Deserta Grande or simply Deserta (island)

Of the three small islands that make up the Desertas (‘deserted islands’) group, the most important and the largest in area is the one called Deserta Grande (‘great deserted island’), or simply Deserta. Running roughly north to south lie the Ilhéu Chão (‘flat islet’), the Deserta Grande and the Bugio, separated from one another by narrow channels navigable only by small boats. ‘The Deserta Grande (Dic. Univ. Port. II), so called because it is the largest of them, measures seven and a third miles, or thirteen and a half kilometres, in length by one and a third miles, or almost two and a half kilometres, in width. It is separated from each of those two islets by narrow straits or channels through which only boats can pass. All around it... steep rocks rise from the sea, and it is accessible only at a small landing place to the west, from which a narrow, winding gully climbs to the top, which is almost flat. Of the three Desertas, this is the only one that has drinking water, though brackish, and that from a single, meagre spring.’ On this upland there is a small plain, crossed in part by a valley called Pedregal (‘stony ground’), and there a rise of about 480 m in altitude stands out.

The Deserta Grande never had a permanent population, only a temporary one, and then only during the hunting season and the orchil (a dye lichen) harvest.

The Deserta Grande once had a tiled house and two thatched huts, but at present we believe that only the former still exists. There was also a chantry (capela) there, built by order of Henry the Navigator, where a cleric was obliged to stay during Holy Week and in the months of November and December, paid from the island’s tithes.

When Frutuoso wrote the Saudades da Terra, there were 8 men and 1 factor (feitor) on the Deserta, charged with gathering orchil and tending the livestock and some crops of wheat and barley grown there. Later, however, as many as 20 to 30 men came to be employed in this work. For a long time a small military force was also stationed there, responsible for the defence and guarding of the island.

Visitors to the Deserta Grande generally land at Porto da Castanheira or to the west of Ponta do Norte (‘north point’). From either of these points it is not difficult to reach the interior of the island, which is more or less flat on top, but where, because of the livestock and the lack of water, no cereals or other useful plants are now grown. In 1823 potatoes (Madeiran semilha), tobacco and vines were tried there, but without success.

The Deserta has goats, rabbits and a few feral cats; the cats were taken there in the 19th century to destroy the rodents that were ravaging the cereal crops. Orchil, once gathered for export, abounds on the island’s rocks, and barilla (saltwort burned for soda; barrilha) grows in many places, as do various plants suitable as fodder for livestock.

The population that M. d’Avezac supposes the Deserta to have, says Dr Azevedo, the convents surrounded by orange groves that Bouillet imagined there, and the prized wines that he attributes to the Ilhéu Chão, as Dezobry and Bachelet do to the whole group, are mere dreams of frivolous tourists, whose writings these authors incautiously trusted, thereby leading others, even Portuguese ones, to fall into such absurdities’.

In 1503 a few shepherds on the Deserta Grande fought off an attack by some 80 Englishmen led by the Portuguese corsair Penteado, ‘rolling stones down the stream bed, says Frutuoso, and the rocks, as they broke, helped them with earth and other stones that they shook loose, so that the enemy re-embarked in greater haste than they had climbed up; and when the shepherds came down after the enemy had embarked, they found a mastiff and many arrows, which had been left behind in the hurry, and on the pebble beach (calhau) much blood from wounded enemies’. Near the house on the Deserta Grande there are two reservoirs of murky water and a spring that yields little more than a barrel of water over several hours. Some water is also found at the locality (sítio) of Eirinha.

In 1894 a great landslide occurred on the coast of the Deserta Grande, as a result of which the sea advanced and then retreated at several points along the south coast of Madeira. Some attributed this landslide to an earthquake, which, if it did occur, was not felt in Funchal.

The Deserta Grande belonged to the captaincy of Funchal until the time of the 3rd captain-donatary, Simão Gonçalves da Câmara, but on his death it passed to Luiz Gonçalves de Ataíde, son of that captain and his second wife, Dona Isabel da Silva, as his mother’s dowry and marriage settlement. At that time the island yielded about 200$00 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) a year. Monk seals (Monachus albiventer) appear in the caves of the Deserta Grande, but they are now scarce.

In September 1930 a small religious monument was inaugurated on a height overlooking the Praia da Lapa (‘beach of the grotto’) on the Deserta Grande. It consists of a modest plinth bearing an image of Nossa Senhora das Graças, and it was erected on the initiative of the Madeiran Rui da Silva.