?

The Bombay Castle had not been two hours at anchor before the passengers
had availed themselves of an invitation from one of the English
residents, and were quartered in a splendid house, which hooked upon a
square and one of the principal churches in the city of Funchal. While
the gentlemen amused themselves at the extensive range of windows with
the novelty of the scene, and the ladies retired to their apartments to
complete the hasty toilet of their disembarkation, Captain Drawlock was
very busy in the counting-house below, with the master of the house.
There were so many pipes of Madeira for the Honourable Company; so many
for the directors' private cellars, besides many other commissions for
friends, which Captain Drawlock had undertaken to execute; for at that
period Madeira wine had not been