Levadas

When the first settlers landed on Madeira, they at once recognised the wonderfully mild climate and the exuberant fertility of the soil. These highly favourable natural conditions, crowned by an enchanting landscape, must have raised the most encouraging hopes for the hazardous enterprise they were about to begin. Yet they would also have grasped without difficulty the great obstacles to be overcome before they could reach the desired goal of a happy and prosperous colonisation. Like forerunners of a legendary Robinson, cast away on a deserted and unknown island, they would have to perform true miracles of heroism in the arduous work of clearing the virgin land and of building and settling into their first, far from comfortable dwellings.

They were immediately confronted with two obstacles, perhaps thought insurmountable. The first was the luxuriant and gigantic vegetation, which stretched in dense forest from the edge of the ocean to the mountain summits. The second was the incredibly rugged terrain, which, in unbroken ramifications from the highest heights, unfolded into towering peaks and deep valleys across the whole surface of the island.

With dauntless effort they threw themselves into their first farming ventures, thinning the dense thickets and duly preparing the rough plots of land that were to receive the first crops. It would have been easy to see that the use of water would be one of their greatest concerns and labours. This concern has passed unbroken from generation to generation, taking the most varied forms and creating a vast network of economic and social interests that would merit a thorough and detailed study, which unfortunately has yet to be written.

Once these first ventures had been attempted, a new system of irrigation quickly became essential, one that would foster the native richness of the uncultivated soil and draw from it the most rewarding results.

It was the special conditions of the environment, peculiar to this region, that led to the construction of the first channels or aqueducts, later called levadas (irrigation channels), which became the richest asset of Madeiran agriculture. One can imagine the incalculable efforts spent on this first undertaking and the difficulties that must have arisen in carrying it out, above all where the land to be irrigated lay far from the springs that fed it.

An excellent article published some years ago gives, in a most expressive summary, a very accurate idea of the reasons behind these then rudimentary works. It states that ‘agriculture had to be the basis of the economy of the society they were going to establish, but also that it could only take on great proportions and offer wide benefits on the slopes, hills and valleys by the sea, where the composition of the soil, the fertility of the land, the mildness of the temperature and the gentle pattern of the winds would ensure intensive and valuable yields, with endless advantages for the population, for the donataries, for the Military Order of Christ and for the Crown. It was there above all that the zone of the best crops lay – vines and sugar cane – which were already begun at that time and which later made the renown, the fame and the wealth of Madeira, guaranteeing mainland Portugal large revenues without interruption, even in the most critical and adverse periods of Portugal’s history.

Such land, however, could not be farmed intensively, steadily and profitably unless it was supplied with irrigation water to moisten and fertilise the soil regularly, keeping the plantations green and full of sap, strengthening them and making them flourish, not only in summer but also in part of spring and autumn, and generally during the dry spells that can occur even in winter. At the same time, almost all the springs and sources lay at high points, in the mountains, flowing into the brooks and streams and through them into the ocean. From the outset there arose the need, and the idea, of intercepting the natural course of the waters at certain altitudes and diverting them into extremely useful channels. These were built over great distances, along sheer cliffs and through immense obstacles that only heroic tenacity could overcome, down to the most fertile and promising regions. Such is the admirable and beneficial institution of the levadas, the prime factor in agriculture and therefore in all the economic and financial conditions of the island of Madeira.’

The gigantic work of building the levadas, which lasted for centuries; the struggles waged to acquire and hold their water flows; the popular uprisings that broke out several times for this reason; the organisation of associations of ‘heréus’ (co-owners of the water rights of a levada) to exploit and distribute the water; the frequent lawsuits; the many laws enacted to regulate the matter; and the debates it provoked in parliament, in the administrative bodies, in the press and at public meetings would all provide ample material for a long and interesting study, as we said above.

All this shows how urgently our levadas are needed and how vital they are to the economy of the archipelago. The settlers were at once clearing the dense forest that covered the ridges and slopes, diligently preparing the laborious tilling of the arable land and swiftly channelling the abundant springs that would fertilise the first fledgling crops.

As is well known, the land is irrigated mainly by means of the levadas. It is true that some farmland is left to the mercy of the rains alone, but the so-called rich crops, that is, the vine and sugar cane, and even most green vegetables and garden produce, are watered by the many levadas scattered across the whole island. This system of irrigation cannot be considered entirely peculiar to this region, but it is almost unique in our country and has its own characteristics, which set it apart from other systems of the same kind.

In some countries, irrigation canals are major works only in their capacity and the volume of water they carry. They are almost always dug into the ground itself, without other engineering works of any great importance. They are generally not very long and are meant to fertilise land that is sometimes extensive but of no great elevation. It is no wonder, then, that some public works engineers who came from the mainland admit that written descriptions of Madeiran irrigation did not give them a clear idea of the network of our levadas, and in particular of how they receive and carry the water, and how it is then distributed among the irrigated lands.

These aqueducts are narrow, lengthy channels cut into the ground and generally built of solid alvenaria (local name for compact basalt used as building stone). As a rule they are less than a metre wide, and their depth seldom exceeds 50 to 70 centimetres. Some levadas are several tens of kilometres long. In general they start from high points in the centre of the island and draw from the fullest streams, fed by the abundant springs that run unused along the stony beds of those streams. To do this, they sometimes skirt high, craggy mountains, cross sheer ravines and bore through the hills, in dangerous work lasting many years, at the cost of enormous sums of capital and even of many lives, giving the earth the blood that fertilises it and the plants the sap that makes them yield abundantly. Anyone who knows at first hand the incredibly rugged nature of our terrain, the capricious relief of its slopes and the height of its mountain ranges, alongside deep valleys and perilous precipices, will readily appreciate the colossal effort represented by this gigantic and most useful work, which does the greatest honour to the country that undertook and carried it out.

It may seem strange, and without closer examination it may appear at first sight, that these irrigation channels, so costly and so difficult and arduous to build, do not offer a rewarding return on the capital invested. The truth, however, is that they are the principal source of the prosperity of Madeiran agriculture, above all of the so-called ‘rich crops’, and, as briefly outlined above, one of the most important factors in the prosperity of the whole archipelago.

It is an axiomatic truth that a considerable part of our arable land hungers for proper tilling and thirsts for the fertilising water that would make it fruitful and productive. The abundance and wealth that this barren, uncultivated soil holds within it must be drawn out; these desolate-looking fields must be turned into green plots of fine, excellent fruit; and the rich earth must be ploughed and cultivated, giving work and activity to many hands left idle for want of useful and suitable employment, as we have said before.

The report of the ‘Junta Autónoma de Hidráulica Agrícola de Portugal’ for 1937, justifying the development of irrigation water, states that it is a remedy for absorbing surplus population, since it provides work for idle hands and so improves the economic situation of rural populations.

If this argument holds truly and justly for the lands of mainland Portugal, it applies all the more completely and absolutely to the most fertile soils of the Madeiran archipelago.

Anyone who consults the ‘Censos da População’ (population censuses), which are carried out every ten years, will readily see that Madeira is the region of the country with the highest population density, apart from the dense concentrations of inhabitants in the cities of Lisbon and Porto. This higher density, which is far greater than that of almost all parts of the mainland, becomes truly disproportionate when we compare it in particular with a large number of those mainland regions.

To prove this, it is enough to say that only the district of Porto exceeds that of Funchal in density, with 304 inhabitants per square kilometre against Madeira’s 270. By contrast, there are districts such as Beja, Évora, Portalegre, Bragança and Castelo Branco, whose population densities are 20, 21, 24, 27 and 36 inhabitants per square kilometre respectively. After Porto, the district of Braga has the densest population in proportion, reaching about 140 inhabitants per square kilometre, which still falls short of Funchal’s 270, as already stated.

The census for 1920 gives Madeira 179,000 inhabitants and that of 1930 211,000, an increase of eighteen per cent in ten years, while that of 1940 gives us 250,000.

If the authoritative opinion of the ‘Junta Autónoma de Hidráulica Agrícola’ is fully justified, it may with all the more reason be applied to Madeira, where the population is growing at an alarming rate.

Fortunately, the problems closely bound up with what has been set out above are on the way to a satisfactory solution with the promulgation of Decrees nos 33,158 and 33,159 of 21 October 1943, to which we shall refer more fully as this short study proceeds.

III – Flow volumes

The volume of each levada’s flow varies considerably, since it generally depends on the greater or lesser abundance of the sources or springs that feed it. Some levadas carry a very abundant source in four streams, irrigating land at four distant points at the same time. Others, of smaller volume, divide into only two or three streams, watering two or three different places simultaneously. Still other irrigation channels, which are the majority, are meant to fertilise the land with the whole of their water, because the flow that feeds them is small. At the start of the irrigation season, when water is more abundant, the sources of the levadas sometimes allow an even greater division, which can hardly be achieved in the driest months. These divisions are commonly called the branches or sections (ramais or lanços) of the levada.

The volume of flow used for irrigation at each point also varies considerably, though within certain limits. Measurements taken on many levadas, usually during the driest period, show that a continuous flow of 12 litres of water per second is already a small stream sufficient to irrigate certain crops. There are levadas of even smaller volume, but they are very few. Each of the four branches or sections of the Levada dos Piornais has a continuous flow of about 30 litres per second, which is abundant and more than enough for any kind of crop. Between these limits, which we may roughly regard as the maximum and minimum, lie the measured flows that separately irrigate the land at each point.

As has already been suggested, it would be worthwhile to draw up a table giving an approximate measurement of the water of each levada. However, no complete study of this kind has ever been made, and this modest work has been carried out only in part, for the state levadas. In a detailed report written by a distinguished engineer in 1911, we read that the two Rabaçal levadas, ‘the old’ and ‘the new’, each had an average flow of 80 litres per second in the so-called dry season, and that each was divided into three separate branches for irrigation, giving an average flow of 26 litres for each of these six sections. A measurement taken in 1943 found that the flow per second of the ‘old levada’ was 65 litres and that of the ‘new levada’ 86. The same report states that the levadas of Santa Luzia, Hortas and Bom Sucesso then had flows of 15.31, 17.5 and 27.4 litres per second respectively. From these figures, incomplete as they are, one can form an approximate idea of the volume of water that generally feeds our levadas.

Besides general losses such as seepage, evaporation, etc., the flow of the levadas is appreciably reduced by the lack of adequate tree cover, especially around the springs that feed them; by the covert diversion of water through breaches made in the walls of the channels; by the lack of frequent and proper repairs; and above all by the unlawful building of so-called ‘sacadas’. These were defined with complete precision in an article in the review Portugal em Africa: ‘they consist of small walls of stone and clods of clay laid across the stream, diverting the water onto land in the stream beds, which ought not to be cultivated, or onto the slopes, which ought to be kept under forest. The levadas, which only draw from the streams further down, are thus left with nothing but the run-off, often very scanty, to the enormous detriment of agriculture in the fertile coastal regions.’

IV – Operation

Once the channels have been built from the springs at their source and the waters captured in them, irrigation begins, often at great distances from the points where the levadas start. Their regular operation is governed by the so-called ‘giro’, the rotation (giro), which is the interval between one watering of any piece of land and its next watering. This span of days as a rule never changes and is maintained under the strictest supervision. When a property is said to ‘have an hour of water (hora de água, an hour’s right to the levada’s flow per rotation) in the rotation’ of fifteen days, this means that the property enjoys the right to be irrigated every fifteen days within the normal irrigation period. The rotation on private levadas varies greatly and may, though rarely, reach sixty days, but the most common rule lies between fifteen and twenty days. Some levadas ‘run in rotation’ all year round, but their waters are not always used, particularly in the harshest part of winter. On the state levadas, the rotations have a fixed period, which runs from 1 May to the last day of September.

As one would naturally expect, these rotations are generally carried out by the landowners or their ‘caseiros’ and ‘meeiros’ (tenant farmers and sharecroppers), or else by any labourers they hire for the purpose. This is the moment to mention the ‘heréus’ (co-owners of the water rights of a levada). This was originally the name of those who cultivated the lands irrigated with levada water, but it later came to mean, more strictly, the actual owner, large or small, of that irrigation water.

V – Administration

The private levadas, or levadas of heréus (co-owners of the water rights of a levada), were originally administered by those who had built them and held rights of ownership over them. Later the owners, or more precisely the usufructuaries of the waters, began to appoint an administrator to manage the affairs of these levadas, whom they called the levada judge (Juiz da Levada, the administrator of a levada). It is true that the State always regarded itself as the sole owner of the springs that fed the various aqueducts, and at times official documents even asserted that the levadas themselves belonged to the State. In practice, however, what was observed, and what amounted to customary law throughout the archipelago, was that the heréus considered themselves the owners and masters of the levadas and the proprietors, or at least the perpetual usufructuaries, of the flows that fed them. As a result, the levadas were administered by the heréus through judges they elected, although this choice had to be approved or ratified by the donataries, the governors-general, the governors and captains-general or the civil governors. In many cases, though not always, the governors appointed the judges and countersigned the warrants of appointment. These acts of interference in the administration of the levadas, however, were generally a mere formality, since the choice had in fact already been made by the heréus concerned. With the promulgation of the Civil Code (Código Civil) in 1868 this form of approval disappeared, and the owners of waters and levadas began to administer them through management committees elected annually by the general assembly of the heréus. The law of 26 July 1888 gave legal capacity to the assembly of the heréus, which thereby became a true association with all the privileges the law guarantees to such bodies, making the administration of the levadas still more independent.

The old title of levada judge disappeared long ago. It was once a much sought-after office, generally held by persons of standing. An official document sent to the government of mainland Portugal in 1812 by the corregedor (royal district magistrate) of the judicial district (comarca), António Rodrigues Veloso de Oliveira, contains the following information about the levada judges, which deserves to be transcribed: ‘. . .Levadas have a judge elected by a majority of votes of the heréus and confirmed each year by a warrant (provisão) of the Treasury Board (Junta da Fazenda), as well as a levadeiro (levada keeper who maintains the channel and distributes the water). It is the judge’s duty to have the levada repaired after the winter and to set it running on the first of April. Some of the judges receive their payment in water, in addition to their long-standing share; others divide the expenses among the heréus pro rata (soldo a livra), and if anyone refuses to pay they request an enforcement order from the Judge of Royal Rights for reimbursement of the said expenses; others, finally, recover the expenses and receive one day’s water from the levada for their administration, and this is the common and reasonable custom.’

This is the moment to refer, if only briefly, to the association organised in this city in 1903 under the name of Liga das Levadas (League of the Levadas). It was intended to defend the rights and interests of the aqueducts supplied by the springs that run in the stream (ribeira) of Santa Luzia, and was formed chiefly by the levadas of Dona Isabel, Moinhos and Santa Luzia. The civil engineer Vitorino José dos Santos rendered notable services to this association, not only in directing all the business in which the League had to intervene but above all in organising an important archive. It contains valuable material for the detailed study of the waters and levadas of this island, from the historical point of view as well as in their technical and legal aspects.

Since the dissolution of the ‘Liga das Levadas’, we do not know where this valuable and abundant collection of documents may have been deposited. Although they belonged to a private society, it would be most desirable for them to be incorporated into the District Archive of Funchal.

As for the so-called ‘State Levadas’, whose construction, maintenance and operation were paid for out of the general revenues of the State, they were administered by the former public works directorates of this district and later by the technical department of the District General Council (Junta Geral), which was naturally the body best suited to carry out this important service properly.

As we shall see below, the decree of 21 October 1943 introduced several changes to the system of levada administration.

VI – First explorations

The earliest farming began along the coasts and could not stray far from the watercourses or springs that had to fertilise the newly cleared land. These holdings soon had to expand their area considerably, and the need at once arose to carry water over greater distances by means of levadas (irrigation channels). The difficulties and obstacles to be overcome were always, and still are, truly extraordinary and at times almost insurmountable. Yet over the long span of five centuries the work of building levadas never ceased, and only a few years ago a new and considerable undertaking was begun in the mountains of Ribeira da Janela, which had to be interrupted for compelling reasons.

The construction of these channels, with the interesting features peculiar to them, forms a glorious tradition of labour, tenacity, intelligence and good sense that greatly honours and ennobles the land which conceived such an undertaking and carried it out so fruitfully. And now, more than four centuries on, it is most gratifying to recall the foresight of our ancestors, who, soon after settlement began, discovered this rich vein of gold that would make our agriculture productive, prosperous and wealthy, as indeed came fully to pass over the long course of time.

From the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century this tradition remained unbroken, which is to say that the building of levadas was a continuous and persistent labour, apart from any compelling circumstances that might have justified an occasional interruption.

This colossal effort, however, as so often happens with great undertakings, had modest beginnings and took many years to reach its full development. As one may easily imagine, the first levadas were fairly rudimentary, not only in the construction of the channels, their length and the way the water was captured, but also in the method of irrigating the plots and of conveying and distributing the water. It was time, local conditions and experience that would teach the practical way of making the fullest use of the advantages offered by this new method of fertilising the land.

It would be interesting to determine with some precision which places first enjoyed the inestimable benefit of the levadas, but today this is almost impossible. It is conjectured that the oldest tracts of land to profit from the new system of irrigation lay along the banks of the Ribeira de Santa Luzia. Anyone who supposes the same of the lands bordering the Machico and Câmara de Lobos streams, where they reach the coast, will not be far from the truth.

VII – Old levadas

At more than one point in this brief study we have sought to stress the importance and necessity of the levadas, showing not only their antiquity, which goes back to the time of the first colonisation, but above all the prodigious effort that went into building their channels. In support of this assertion, and as a historical detail worth recording, we shall transcribe some passages from the account of Father Gaspar Frutuoso that bear on this subject:

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Near the spring where the water of this stream of Socorridos rises, a levada was drawn from it to drive the sugar mill (engenho) of Luís de Noronha. They say that from the lugar (settlement ranking between a town and a parish) where they began to draw it to where the cane fields begin to be watered is a good four léguas, because it is drawn in windings from so great a depth in the stream that, to rise to the surface of the land and begin its course across lombos, estates and great crags, high up through the mountains along which this levada runs, it has a height of more than six hundred braças. From this height, which is very steep, the water is carried in windings in a wooden flume (cale) until it reaches made ground, and getting it to that place cost without fail more than twenty thousand cruzados, not counting the far greater cost of bringing it four léguas from there, besides the many deaths of men who worked on it in baskets tied with ropes and hung down the cliff, like those who gather orchil (a dye lichen); for the cliff is in many parts so sheer and steep that there was no other way, nor could there be, to make ledges on which to set the flumes without running these dangers. The water runs along two hundred and eighty sections, which, laid end to end, would be a quarter of a légua long. They are of til (Ocotea foetens, Madeiran laurel) planking, most of the boards being twenty palmos long and two and a half wide. Once these flumes are set on the cliff, the levada keepers make their way along inside them, constantly taking care to patch and repair them, clearing them also of the dirt and stones that happen to fall into them, and doing other things the levada requires. For this they are paid large wages, since theirs is an occupation of such great toil and so much danger.

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In this cliff there is a large cave that serves as a house for the levada keepers and as a store for the necessary supplies of hoes, mattocks, crowbars, picks and sledgehammers, and other tools; and every year ten and twelve pipas of wine are put into it for those who work on the levada and for others who go to help and repair it when some sections of the flumes break. And to anyone who sees it with his own eyes, the strange and daring contrivance devised to draw this water from there is a monstrous thing.

As mentioned above, several levadas already existed in the 15th century, but the most important date from the 16th century. One of these, which has disappeared entirely, is mentioned in the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ in the following terms, which deserve to be transcribed:

‘To water sugar cane in this town and towards Caniçal, a levada of water was drawn from so far away that from the place where it rises to the town it must be four and a half léguas or nearly five. More than a hundred thousand cruzados were spent on it, because it comes from great mountains and depths; and they say that in the work two peaks of hard rock were tunnelled through, there being no other remedy. Raphael Catanho, a Genoese, with the great spirit that he has, like almost all foreigners and especially those of that nation, was the first to begin drawing this water, and afterwards the King ordered it to be completed; and, because of its great cost, it is no longer used.’ Of another, on the banks of the Ribeira dos Socorridos, we have already extracted some interesting passages from the Saudades.

A report sent to the central government in 1813 by the Governor of the archipelago states that ‘there are levadas that cost their owners ten, twenty and thirty thousand cruzados and that spend six to seven on their annual upkeep’.

VIII – Ownership of the waters

The governments of mainland Portugal adopted many measures concerning the waters of Madeira, above all to secure their use and exploitation for cultivated land. The body of legislation on this subject is large and important. It covers not only provisions on the possession of and rights to water, but also its division and distribution, the administration of the levadas, etc.

The oldest known legal instrument concerning levadas is a letter from the Infante Ferdinand, issued in 1461, which ordered that there should be two sworn men charged with sharing out the waters. This letter is recorded on folio 207 of volume I of the Archive of the Funchal Municipal Council. On folio 222 of the same volume there is another, dated 1485, which ordered that ‘the waters be released on Sundays to all the heirs’.

Since the old levadas have their source in the upper region of the island, it was important to guarantee possession of the waters to the land of the lower zone, where the so-called rich crops are grown. For this reason, from remote times we find special legislation designed to prevent these waters from being diverted to purposes other than those for which they had been intended. A letter of John I, transcribed in another by King John II dated 7 May 1493, already laid down that no private individual could hold or acquire any right or ownership, by any title whatsoever, over springs, water outlets and sources. An identical provision is found in the said instrument of John II, and also in another by the same monarch, dated the 8th of the same month and year.

The letter of 8 May 1493 reads as follows: ‘... We therefore command you, captains, etc... that if any resident or inhabitant of the said island (of Madeira) comes before you, imploring your office as judge, which is to do justice to the parties, a duty with which we are greatly charged, and some powerful man hinders and forbids him from having a levada pass and run through his disposable third (terça) of the estate, a levada that at some time had passed and run and which, for some cause or event, through negligence or through damage to the levada, had ceased to run, you and those who succeed you in office shall hear the complaint with its grounds, and at once, without further delay and without the form or figure of a court, you shall order the said levada to be restored to its former original state, passage and course, having notice served on that powerful man who thus hinders the said levada. Him you shall not hear, nor permit, nor admit to plead any point of law in his favour, for we hold him excluded from all this until the said levada in fact runs and passes onwards; and you shall order him, under a penalty of five hundred cruzados, not to forbid or hinder, himself or through another, the running and passing of the said levada, which penalty we hold him to have incurred forthwith, and it shall be applied half to captives and half to the party; and if he should persist in contumacy you shall have him arrested and summon him to appear in person at this our court, on the fixed day of departure of the first ship that sails from that island within two months, to give the reason he had for not obeying what you commanded him in our name. The letter of grant (carta de mercê) of King Manuel I, of 9 February 1502, confirmed the earlier instruments concerning waters on the island of Madeira, and the warrant (provisão) of Joseph I, of 5 March 1770, gave new force to the preceding legal doctrine, in the following terms: ‘I make known to you, corregedor (royal district magistrate) of the judicial district (comarca) of the island of Madeira, that Leandro Pereira de Couto e Andrade, infantry captain of Porto do Paul on that island, represented to me by his petition that, while administering several entailed estates consisting of real property, on some of which various springs of water arose, which, together with others from different springs, ran to the mills of Fajã da Ovelha, certain persons made use of this water on holy days, selling it because they did not need it to irrigate their land, which caused harm to the petitioner, as he could not use that respective quantity of native water on his land; and he asked that I be pleased to order that the petitioner be given possession of the waters belonging to his springs. And having regard to the rest of what he alleged, and to the report you sent me on this petition: I am pleased to order you, in conformity with the warrant of the lord King John II, of 1493, a copy of which I send you, to carry out the division and sharing of the waters, without any regard to where they arise, on private land, or to any possession or custom to the contrary, declaring abusive the sales and leases made of those waters that gather in the levada referred to, since they must be shared among the inhabitants in proportion to the land they cultivate...’

The royal decree (alvará) of 19 October 1562 entrusted the donataries with the superintendence of the levadas. They were to have them opened and cleaned, and to distribute the waters for a certain price, but in such a way that preference in this distribution was given to persons who owned cane fields or sugar mills.

In 1563, according to the notes to the ‘Longing for the Homeland’, three royal decrees were issued. One ordered that, under the presidency of the most senior councillor (vereador) of the Funchal Council, the residents along the streams should regularly clean and reinforce them. Another ordered compliance with the earlier warrants on the annual cleaning of the levadas. The third ordered that cane fields should take precedence in the distribution of the waters, their price being set in each captaincy by the respective captain-donatary together with ‘an honourable person & according to the quantity and profit they yielded’.

The law of 12 November 1841 declared the legislation on waters and trees relating to the island of Madeira to be in force. However, the Civil Code, with its not always clear provisions, came – we do not say to invalidate, but to make debatable – certain prerogatives that the levadas had enjoyed. Only after the publication of the law of 20 April 1914 were these prerogatives recognised for the levadas that held acquired rights at the date of publication of the Civil Code. This ended the awkward situation in which many of these levadas found themselves, caused by the interpretation the higher courts were giving to articles 438, 444 and 450 of the said Code. ‘The legal regime’, says Dr N. F. Jardim in no. 4 of the Revista de Direito, ‘to which irrigation waters were subject on the island of Madeira before the Civil Code, adapting itself to local conditions and inspired by the far-sighted purpose of promoting and guaranteeing the institution of the Levadas as the main factor in the agricultural development of the region, departed entirely from common law, denying landowners all ownership and possession of springs whose flow ran by natural action into the streams from which the levadas were fed.

This regime, sanctioned by the constant usage of centuries and by various legal instruments, such as the well-known letter of grant of John II of 7 May 1493, was expressly declared in force by art. 3 of the law of 12 November 1841, and remained in force until the Civil Code came into effect, under the provisions of art. 5 of the law of 1 July 1867.

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The terms in which that Letter of Grant was expressed are categorical and precise: “we therefore see fit and it pleases us that no private individual shall have any right, dominion or action over the springs, sources and outflows of water that arise on his lands. . .” “Under the same regime, neither the principle now laid down in art. 444 nor the restrictions that the sole paragraph of art. 438 places on prescription applied in Madeira to springs on privately owned property whose waters flowed naturally into streams from which levadas (irrigation channels) were drawn. No right over such springs was recognised to the owners of that land, and the mere fact that the waters ran naturally and without artifice into those streams was enough to give the levadas exclusive use of them.

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In these circumstances, it is evident that the levadas of Madeira, at the date on which the Civil Code came into force, needed no other title to justify their acquired rights over any of the springs referred to, beyond their occupation and effective possession of the watercourse to whose formation the waters of those springs contributed. Nor could prescription based on that possession rightly be contested on the grounds that there were no engineering works on the properties from which the waters came. Such works were not needed to direct into the stream waters that reached it naturally and without artifice, and the centuries-old law in force until then did not require any such condition to guarantee the rights of the Levadas, as we have already pointed out.',

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However, once the Code came into force, and relying on a literal interpretation of articles 438 (sole paragraph) and 444, various owners of properties with springs in the conditions described began to claim free disposal of those waters. They refused to recognise the rights and possessions of the levadas, almost always centuries old, whenever these possessions were not marked by some engineering work on their properties – something that happened in very rare cases, for the reasons we have given.

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The struggle thus joined between the owner of the land where the spring rose and the levada that, under the previous regime, received and possessed the water gave rise to countless lawsuits. The levadas generally won in the island’s courts but lost in the higher court. There, through a less complete knowledge of local circumstances and of the special regime we have described, a doctrine hostile to the levadas and to the maintenance of their long-standing possessions and acquired rights was adopted, and it grew ever more pronounced over time.

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As a result, works multiplied across the whole island to divert the waters of adjacent properties away from the streams to which they were tributary, and to carry them elsewhere, for the exclusive benefit of the owners of those properties and works and to the detriment of the levadas. The flow that supplied the levadas was thus steadily reduced, to such a point that, had things continued in this way, many streams would soon have run dry, the levadas fed by them would have been extinguished and the land they watered would have become barren.

The law of 20 April 1914 only partly remedied this abnormal situation, for it did not guarantee to the levadas, beyond dispute, possession of the springs that rise on other people’s property and that for centuries, by legitimate customary right, had been used in full by those same levadas.

It was only the decree of 14 February 1931 that resolved this grave and weighty matter in the most precise and complete way. It put an end to various disputes, at times vexatious and always harmful, which seriously disrupted the normal life of farmers and owners of cultivated land. Despite the length of this decree and of the well-prepared report that precedes it, we shall give a detailed account of it in one of the following pages.

To clarify the measures adopted concerning the water regime on this island, we should add that the decree of 14 September 1889 extended the law of 6 March 1884 to Madeira. We should also add that the water regime applied to the mainland of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal) by the law of 1 December 1892 could likewise be extended to the Adjacent Islands (Ilhas Adjacentes) whenever the executive power saw fit.

The recent decrees nos 33,158 and 33,159 of 21 October 1943 contain several provisions on the ownership and use of the springs that feed the levadas, and these deserve the attention of all concerned.

IX – Legal status

The law of 20 April 1914, cited above, only partly remedied this anomalous situation. It did not give the levadas indisputable ownership of the springs that rise on other people’s property and that, for centuries and by legitimate customary right, had been used in their entirety by those same levadas. Nevertheless, it deserves to be transcribed here: ‘Article 1. The legal entities known as the levadas of the island of Madeira shall retain the rights they had acquired, on the date of publication of the Civil Code, over certain specified waters deriving from springs located on the properties of others.

Art. 2. However, waters that have been tapped on those properties by their respective owners since that date, and that the owners have used exclusively and without opposition from the levadas for at least two years, shall be deemed an integral part of the properties on which they were tapped, and their respective owners may therefore dispose of them freely.

Art. 3. The owners of properties burdened with the obligation to supply water to the levadas may, from the publication of this law, tap new springs of water found on those properties and dispose of them freely.

§ 1. The owners of these properties may not, however, begin or continue any works to search for water there without first applying for the legal entities – the levadas – to be summoned, so that at the second hearing following the summons experts may be appointed, under article 235 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure, in order that the waters of the levada may be measured at an inspection (vistoria) and the levada assured of the quantity of water to which it is entitled.

§ 2. The measurement referred to in § 1 shall be carried out before the first rains of September and in January.

Art. 4. The provisions of articles 432, 444 and 450 of the Civil Code are thus interpreted with reference to the subject of this law, and all legislation to the contrary is repealed.

The Minister of Justice shall have it printed, published and circulated. Given at the Palace of the Government of the Republic, and published on 20 April 1914. Manuel de Arriaga – Manuel Monteiro.’

It was only the decree of 14 February 1931 that settled this grave and weighty matter in the most precise and complete way. It put an end to a number of disputes, at times vexing and always harmful, that had disrupted the normal life of farmers and owners of cultivated land. Its importance, and the light it sheds on our subject, lead us to transcribe it in full despite its length, together with the lucid report that precedes it, even though its doctrine has already been set out at some length in the preceding pages.

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In its general outline, the orography of Madeira consists of a chain of mountains running from east to west, whose slopes fall steeply northwards and southwards to the ocean. They are furrowed by streams in which all the rainwater and the water of the springs that rise on these slopes gather and flow. Together they form two zones of differing climatic conditions: the coastal zone, where the population and the most valuable crops are concentrated, and the upper zone, suited for the most part only to forest vegetation.

From these peculiar local circumstances arose the need for the first settlers of Madeira to divert water from the streams upstream of the land they occupied, and to carry it to that land in suitable aqueducts, since the water was indispensable for fertilising the soil and for domestic use.

This was the origin of the ‘Levadas of Madeira’. Because they were thus a product of the region’s unchanging natural conditions, it is evident that the same need that led to the original founding of these institutions has, over time, required their preservation, and requires it today, as an essential means of ensuring the continuity of the local economy, which is bound up entirely with the prosperity of agriculture.

Clear recognition of this truth led the State, from the very beginning of the settlement of Madeira and several times thereafter, to adopt legislative and administrative measures to guarantee the levadas the integrity of their flows. These flows, as has been noted, are drawn from the numerous brooks and streams that are a characteristic feature of the region, and are further increased by springs that feed directly into the aqueducts at various points along their course.

In the summer and irrigation season, these currents are formed by the water of springs and seepages in the land bordering the brooks and streams where each levada has its origin, or intake (madre). The more or less abrupt and steep gradient of this land gives the water free passage into the beds of the brooks and streams below as they run downstream. From the joining of these flows, and of the water that runs into the aqueducts along their course, come the volumes that the levadas collect and distribute for the agricultural and domestic needs of the cultivated zone the aqueducts supply.

In the great majority of cases, the land where the springs rise is privately owned by others. For this reason the legislative instruments to which we have referred, with the just and far-sighted aim of safeguarding the great interests that depend on the preservation of the levadas of Madeira, created an exceptional legal regime for this region. It rested fundamentally on denying landowners any right to the springs whose flow runs naturally into the streams that feed these levadas, or into their aqueducts.

This was decreed, among other instruments, by the letter of grant (carta de mercê) of John II of 7 May, in the following terms:

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Therefore it is our will and pleasure, and we command, that no private person shall have any right or claim to the fountains, springs and water sources that rise on his land. .

Under this regime, whose validity was affirmed in Article 3 of the law of 12 November 1841 and, more recently still, in the law of 26 July 1888, which gave the levadas of Madeira legal personality, the levadas were assured the use of the waters we have been describing. They needed no title other than the occupation and effective possession of the currents they helped to form. Nor could the absence of engineering works on the properties where the water originated be raised against prescription based on such possession, since no works were needed to channel into the streams water that reached them naturally and without artifice, and the law did not require any such condition.

The legal position we have outlined lasted for four centuries. It protected the levadas very effectively, helping them to repress the attempts at spoliation by which people sometimes sought to divert the current of a stream, or the flow of a tributary spring, from its course to other ends and destinations, to the detriment of the flow of the levadas downstream.

This situation changed with the promulgation of the Civil Code. Through excessively literal interpretations of Articles 444 and 438, sole paragraph, of that Code, and of Article 5 of the law of 1 July 1867 that approved it, the idea arose that the old regime of the levadas of Madeira had been included in the revoking formula of that Article 5. It was held that, under the new law, owners of properties with springs of the kind described above could freely dispose of their waters, regardless of any possession by the levadas, whenever there were no engineering works on those properties to mark such possession under the said Article 438, sole paragraph.

These ideas were soon put into practice. In many parts of the island works were begun to divert from the streams, to which they were tributary, the waters of the adjoining properties, and sometimes the currents of the streams themselves, for the sole benefit of the owners of those properties and to the detriment of the levadas, whose flow was thus progressively reduced.

So began a conflict of interests that gave rise to countless lawsuits. The levadas generally won them before the island’s courts but lost them in the higher courts, where, through a less complete knowledge of local circumstances and of the special regime we have described, judgment went against the right they invoked.

In these distressing circumstances, which threatened the levadas of Madeira with extinction and the whole local economy with complete upheaval, petitions were addressed to the public authorities urgently requesting legislative measures to remedy the evil. The remedy came in the law of 20 April 1914, whose Article 1 provided as follows:

The legal entities – the levadas of the island of Madeira – retain the rights they had acquired, at the date of publication of the Civil Code, over certain specified waters derived from springs on the land of others. Evidently, the rights acquired by the Madeiran levadas at the date of publication of the Civil Code, and thus retained, are those recognised to them under the previous law, that is, under the special regime whose basic principles we have set out, namely:

Such are the rights that the law of 20 April 1914 expressly retained in Article 1, and implicitly in Article 4, which declares Articles 438, 444 and 450 of the Civil Code to be interpreted in the terms of the new provisions. The legal and logical effect of Article 4, with regard to the waters dealt with in Article 1, can only be to make clear that the acquisition of the rights safeguarded in Article 1 would not be subject to the restrictions laid down in those articles of the Civil Code, but was to be governed by the principles in force at the date of its publication.

Nor could the safeguard made in Article 1 be understood in any other way, for it would be a flagrant contradiction to subject acquired rights, which the law declaredly seeks to protect, to the requirements of a law passed after their acquisition as regards the title and manner of that acquisition.

Thanks to the law of 20 April 1914, the danger that so gravely threatened the great and manifold interests bound up with the Madeiran levadas was in large part averted.

However, Decree-Law No. 5,787 of 10 May 1919, which hastily replaced the water regime established in the Civil Code with a new one, once again put those interests at risk.

Considering, therefore, that in the interests of Madeiran agriculture it is fitting to reaffirm and uphold the rights acquired by the levadas (irrigation channels), under the centuries-old regime under which they were acquired; and

Having regard to the representation made to the Government by the Madeira Agricultural Association (Associação de Agricultura da Madeira);

Using the power conferred on me by No. 2 of Article 2 of Decree No. 12,740 of 26 November 1926, by virtue of the provisions of Article 1 of Decree No. 15,331 of 9 April 1928, on the proposal of the Ministers of all Departments: I hereby decree, to have the force of law, the following: Article 1. The levadas of the Island of Madeira retain the rights they had acquired at the date of publication of the Civil Code, and safeguarded in Article 1 of the law of 20 April 1914, over the waters that supply them and that come from springs on the property of others.

Art. 2. The possession by any levada of specific waters that rise on the property of others and, by mere natural action, join the stream from which it is supplied, or the flow of its aqueduct at any point along its course, is sufficient to establish the right of that levada to such waters, without the need for or dependence on any engineering works on those properties.

Art. 3. The owners of land bordering any stream from which the levadas are supplied, or bordering their aqueducts, who at the date of publication of the Civil Code had the right to irrigate that land with water drawn from that stream or from the springs flowing into the said aqueducts, or who subsequently acquired that right by lawful means, may not on any pretext divert such waters beyond the same bordering land, to the detriment of the benefit that the levadas derive from the run-off (escorras) and surplus of the irrigation carried out there.

Art. 4. Prospecting for and exploitation of springs on the properties referred to in Article 1 are subject to the provisions on the matter in Articles 2 and 3 of the law of 20 April 1914, with the modification that the measurement dealt with in the sole paragraph of Article 3 shall be made before the first autumn rains and at the end of February, in two successive years.

Art. 5. Where works and exploitation on the said properties result in a reduction in the volume of water that any levada receives from the springs on those properties, the owners of such properties shall be obliged to restore that volume.

Art. 6. The levadas of the Island of Madeira, in addition to the right of passage for their aqueducts through the property of others as provided by the general law, shall also have the right of access to these aqueducts. The staff responsible for their maintenance, cleaning and clearing on behalf of the respective administrations, or the ‘hereos’, on the occasions when each is respectively entitled to use the water, may pass along the same aqueducts by the paths or side tracks, according to ancient custom, whenever such work is necessary to ensure the free flow of water.

Art. 7. The rights thus recognised to the levadas include that of laying, on the property where any of the springs referred to in Article 1 exists, and where its use so requires, the pipes needed to carry its flow, in the manner least inconvenient to the owner of the property, and without prejudice to what is laid down in Article 4.

Art. 8. The provisions of Articles 99 and its sole paragraph, 102, 105 and 145 of Decree-Law No. 5,787-III of 10 May 1919 are thus interpreted with reference to the subject of the present law, and all legislation to the contrary is revoked.

All authorities responsible for the knowledge and execution of the present decree with the force of law are therefore ordered to comply with it and to have it complied with and observed as fully as it is contained herein.

The Ministers of all Departments shall have it printed, published and circulated. Given at the Palace of the Government of the Republic, on 14 February 1931. – ÓSCAR CARMONA’.

As will be seen below, the Decree of 21 October 1943 is of particular relevance to the subject of this chapter and lays down some new provisions concerning the ownership of irrigation waters and the administration of the levadas.

Of great relevance to this subject is the valuable legal work by Dr Guilherme Moreira entitled Das Aguas no Direito Civil Português, and most particularly the long chapter No. 21 of this highly regarded work, headed Os direitos adquiridos sobre as aguas das nascentes e levadas na Ilha da Madeira. It is an expert and conscientious study, even though one may perhaps have to disagree with some of the statements of that illustrious professor and distinguished jurist.

X – Award or sale of the levadas

The idea of conceding, awarding or selling the state levadas to a private company, on the principal condition that the contractors undertake to complete the whole planned network of these irrigation channels, appeared in the Funchal press around 1882. It found no echo in public opinion, however, and no company came forward at the time to seek the concession, despite the advantages it offered.

In 1891 the military engineer José de Ascensão Guimarães, in association with some landowners interested in the construction of the Levada do Coquim, applied for the concession to operate this aqueduct, undertaking to complete its construction at no cost to the State. The application was not granted, and the terms on which it was made are unknown.

A few years later a group of farmers and landowners from the parishes of Caniço, São Gonçalo and Santa Maria Maior petitioned the central Government for permission to complete the levada intended to irrigate those localities, for which they had the sum of forty contos de réis (conto: one million réis) available. Their proposal, however, was not taken up.

Around 1893 our fellow countryman Captain Manuel Alexandre de Sousa sought a broad concession of the as yet unused waters of this island, intending them for agriculture and for domestic and industrial uses, with the right to prospect for and expropriate any springs, and undertaking to complete the levadas within ten years. This application went no further.

Under the provisions of the decree of 30 September 1892, the engineers Carlos Roma Machado de Faria e Maia and Aníbal Augusto Trigo submitted a proposal to the Government in June 1895 for the completion and operation of the state levadas, after a lengthy study of the matter. ‘They undertook,’ says a newspaper of the time, ‘to complete the levadas under construction within two years. They waived in favour of the State the premium of 10 per cent on the capital of the initial construction and installation to which they considered themselves entitled under article 1 of the said decree, as well as three quarters of the net income exceeding 6 per cent of all the capital employed in construction. They gave the Government the right to redeem the whole concession after 15 years, against due compensation. Finally, they gave the Government the right to set the rates for water rental in whatever way it deemed most suitable for agriculture, undertaking moreover not to exceed the average price of the hour of water (hora de água, an hour’s right to the levada’s flow per rotation) in each municipality (concelho), a price to be determined according to the rotation (giro) and volume of water of each levada. And since under this arrangement the revenue could not secure the company’s capital, the signatories of the proposal asked the Government to guarantee them interest of 6 per cent on all the capital employed in completing the levadas, the estimates to be approved by the Government and the works inspected by its agents.’ This proposal made no progress either, despite the favourable opinions it received from every official department through which it had to pass. The local press and party politics contributed to this, and perhaps above all the petition of Captain Alexandre de Sousa, who claimed priority rights on the strength of his application of 1893. The engineers Roma e Maia and Aníbal Trigo then requested that the concession, if granted, be awarded by public tender. Parliament passed the law of 21 May 1896, which expressly established the right of the levadas to the waters that fed them and authorised the Government to put the construction and operation of the Madeiran levadas out to tender on the terms annexed to that law. The tender was opened by the decree of 18 June 1896, on the terms and conditions laid down by the law of 21 May and in accordance with the clauses set out in the ministerial order (portaria) of 22 July of the same year. On 26 September 1896 the award of the contract went to Captain Manuel Alexandre de Sousa, who had offered a reduction of 70 per cent on the final average referred to in the sole paragraph of the fourth clause, whereas the engineers Roma e Maia and Aníbal Trigo had offered a reduction of only 21 per cent. From the outset it seemed to many that the concessionaire could not, under such conditions, fulfil all the clauses of the contract. And so it proved. The contractor took over the management of the levadas, but after almost three years, having carried out no construction work at all and finding himself unable to meet the conditions of the tender, he requested and obtained the cancellation of the contract. All the levada services passed once again to the district Public Works Department on 22 June 1899. A year earlier the Viscount of Ribeira Brava, deputy for Madeira, had introduced in parliament a bill for the sale of the levadas, dated 29 April 1898, which was actually passed by the Chamber of Deputies.

While the concession contract was still in force, the civil governor of the district, Dr José António de Almada, in a letter to the Government of 6 November 1897, had asked for the decree of 1 December 1892, which had created a new water regime for the whole country, to be applied to this archipelago. He suggested that a competent expert be sent to this island to give a well-founded and conscientious opinion on the advantages or disadvantages of applying that law. The distinguished engineer Adolfo Loureiro was entrusted with these studies; he stayed some months in Madeira and returned to the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal) in April 1898. His opinion was that the decree could be applied to the Madeiran archipelago once certain modifications had been made, in view of the island’s special orographic, hydrographic and climatic conditions.

In 1910 a bill was introduced in the Chamber of Deputies authorising the sale of the levadas and applying the proceeds to completing those under construction and building new ones, but the bill lay buried in committee.

On 11 February 1916 the deputies the Viscount of Ribeira Brava, Dr Carlos Olavo Correia de Azevedo, Captain Américo Olavo Correia de Azevedo and Captain Manuel da Costa Dias introduced in the Cortes (Portuguese parliament) three bills: to grant autonomy to the Agricultural Board, to reform the so-called colonia contract (Madeiran sharecropping tenancy; produce divided, improvements owned by the tenant), and to sell at public auction the levadas that the State owned on this island, which were by then already in the possession of the Agricultural Board. Such opposition arose in Madeira against these bills that they were never even admitted to parliamentary debate.

XI – The existing levadas

There are about two hundred levadas in Madeira, many of them of little importance and intended to irrigate limited tracts of land. The most important belong to the State. Foremost among them are the Levada do Rabaçal, a gigantic undertaking, and the so-called Levada da Serra do Faial, which is several dozen kilometres long. The levadas of Furado, Juncal, the Serra de São Jorge, São Vicente and Ribeira Brava also belong to the State.

For their value and the benefit they bring to agriculture, the following private levadas deserve special mention: those of Piornais and Santa Luzia, the most important of all, and the Nova do Curral e Castelejo, Madalena, Bom Sucesso, Dona Isabel, Moinhos, Hortas and others, all in the municipality (concelho) of Funchal.

Scattered across every parish of the island are countless levadas, of greater or lesser importance as local needs require. Below, arranged by parish, we list the levadas of which we have been able to obtain information, and for some of them we shall set out various facts of interest to their history.

XII – State levadas

As has been said more than once, the tapping of these beneficial and abundant watercourses, together with the important aqueducts that carry them, which we call ‘levadas’, was the initiative of the first settlers. It was a truly remarkable undertaking, which their heirs and successors carried on without interruption and with the most effective and diligent activity over the long span of four centuries. It is true that the State made its influence beneficially felt through the full concession of the springs, through the way they were administered and operated, and also through various forms of material assistance, which contributed greatly to the progress and development of this great enterprise. The building of the aqueducts, however, with all the arduous labour it involved, was carried out by the cultivators of the land through their own efforts.

It was soon recognised that private initiative was powerless to carry out an enterprise of wider scope, with more abundant and beneficial results. After long years of struggle, of urgent petitions and of the soundest reports supplied by the local authorities, the government in mainland Portugal was at last persuaded to take the decision to exploit the rich springs lost in the interior of the island and to build the great levadas that today irrigate the land of several important parishes.

For a little over a century the central government has taken charge of building a number of levadas, which are at present the largest and most abundant flows of water used by our agriculture. These levadas could hardly have been built by any private companies, not only for lack of capital but also for lack of broad initiative on the part of landowners and farmers. The State does not draw from the net revenue it collects a return that makes up for the large sums spent. However, the rise in land values and the corresponding increase in its taxable income, the growth of public wealth, the progress of agriculture and of the other industries linked to it, and the abundance of produce for feeding the public, notably cereals and vegetables, etc., fully justify the government’s undertaking in building the levadas of Madeira.

Some of our levadas, both those of the State and private ones, deserve particular attention because of their great importance and the inestimable benefits they bestow on Madeiran agriculture. We shall begin with the most important of them all, those of Rabaçal, which are a valuable factor in the public wealth of the vast and populous municipality of Calheta.

The State owns, and directly maintains and administers, the Rabaçal levadas already mentioned, as well as those of the Serra do Faial, Juncal, the Serra de São Jorge, São Vicente and Ribeira Brava, the Ribeira do Inferno, Monte Medonho and the Furado.

XIII – Levada do Rabaçal

The picturesque village (lugar, settlement rank below a town) of Rabaçal lies in the interior of the island, at an altitude of a thousand metres above sea level. It is some 15 kilometres from the town (vila) of Calheta, to which it is linked by a good road built a few years ago. As stated above, the waters taken at Rabaçal to feed the levadas consist of the headwater springs of the Ribeira da Janela and several tributaries of that stream, which is the most abundant watercourse on the whole island. These springs rise at the western end of the Paul da Serra, in the middle of a ring of mountains that are hard and slow to reach. From the earliest days of colonisation that region must surely have caught the attention of the first settlers, not only for its natural beauty but also, and above all, for the wealth of those abundant waters, which flowed uselessly into the ocean. No record has come down to us of any attempt made in the first four centuries to harness any of those waters.

It has sometimes been claimed that the first attempts to use the Rabaçal waters for irrigation date from the period of Philippine rule (Spanish Habsburg rule over Portugal, 1580–1640), but no document or reliable information fully confirms this. When construction work began in 1835, clear traces of old workings were found, which, in all likelihood, must date back to the third quarter of the 18th century.

Closely connected with this statement is the following interesting dispatch from the governor and captain-general of Madeira, João António de Sá Pereira, Baron of Alverca, addressed to the sergeant-major (sargento-mor, a field officer ranking as major) and engineer Francisco de Alencourt and dated 8 October 1768: ‘As soon as you receive this, you shall set out with the assistant engineer Francisco Salustiano da Costa towards the town of Calheta, where you must seek out Dr Francisco Cristóvão de Ornelas e Vasconcelos and, in his absence, the ordinary judge (juiz ordinário, locally elected lay judge) of the same town, from whom you shall learn who is the person whom the high court judge (desembargador) and corregedor (royal district magistrate) has charged with informing you where the waters described in the enclosed paper rise; and, proceeding to their sites, you shall examine the quality and quantity of the springs, and the easiest way of making use of the waters, bringing them to the fields called the Cumiada and to the parishes of Canhas, Arco da Calheta, Estreito, Prazeres, Fajã da Ovelha and Ponta do Pargo, and as far as that of Porto Moniz, or as far as possible.

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And when all has been thus examined, you shall draw up a plan of all those sites, marking on it the springs, the distance to which the waters can be conveyed, and the routes by which they must pass.

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And so that the benefit that may come from using the said waters may be known, you shall make an assessment and estimate of the expenditure that may be incurred, and of the advantage that may result from cultivating the lands of those parishes watered by such waters, all calculated according to the quality and yield of those lands and the prices of the produce and other provisions of this island.

On the 31st of the same month and year, the same Baron of Alverca sent a lengthy report to the minister and secretary of state for the Kingdom on the inestimable benefits that would result from the undertaking, citing the famous royal letters of John I, John II and Manuel I, to which we have already referred at greater length in the course of this modest study.

More than a century ago (1835), an official document stated that the Rabaçal levada ‘will have its origin in the first springs of the Ribeira da Janela; it will run round a great hollow, growing ever larger, as far as Rossada, over a distance of 192 braças; from here it continues for 310 braças south-south-west and north-north-east; whence it will run for a further 120 braças west-north-west; from there, heading south-south-east, it will pass to another great recess, around which 432 braças are counted as far as Ligarte. Then it will head north for 432 braças, emerging east-south-east into another cavity of 120 braças as far as Pico Gordo; there follow a further 252 braças along the lombo (ridge between valleys) of Aveira to Pico do Cotum, where it will break through towards Calheta by way of the Estrebarias, adding another 49 braças, making 1963 braças in all.’

José Maria da Fonseca estimated the cost of building the levada as far as the Estrebarias hill at about 20 contos de réis (conto: one million réis), a very large sum for the time. Earlier still, in 1819, the governor and captain-general Dom Sebastião Xavier Botelho, in a dispatch to the central government, urgently requested the construction of a levada, proposing that ‘an advance be made from the Royal Treasury (Real Fazenda), to be repaid afterwards by an annual charge on the inhabitants of the lands those waters irrigate, who would then own them outright, according to whatever plan is most suitable’.

We believe that all these efforts came to nothing, because in 1830 Captain António Jacinto de Faria Andrade de Bettencourt asked the government of mainland Portugal, on certain conditions, for ownership of the Rabaçal waters, so that he could exploit them on his own account and build the necessary levadas.

It seems that in 1834, when the governor and captain-general of Madeira, Dom Álvaro da Costa de Sousa Macedo, left office, he had already, under higher orders received earlier, ordered work to begin on exploring those waters, but the uncertainty of the times and the country’s political events perhaps prevented it from starting. It fell to his successor, the illustrious Luís da Silva Mousinho de Albuquerque, to have the glory of beginning those gigantic works, perhaps the most important ever carried out anywhere on the island.

The work began in 1835 and continued for some years, though very slowly, and was interrupted around 1844. If we owe the start of the undertaking to Luís Mousinho, we owe to José Silvestre Ribeiro the remarkable impetus it gained between 1847 and 1852. It can be stated without fear of contradiction that, had it not been for the titanic efforts of Silvestre Ribeiro, the Rabaçal works would perhaps not have continued, or would have been completed only very much later.

When José Silvestre Ribeiro took charge of the administration of the district in 1846, he at once turned his attention to that gigantic work, understanding the enormous benefits that the completion of this grand undertaking would bring to the agriculture of the vast municipality (concelho) of Calheta. But it was only in 1849, when he was deputy for Madeira and obtained from the government in mainland Portugal an annual subsidy of six contos de réis (conto: one million réis) for those works until their completion, that they advanced with remarkable speed. The boring of the Estrebarias tunnel, the most hazardous and difficult part of the whole project, was completed on 5 November 1850. With the impetus given by Silvestre Ribeiro’s hand, the work went on over the years, sometimes more slowly, sometimes less, until around 1890, when the new levada was finished and the works were declared definitively complete.

We must record here a memorable date in the history of the Rabaçal works – 16 September 1855 – when the waters, passing through the Estrebarias tunnel for the first time, crossed from the north to the south of the island to fertilise vast tracts of land that had lain uncultivated.

The first works at Rabaçal in 1835 were directed by the governor himself, Luís Mousinho de Albuquerque, a distinguished engineer who carried out various important studies on the site. All the work from its beginning until 1843 was directed by the engineer Vicente de Paula Teixeira, who always showed the greatest zeal and dedication to the undertaking and rendered it very notable services, leaving his name linked to those works. From 1843 to 1847 they were under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers Manuel José Júlio Guerra. In 1847 Captain of Engineers Tibério Augusto Blanc was put in charge of the works. He was the most valuable assistant José Silvestre Ribeiro found in giving them the impetus they gained between 1847 and 1851. His, too, is a name closely bound up with the history of the Rabaçal works and must not be left in shameful oblivion. Another name to be remembered here is that of Brigadier António Rogério Gromicho Couceiro, who was director of public works of this district and later the worthy civil governor of Madeira. It was under his direction that the waters first passed through the underground gallery of Estrebarias, crossing from the north to the south of the island.

In the course of the works, which took more than half a century to complete, they underwent various changes to the original plan as circumstances advised. Bringing them to completion cost the considerable sum of almost 186 contos de réis, but the grand undertaking stands there as eloquent testimony to the worth of the zeal, dedication and love of a few men for the prosperity and well-being of our land.

As is known, there are two Rabaçal levadas – the old levada and the new levada. The first irrigates the parishes of Prazeres, Fajã da Ovelha, Ponta do Pargo and Paul do Mar, and the second the parishes of Calheta, Estreito da Calheta and Arco da Calheta. In the dry season each has at its source a continuous flow of approximately 80 litres per second, and both divide into six branches for irrigation; in 1906 they distributed 2,580 water hours (horas de água, irrigation rights measured in hours of flow).

The works on the old levada, which were finished only in 1860, cost the State 69,369,420 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis); those on the new levada, which, as we have said, were definitively completed only in 1890, came to 116,208,480 réis. This latter levada is fed by the waters of the Vinte e Cinco Fontes and the Fonte do Cedro, and the tunnel through which these waters pass was begun in 1863 and finished in 1877.

XIV – Levada da Serra

The longest of the state levadas, and the most important of all after those of Rabaçal, is the one known as the Levada da Serra, or more properly the Levada da Serra do Faial, because it rises in several springs in the uplands of that parish (freguesia). From its starting point as far as Lombo da Raiz its waters run together with those of other levadas, but from there to the locality (sítio) of Choupana they are carried in a channel of their own, over a distance of no less than thirty kilometres. The footpath that runs alongside this levada opens up varied and striking views across the parishes of Santa Maria Maior, Camacha and Santo da Serra, and it is an essential walk for many people who wish to see some of the natural beauties of this island.

This levada is intended to irrigate the land of Caniço, São Gonçalo and Santa Maria Maior, and attempts to supply those parishes with water for irrigation go back a long way. According to the work by the engineer Adriano Trigo cited above, a joint-stock company called the Sociedade da Nova Levada do Furado was formed in 1830 on the initiative of some private individuals. Its purpose was to harness the water that ran to waste in the Ribeira da Laje, in the parish of Faial, and channel it as far as Pico do Infante for distribution among those parishes. The company’s statutes, approved on 21 March 1840, gave it the right to capture this water and carry it as far as Lombo da Raiz through the common channel of the Juncal and Furado levadas, which the state already owned at that time. From there to Pico do Infante the water was to be brought through a new channel built at the company’s own expense. Because of financial difficulties, and also because of serious errors in levelling, the company did not achieve its aim, although it had spent about forty-two contos (one million réis) de réis on the work carried out, a considerable sum for the time. By using the channels of the Furado and Juncal levadas, it managed only to bring some water as far as the municipality (concelho) of Santa Cruz, and this came to form the so-called Levada dos Accionistas.

After many difficulties, the central government took the initiative of building a levada to supply irrigation water to the parishes of Caniço, São Gonçalo and Santa Maria Maior. Studies and preparatory work began in 1861, and the efforts and endeavours devoted to carrying this work forward successfully were truly remarkable. From 1871 the works gathered pace, and they were finally completed in 1905. On 25, 26 and 27 September of that year the water began to flow through the long channel, and on the last of those days this important and remarkable improvement was officially and solemnly inaugurated.

To clarify what has been said, it should be explained that the water of this important levada, intended to irrigate the land of the parishes of Caniço, São Gonçalo and Santa Maria Maior, runs together with the water of the Juncal and Nova do Furado levadas as far as the locality of Lombo da Raiz, in the parish of Santo da Serra. From that point the flow runs in its own channel to its terminus at the top of Caminho do Meio.

XV – Other state levadas

One of the oldest levadas belonging to the State was acquired under a contract concluded in 1822 between the 1st Count of Carvalhal and the Royal Treasury Board (Junta da Real Fazenda). Under it, nine days of water from one of the branch channels of the levada were reserved to the count; today (1921) this water is enjoyed by the heirs of General Dom Luís da Câmara Leme, nephew of the said Count of Carvalhal. The levada is fed by the springs that flow in the Ribeiro Frio and serves to irrigate the parish of Porto da Cruz. It is 8½ kilometres long and ends at the locality of Lamaceiros, where its waters are separated from those of the Faial, Accionistas and Juncal levadas, with which they run together up to that point.

This channel is fed by the springs of the Ribeiro Frio. A measurement made around 1910 gave it a flow of 40 litres per second, and it serves to irrigate the parish of Porto da Cruz by means of two branch channels.

The Levada do Juncal is perhaps as old as the Furado levada, and it was built at the State’s expense from the time its springs were first explored. These waters are taken from the Ribeira do Juncal and run together with those of the Furado for a long stretch. They are separated at the dividing box (caixa divisória) at the locality of Lamaceiros and then continue to the locality of Lombo da Raiz, from where they are diverted to irrigate the parishes of Santo António da Serra, Água de Pena and Santa Cruz. The levada measures 15½ kilometres from its source to the locality of Lombo da Raiz, in the parish of Santo da Serra. The Levada do Juncal had an abundant flow of 92 litres per second and was used for irrigation in a single branch channel, making it the most copious flow on the whole island used for watering.

Another levada belonging to the State is the Levada da Serra de São Jorge, which irrigates the parishes of São Jorge, Santana and Faial. It rises at the locality of Pé dos Poios, in the uplands of the first of these parishes. It was built recently and replaced the Levada da Fajã dos Vinháticos. The latter was built over the period from 1860 to 1904; it was abandoned in that last year and then replaced by the Serra de São Jorge levada. Its length is 11 kilometres.

Despite its name, this levada was of little or no benefit to the parish of São Jorge, because almost all of its flow went to irrigate the parishes of Santana and Faial. In 1938, however, the District General Council (Junta Geral), making use of some abandoned springs, had a further ‘branch channel’ of this levada built. It waters the land of the so-called locality of Ilha, greatly benefiting that whole area.

The São Vicente and Ribeira Brava levada, intended to irrigate these parishes, also belongs to the State. The Levada do Monte Medonho, which rises at that locality in the uplands of São Vicente, used to water this parish; in 1908 it was diverted from its original purpose and applied to the irrigation of the parishes of Ribeira Brava and Tábua. To replace the Monte Medonho flow, a new channel was built. It is called the Levada da Ribeira do Inferno, because it rises in the stream of that name, and it supplies the parish of São Vicente.

A communication issued by the General Council states that in the last three years (1938–1940) many kilometres of new channels have been built, especially in the parishes of Caniço, São Gonçalo and Santa Maria Maior. An important ‘branch channel’, more than two thousand metres long, has also been built to carry water to the parish of Ponta do Pargo.

Approximately 50 years ago work began on the so-called Levada do Coquim, which was intended to irrigate the land of the parishes of Boaventura and Ponta Delgada. About thirteen contos (one million réis) de réis were spent on this work, and it was then believed that with a further ten contos all the works would be completed. It would have been a channel two to three kilometres long, but of capital importance for the extremely fertile land of the latter of those parishes. The work was entirely abandoned five or six years after it had begun.

XVI – Private levadas

As stated above, several levadas already existed in the last quarter of the 15th century, carrying abundant springs intended mainly for growing sugar cane. It may be said, however, that the oldest levadas are contemporary with the first agricultural ventures. The most important of these levadas, some of which still exist, nevertheless date from the 16th century.

The first explorations for water and the building of the corresponding aqueducts were undertaken by the early settlers through their own efforts. Over time, private initiative always played a very important part in opening and maintaining the levadas.

One of the oldest and the most important of the private levadas is that of Santa Luzia, so called because it is fed by the waters of the stream of that name. The archive of the Funchal Council holds a record of a royal decree (alvará régio) of 1515 in which Manuel I ordered that the course of this levada should not be changed in future. A communication sent in 1813 to the Government of mainland Portugal by the Captain-General and Governor of the archipelago contains some descriptive notes on this levada. It states that the levada rises in a high mountain range known as Terreiro das Galinhas and Terreiro de Água, two léguas from the city. To these sources were later added that of the brook of Frades and, further on, that of Pisão; above all, the flow was swollen by the abundant Tornos springs, as well as by many other springs that pour into the same stream. All the water was divided into two parts: one was destined for the mills, and the other formed the Levada de Santa Luzia. The same document states that ‘at the start of the channelling it receives 250 square inches of water, and its length from that point to Socorro is 2,130 braças’. The curious document of 1515 referred to above reads as follows: ‘We the King make known to you, bachelor (bacharel, university graduate) Ruy Pires, our juiz de fora (crown-appointed judge from outside the district), with special judicial powers (alçada) in our city of Funchal, and to the officers of the council of the said city, that we have now learnt that the Balthazares and other co-owners who hold a levada on the stream of Santa Luzia wished to raise it higher than it was, which is to the great harm and damage of the said city and of its cleanliness, and contrary to the prohibition we have laid down that no innovation should ever at any time be made on the said stream beyond what existed at the time we granted waters of the said stream to the said city; and since it is not our pleasure that the said levada be moved or any innovation made in it, we order you, as soon as this is presented to you, to command on our behalf the said Balthazares and co-owners to whom it belongs that they touch nothing whatsoever of the said levada nor move it from where it used to be, on pain of forfeiting it to us; and should you, judges and officers, permit it, we shall hold you condemned to a fine of fifty cruzados; and if any change has been made to the said levada, have it restored at once to the point and state in which it formerly was; and you, judge, make a record (auto) of all this that we thus order, and have this copied into the book of the Council of the said city, so that it may be known for all time how we thus order and forbid this, and we inform you by our letter that you are to abide by this, and this decree shall remain in your hands, and so fulfil it. Done at Almeirim on the twenty-second day of the month of February, Damião Dias made it, in the year one thousand five hundred and fifteen; let no doubt arise where “said” is written and “years” struck out, for I did so in truth. As soon as it was copied it was immediately handed and given to the said bachelor Ruy Pires, juiz de fora, and I, Affonso Eannes, who wrote it, collated it with the original.’ (Book 1 of the General Register, fol. 116 v.) Concerning the stream of Santa Luzia and the levadas it feeds, we found somewhere a reference relating to 1866 stating that it then had a flow of 185 litres per second and supplied the levadas of Santa Luzia, Moinhos and Dona Isabel. Their waters ran together as far as the locality (sítio) of Fundoa de Cima, in São Roque, where the last of these levadas had its intake. From Fundoa the waters flowed together to the Ribeira das Cales, where they were divided into two equal parts, forming the levadas of Moinhos and Santa Luzia. At that time measurement showed 19.5 litres for the Dona Isabel levada and 83 for each of the other two. In a measurement carried out in 1901, we see that the combined flow of the three levadas was 153 litres per second, of which 63 went to Santa Luzia, 55 to Moinhos and 34 to Dona Isabel. After the Santa Luzia levada, one of the most important and oldest private levadas is that of Piornais, which rises on the left bank of the Ribeira dos Socorridos and serves to irrigate the parishes (freguesias) of São Martinho and São Pedro. We have seen somewhere that the opening of this levada was undertaken by Luís Doria Velosa, who died in 1546. With reference to this levada and to those of Castelejo and the Ribeira dos Socorridos, the archive of this city’s Council holds a registered royal charter of 1562 in which Queen Catherine ordered that they ‘be opened and cleaned’ at the proper time at the expense of the heréus (co-owners of the water rights of a levada) and landlords.

An interesting ‘Memoria’ published in the Funchal Diário de Notícias of 4 December 1921 states that ‘the Piornais levada has its origin in the slopes that form the Ribeira dos Socorridos, and its first structures are in the parish of Curral das Freiras, in the locality of Fajã dos Chiqueiros, between the Ribeira do Cidrão and the Ribeira do Gato, in the municipality (concelho) of Câmara de Lobos, fifteen kilometres from the city of Funchal. There the waters are divided into two equal volumes between this levada and the Nova do Curral e Castelejos, in accordance with the deed (escritura) of settlement between the two, dated 13 February 1896, drawn up by the notary Alexandre Baptista Pereira. It then follows its course, gathering various springs on both banks of the Ribeira dos Socorridos, until it enters its intake or weir (açude), on the left bank of the said stream, in the locality of Fajã do Poio, parish of Santo António, municipality of Funchal. About fifty metres away, in the locality of the same name, stands the dividing box that splits the water between the Levada Nova de Câmara de Lobos and the Piornais levada, in accordance with the deed of 19 December 1898 by the same notary, under which the former receives one seventh of the water and the latter the remaining six sevenths’.

On these levadas, the illustrious commentator of the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ gives us some very interesting information, which we shall transcribe: ‘In that period (the beginning of the 16th century), the principal general or common levadas of the island of Madeira, the arteries through which, from then until now, although the institution has since become distorted, the lifeblood of its agriculture flows abundantly, the precious filter of its prosperity and constant renewal. As early as 1515 the levada of Sancta Luzia existed, in the suburbs north of Funchal; by a royal decree of that year (Arch. da Cam. do Funchal, vol. I, fol. 116 v.) King Manuel I ordered that it should not be altered in future. By another, of 26 September 1562 (ib. idem, old register, fol. 135), Queen Catharina, regent in the name of King Sebastian, decreed that the levadas of the Ribeira dos Soccorridos, the Piornaes and the Castellejo, west of Funchal, should be cleared and cleaned in due season at the expense of the heréus and landlords, the cost being advanced by the treasury of the customs house (alfândega) up to the sum of 120,000 réis; and by another, of 19 October of the same year (book II of the register of the Crown Revenue Office (Provedoria), fol. 185), she extended a similar provision to all the other levadas, “bisto se perderem muytas canas daçuquar e deixarem de se prantar outras por se nom tirarem e limparem as levadas em tempo” (since many sugar canes were being lost and others were not being planted because the levadas were not cleared and cleaned in time), and entrusted the donataries with their superintendence, both for that purpose and to “tirar novas levadas ou muda-las, destribuir” (open new levadas or alter them, distribute) the waters at a set price, “de preferência as pessoas que tevessem canaviaes ou engenhos” (preferably to persons who had cane fields or mills), and to take “conhecimento das demamdas sobre esso, decidimdoas, e dando apellaçom e agravo” (cognisance of suits concerning this, deciding them and granting appeal and redress). And, finally, Cardinal Henrique, regent in the name of the same King Sebastian, had three royal decrees issued in 1563: one, so that, under the superintendence of the senior councillor (vereador) of the Council of Funchal, the residents along the streams should regularly clean and reinforce them; another, so that the earlier provisions for the annual cleaning of the levadas should be carried out; and another, so that in the distribution of the waters the cane fields should take precedence, their price being fixed in each captaincy by the respective captain-donatary together with “hua pesoa honrrada, conforme a quantidade e o proveito que fezesem” (an honourable person, according to the quantity and the benefit they yielded).

– The first two royal decrees are entered in the Arch. da Cam. do Funchal, old register (tombo), fol. 117, and vol. II, fol. 75; the third is recorded as having been entered in book III of the Provedoria, fol. 99.’

Special mention is also due to the levada known as the Levada de Dona Isabel, also called the Levada da Fundoa, which irrigates various lands in the parishes of São Roque, São Pedro and Santa Luzia. It is not known for certain who this Dona Isabel who gave it her name was, but she seems to have belonged to the family of the holder of the entail (morgado) João Paulo Esmeraldo, who a century ago was the sole owner of the levada. After several owners had carried out important works on it and considerably increased its flow, an association of heréus (co-owners of the water rights of a levada) was formed by public deed of 5 April 1825, and today this channel belongs to a large number of farmers and landowners.

The Levada do Bom Sucesso was begun in 1855 with a small flow and an inadequate channel. It was towards the end of the 19th century and in the first years of the 20th century that the levada’s ‘main tank’ was built and the upland woodland (montado) of Lourais was acquired. Around 1910 or shortly afterwards, important new springs were acquired.

The Levada dos Moinhos is very old and already had a substantial flow in the time of the first donataries. It supplied the motive power for the many watermills along its course, which belonged to those donataries and were among the best sources of income they then enjoyed.

Its use went through various phases, and the following account of it, relating to the year 1855, is found: ‘The water of the Levada dos Moinhos intended for the cleaning of this city and for irrigation, on all the days on which there is a right to dispose of it, is distributed according to the scheme adopted by the Administrative Committee (Comissão Administrativa) of the said levada, which is as follows: from six in the morning until two in the afternoon it is applied to cleaning, so that every house is cleaned at least twice a week, and the hospitals, barracks and prisons on every day possible. From two in the afternoon until six in the morning exclusive, it is applied to irrigation and distributed among 153 heirs.’

This is a fitting moment to refer briefly to the various disputes that often arose between the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) of Funchal and the Administrative Committee of the Levada de Santa Luzia. They stemmed from the need to supply the city with good drinking water, which could only be done to advantage with the Tornos spring, one of the most important sources feeding the Santa Luzia and Moinhos levadas. From a common flow, to which the Tornos belong, divide the two branches that form these levadas, the Moinhos levada being almost entirely the property of the Council. To make use of the Tornos spring, the municipality had to compensate the ‘Levada de Santa Luzia’. This provoked lengthy discussions, and an agreement was finally reached between the two bodies in 1912. The deed was published in full in the Diário de Notícias of Funchal of 15, 16 and 17 July 1912.

To guide and underpin this agreement, the Municipal Council appointed two distinguished engineers to study this much-debated matter. They gave their authoritative opinion, of which we shall transcribe the conclusions they reached:

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Since in the dry season the mean flow of the Santa Luzia levada is 63,162 per 1", an equal volume should be available to the Levada dos Moinhos, which shares the water of the stream with the former in equal volumes at a dividing box (caixa repartidora) built at the locality (sítio) of Calles. However, the measurements taken at the head of the levada (madre da levada) of the Levada dos Moinhos show a flow of only 50,101 per 1", which reveals a significant loss of 13,124 or 13,161 of water in continuous flow, due to seepage and evaporation. This loss arises solely from the poor conveyance of this levada’s water along the short branch (lanço, ramal) lying downstream of the dividing box and upstream of its entry into the city’s pipework.

Assuming, therefore, a flow of 63,162 per 1" for the Levada dos Moinhos, and deducting from it that of 39,120 (more than enough to ensure the various uses of the Levada dos Moinhos within the city), it can be seen that a significant volume of water will still remain to the Council, namely a flow of 24,136 or 24,142 per 1". This flow, which should be used outside the Levada dos Moinhos and upstream of it, will amply compensate for the water to be piped from the Tornos springs, springs which showed a flow of only 17,124 per 1" in September 1900, in the same dry season in which the measurements of the said levadas to which we refer took place.

From the above it follows that there is room to maintain all the services of the Levada dos Moinhos within the city while setting aside a significant part of its flow as full compensation to the other levadas drawn from the same stream, once the Tornos springs are captured. And this compensation in equal volumes will be highly favourable to these latter levadas, for evidently the volume of water from the Tornos springs today reaches those levadas much reduced “owing to the great and unavoidable losses through seepage and evaporation along its very long and abundant course”.’

Alongside these levadas, many springs were harnessed throughout the island for irrigation, and numerous aqueducts were built to convey and distribute the water. It is true that many of these levadas have only a modest flow and irrigate no very extensive areas, but they are always a valuable source of wealth and prosperity for the localities that possess them.

XVII – The waters of the Paul da Serra

The plateau of the Paul da Serra, the only one of any size in Madeira, lies at an altitude of 1500 metres. It measures five and a half kilometres in length from east to west and little more than three kilometres at its widest. Its importance is closely bound up with irrigation, because many of the most abundant springs that feed the levadas (irrigation channels) rise there. We have therefore thought it worthwhile to transcribe here some of the information supplied by the District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito) on various works already carried out on this plateau to make partial use of the rainwater that falls there in great abundance in the winter season. This information covers the period from 1938 to 1940.

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As the region with the heaviest rain and snowfall, it forms an infiltration area from which the largest volumes of water used, and usable, for irrigation are derived.

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On it or on its slopes rise the most abundant streams of Madeira: the Ribeira da Janela, Ribeira do Seixal, Ribeira do Inferno, Ribeira de São Vicente, Ribeira da Ponta do Sol and Ribeira da Madalena.

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The most important levadas derived from it are: the Levada do Pico da Urze, which supplies Arco da Calheta abundantly and rises at an altitude of about 1,350 m; the Levadas do Rabaçal (1,000 to 1,100), which irrigate the municipality (concelho) of Calheta (more water is needed); the Levada do Monte Medonho, which supplies part of Ribeira Brava and Tabua; and the Levada do Caramujo, which irrigates São Vicente.

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The waters of the Ribeira do Seixal are abundant and are used almost exclusively by day. The waters of the Ribeira do Inferno are not used for irrigation.

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The waters of the Ribeiras da Ponta do Sol and Madalena supply their respective localities well.

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At a certain altitude a small private levada rises, whose water is used at Canhas.

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There are also various private levadas that rise at lower altitudes, but whose flow will depend only in small part on the water that seeps into the Paul.

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Of the enormous volume of water that falls on the Paul da Serra, only some seeps in; the great surplus drained away into the streams.

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By retaining a greater percentage of the water that falls on the Paul da Serra, or on another of its “edges”, a greater flow of water will be obtained for the springs. This aim led the General Council to begin experimental works in the so-called “Campo Grande” of the Paul da Serra, where a dam was built to hold back the waters that drain through the Ribeiro do Alecrim into the Ribeira da Janela; nearly 100 contos (1 conto = 1,000,000 réis, from 1911 1,000 escudos) have already been spent on these works.

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Recently, with the intention of pursuing works of a similar kind, a survey was made of other parts of the plateau. It established that there are some places where reservoirs of relatively small cost but large capacity can be built. Among these are the Chão das Mesas and the Ariais or Campo Pequeno, into which the waters of the Ribeiro do Lagedo could be diverted; in winter this brook carries enormous volumes of water into the Ribeira da Janela.',

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As a result of the works already carried out, we have received news that the volume of the water holes, or springs, has increased at various points under the influence of seepage from the plateau. This information is such as to encourage us to continue the works.

XVIII – The waters of Porto Santo

When droughts are prolonged, as happens from time to time, the neighbouring island of Porto Santo suffers the consequences of a genuine public calamity. The District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito), under the presidency of Dr João Abel de Freitas, deserves high praise for having ordered important agricultural hydraulic works there, in order to ease the crises caused by these droughts and to bring considerable benefit to the farming of that whole region. The construction of a large ditch was judged necessary, and in 1942, in an interview given to a newspaper, the said president described it in the terms we shall now reproduce.

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The construction now under way of a ditch to collect and distribute rainwater is perhaps the work of greatest economic and social significance ever carried out there, not only because it comes at the right time to provide work for hundreds of hands, but because of the influence it should have on the agricultural development of the region. This ditch has, first of all, the function of collecting the waters which, at times in great volumes, run down the slopes of Pico do Castelo and have caused so much damage to the slopes below. Once one of the main causes of the ruin of this land has been removed, the incentive may arise to rebuild the walls and restore the land that has been lost.

Secondly, the water thus collected will be carried, along the stretch of the ditch intended for distribution, across sandy ground in the localities (sítios) of Camacha, Eira Velha, Areias, etc. These form a natural reservoir of great capacity, into which all the water channelled there will seep; from this great infiltration field water flows to almost all the existing springs and wells.

The aim is thus to make use, in two ways, of waters that have until now been harmful: first, and directly, by irrigating the land below the ditch; and secondly, by increasing the groundwater and, consequently, the flow of the springs. This will also make it economically worthwhile to sink new wells, and so to extend the irrigated land.

A further advantage of building this ditch is that it will encourage the construction of wells or dams at the most suitable places along its course, where water can be held for future irrigation, whenever there is a regular surplus of water to justify such construction.’

XIX – The State levadas (continued)

To expand on and clarify more fully what we have said above, we set out below some statistical data that were kindly supplied to us by the technical department of Public Works of the District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito). They contain valuable and interesting information about the State levadas on this island, which it is very important to record, since they have not been published in any official document. It is a report that does great credit to the department that prepared it, and we are very pleased to preserve it in these unpretentious pages of the Elucidário Madeirense. Moreover, it gives an illuminating account of the work carried out on that department’s orders in 1943 to measure the flows and the length of the respective channels, something that had not been done for many years.

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The Levada Velha do Rabaçal rises at the Fontes do Risco, at an altitude of 1045 metres. The main channel is 24,000 metres long, including the Furado Velho, which is 450 metres in length. The flow is 65 litres per second (3,900 penas (traditional unit of water flow, roughly 1/60 litre per second)), as measured in August 1943. It irrigates land in the parishes of Prazeres, Paul do Mar, Fajã da Ovelha and Ponta do Pargo and is divided into three branch channels. The first irrigates the parish of Prazeres in rotations of 19 days and 12 hours; the second, with the same rotation period, irrigates Paul do Mar and Fajã da Ovelha; and the third branch channel irrigates the parishes of Fajã da Ovelha and Ponta do Pargo, likewise in rotations of 19 days and 12 hours.

The Levada Nova do Rabaçal rises in the Ribeira dos Cedros at a height of 990 metres. Feeding this levada are the so-called Vinte e Cinco Fontes and the intakes on the Ribeira Grande, or Ribeira do Risco. The total flow measured at the springs in August 1943 is 86 litres per second (5,160 penas). From the source to the Furado Novo the channel is about three kilometres long. The Furado Novo measures 800 metres, and on leaving the Furado Novo the channel runs for 7 kilometres to the east and 6 to the west. Like the Levada Velha, this levada is also divided into three parts of equal flow. The first third irrigates the parishes of Arco da Calheta and Calheta in rotations of 18 days and 12 hours; the second third, also in rotations of 18 days and 12 hours, irrigates the parish of Calheta; and the third third irrigates the parish of Estreito da Calheta in rotations of 19 days and 12 hours. The total number of hours in each rotation of the Rabaçal levadas is as follows:

2 branch channels × 18.5 days × 24 hours = 888 hours, 4 branch channels × 19.5 days × 24 hours = 1872 hours, making 2,760 hours in all. Of this total of water hours, 2,690 are let and the remainder make up the so-called unlet hours (quebras).

The Levada do Caramujo, or Levada da Ribeira do Inferno, rises in the Ribeira do Inferno, at the foot of Pico Ruivo do Paul, at a height of 1,185 metres. The channel is 6,000 metres long and the flow of this levada is 20 litres per second (1200 penas).

The Levada do Lombo do Moiro, or Levada do Monte Medonho, rises in the Ribeiras do Folhadal, Pináculo and Monte Trigo at a height of 1450 metres. It is about 10,600 metres long and its flow is 18 litres per second (1080 penas). It irrigates the parishes of Ribeira Brava and Tabua in rotations of 14 days and 12 hours. The waters of this levada used to be used in the parish of São Vicente, to which those of the Levada do Caramujo now go. The latter was built by the State to be exchanged for the Levada do Lombo do Moiro, with the maintenance and repair of the Levada do Caramujo remaining the responsibility of the State. In Ribeira Brava 926 hours are let, and in Tabua 410.

Item	Hours
4 branch channels × 14.5 d × 24 h =	1392
Let	1336
Unlet hours	56

The Levada da Serra de São Jorge rises in the Caldeirão do Inferno at an altitude of 920 metres and also collects the waters of the Caldeirão Verde. The total flow is 40 litres per second (2,400 penas) and the channel is 11,000 metres long as far as Venda Nova. Three secondary channels branch off the main channel of this levada, irrigating the locality (sítio) of Ilha in the parish of São Jorge and the parishes of Santana and Faial in rotations of about 14 days. 788 hours and 15 minutes are let.

The Levada da Serra do Faial proper rises in the Ribeira Seca at an altitude of 1,100 metres. It also receives the water of a levada called the Levadinha de João Dias, which measures about 1000 metres, upstream of the Ribeira Seca intakes. Also contributing to the flow of the Levada da Serra do Faial are the springs of the Ribeira da Ametade, the springs between the Furado do Lapão and the Lombo Furão, the Côrrego da Cabra, the springs of the Rocha do Gavino, the Corrego da Choupana, the springs of Feiteiras and other small springs along the main channel. The total flow measured at all the springs on 16 September 1943 amounted to 80 litres per second (4,800 penas). The main channel is 54,000 metres long, from the Ribeira Seca to the locality of Choupana in the parish of Santa Maria Maior. Of the State levadas it is the longest. This levada is divided into four branch channels, whose rotation is 27 days. The rotation is split into half-rotations of 13 days and 12 hours, each irrigator receiving on each occasion half the time entered in the register. 4 branch channels × 27 d × 24 h = 2,592 h. Distribution without unlet hours.

The Levada do Juncal rises in the Ribeira do Juncal and is carried together with the Serra do Faial levada as far as Lombo da Raiz in the parish of Santo da Serra, over a distance of 16,000 metres. There it separates again and goes on to irrigate the parishes of Santo da Serra, Santa Cruz and Água de Pena. The flow of the Levada do Juncal, which is 76 litres per second at its source, is joined by the Levada dos Accionistas, a private levada that irrigates the same parishes as the Juncal and rises in the Ribeira das Lajes. From Lombo da Raiz onwards the Juncal and Accionistas levadas run together in the secondary channel. When their flows are divided, one third goes to the Levada dos Accionistas, the Juncal levada keeping two thirds. The rotation period of the Juncal levada is 16 days and 12 hours, distribution being made through two branch channels, for a total of 792 hours per rotation, without unlet hours.

The Levada do Furado rises at Ribeiro Frio at an altitude of 860 metres and also runs in the main channel of the Levada da Serra do Faial as far as Lamaceiros, over a distance of 8,500 metres. From there it continues to Portela de Machico, Maiata and Porto da Cruz, irrigation taking place in rotations of 16 to 18 days. The flow of this levada is 40 litres per second (2,400 penas). Of this levada, 579 hours and 15 minutes are let.

The rental prices of the State levadas, per hour and per year, are as follows:

Levada	Price per hour per year (escudos)
Rabaçal levadas	54
Levada do Monte Medonho	24
Levada da Serra de São Jorge	27
Levada da Serra do Faial	72
Levada do Juncal	96
Levada do Furado	27

The District General Council also owns the Serralhal spring, in the parish of Caniço, whose waters, classified as drinkable, yield 3,410.00 escudos a year. The revenue from the state levadas over the last five years was as follows:

Year	Revenue (escudos)
1939	351,263
1940	364,283
1941	448,401.45
1942	461,318.55
1943	470,180

The General Council has paid great attention to repairing the levadas in its charge, especially in recent years, because it intends to carry out the major work of giving an impermeable lining to all those that are still ‘in earth’. This is a large-scale undertaking whose effects have already been felt since 1941, for the reduction in losses through seepage is already noticeable in every levada.

To step up the repair work, the General Council resolved at its session of 15 November 1940 to levy a surcharge on the water rents, and to contribute a sum equal to the amount of the surcharge, in addition to whatever sum it saw fit to vote for the usual repairs. It was this surcharge that accounted for part of the increase in revenue from 1941 onwards. The following sums were spent on repairs over the last five years:

Year	Expenditure on repairs (escudos)
1939	116,432.80
1940	113,933.60
1941	208,200.80
1942	201,725.15
1943	147,623.25

XX – The construction of the new levadas

As everyone knows, and as we have repeated here, the levadas are the most valuable elements in the prosperity of our agriculture. The promulgation of the decree of 26 July 1939 was therefore greeted with the greatest satisfaction. It provided for a special mission to come to Madeira, charged with studying the technical and economic possibilities in their hydro-electric and hydro-agricultural aspects, both as a whole and in their relation to one another. This technical commission, made up of highly competent officials, was not long in arriving. In the work they began without delay, its members showed the most thorough knowledge of the subject and also displayed the most ardent zeal in solving the various problems closely bound up with it. To this end the mission travelled over a considerable part of the island, carried out various studies in loco, requested information and clarification from various official bodies, heard the opinion of interested parties through the most qualified people in our community, etc. In this way it showed the greatest desire to produce useful, complete and conscientious work in discharging the arduous task entrusted to it.

Towards the end of 1941 the commission completed its office work, and its detailed reports were submitted to the higher authorities. One was of a general character, and three dealt respectively with agricultural matters, electrical matters and questions of civil engineering.

Of the ‘Relatorio Geral’ (General Report) we can present a brief summary of the various matters it contains, which allows the reader to form a judgement, albeit superficial and incomplete, of the extent and importance of the work carried out.

Chapter X, on Industries, covers: A Their present state; B Possibilities for development; C Public transport industries; and D Production and sale of electric power.

Decrees nos 33,158 and 33,159, dated 21 October 1943, were published in the Diário do Governo of that day. They provide for the construction of a vast network of irrigation channels and lay down the rules to be followed in carrying out so invaluable an improvement. It had been a long time since Madeira was granted a measure of such scope, and one that would so directly benefit the general economy of the archipelago.

We cannot, therefore, resist the wish to transcribe the summaries of these important enactments published by the newspapers of Lisbon and Funchal, recording here the provisions most relevant to this subject, which will complement what we have said in the preceding chapters.

“

Since this is a vast plan of works, intended to bring the island of Madeira a considerable improvement in its agricultural economy and its industrial output, and bearing in mind that both the studies and the execution of the works require highly specialised technical skill, the Government decided to create an autonomous, temporary body charged with administering and directing the construction of new works and the repair of existing ones. This body will be called the “Comissão Administrativa dos Aproveitamentos Hidráulicos da Madeira” (Administrative Committee for the Hydraulic Schemes of Madeira), and its members will include a delegate of the General Council of the Autonomous District of Funchal.

The cost of executing and administering the planned works is estimated at 60,000 contos (1 conto = 1,000,000 réis, from 1911 1,000 escudos), distributed as follows:

Hydraulic schemes – irrigation works, 20,798 contos; power stations, main (3), 15,890 contos; and secondary (2), 3,462 contos.

Electricity networks – transmission, 5,034 contos; and general distribution, 1020 contos; contingencies, 8,790 contos; and general expenses of the works, 5,000 contos.

The works in the plan will be carried out within ten years, divided into two phases of five years each.

In the first phase the following works are to be carried out: hydro-agricultural schemes – Machico and Caniçal; Ribeira Brava and Câmara de Lobos; and Ponta do Pargo and Calheta. Hydroelectric schemes – the Serra de Água power station; the Calheta power station; power transmission lines and the Funchal substation. In the second phase the remaining works set out in the report of the technical mission, on which the enactment dealing with the matter was based, are to be carried out. The planned works, including general administrative expenses, will be paid for in equal shares by the State and by the District General Council of Funchal. The annual charge will therefore be 6,000 contos, with each of these bodies contributing 3,000 contos. The General Council is empowered to raise a loan, in two series of up to 15,000 contos each, so that it can meet the costs of carrying out the plan of hydraulic schemes. The administrative committee will be authorised to manage the funds allocated to it each year in the general budgets of the State and of the District General Council. The works will be carried out by the said committee, which is generally to adopt the contract (empreitada) system. It will also be responsible for drawing up the projects. Ministerial authorisation is further provided for certain studies and the supervision of works to be entrusted to persons outside the committee, on a service basis, when it is not possible to carry out this work with its own technical staff.

The planned works will make it possible to irrigate an area of land amounting to 3,111 hectares, that is, about 30% of the area irrigated at present, which clearly shows the great value of the new schemes to the economy of Madeira. State technical assistance and supervision are also permitted in works of major repair and improvement of the existing schemes, in order to avoid certain drawbacks that have arisen in practice, without, however, abandoning the island’s traditional rules.

As for the schemes for producing energy, valuable results are expected from them, not only because of their effect on the import of fuels but also because of the growth they will bring to industry and other economic activities in Madeira. To judge the importance of the planned hydroelectric schemes for the island’s economy, it is enough to note that their permanent dry-season output reaches about 5,830 kW, far exceeding the capacity installed there at present.

The solution of the important problem just referred to forms part of the vast overall plan that the Government has undertaken to carry out in the Adjacent Islands.

The implementation of this plan began in Madeira with the road works, whose construction is now well under way; the road plan has been launched in the districts of Ponta Delgada and Angra do Heroísmo; and the hydraulic works are now to be carried out on that island, thus following an order that seems most in keeping with the national interest.

The interest rate on the loans that the General Council is authorised to raise may not exceed 4%. The loans are to be repaid over twenty years and kept in current account during the five-year period in which the works of each phase are carried out.

The Administrative Committee (Comissão Administrativa) will consist of a person with wide experience of public administration, a delegate of the General Council, a civil engineer of recognised competence in the design and construction of hydraulic works, and a law graduate who has completed the supplementary course in political economy, or a graduate in economics and finance. All are to be appointed by the Government, the first serving as chairman and the last as secretary.

The Committee’s executive officer will be a managing director, who will be its civil engineer member. Its work will be supervised by a senior engineer-inspector of Public Works, who will report to the Government on the progress of the works and will have authority, on the Government’s behalf, to oppose any resolution whenever he sees fit.

The technical, administrative and junior staff needed for the services will be engaged on contract or on wages, under the laws in force, on the proposal of the Committee and with ministerial approval.

The technical staff, including the members of the Committee, may apply for posts on the permanent establishment of the related services of the Ministry of Public Works and Communications under the same conditions laid down for contracted staff on the temporary establishment in Decree-Law no. 26,117 of 23 November 1935. Where they already belong to the permanent or temporary establishment of that Ministry, the provisions of Decree-Law no. 30,896 of 22 November 1940 apply to them, and the time they spend on this commission is guaranteed to count, for promotion and retirement, as active service in their respective establishments.

The State and the General Council will be reimbursed for the expenditure on the hydro-agricultural works by means of an ‘improvement and irrigation charge (taxa de beneficiação e rega)’.

The plans for the hydro-agricultural schemes will be based on the land register of the properties that benefit. This register consists of the agrological and parcel map at a scale of 1/2,500 and the cadastral record of every property affected by the works, containing, among other data, the present gross and net income of each property and the income that will result from the works, as well as its present and future charges and encumbrances.

The register, together with the draft statutes of the relevant irrigators’ association (Associação de Regantes), will be open to objections from interested parties and displayed for 30 days in a public place in the parish (freguesia) to which the land covered by the works belongs.

The Administrative Committee will arrange the acquisition or expropriation of private land and water and of any rights existing before the scheme in question, and will also agree with the local administrative bodies on the acquisition, by free transfer, exchange or purchase, of land belonging to them that is needed to carry out the works.

The technical mission created by Decree-Law 29,718 of 26 June 1939 is deemed dissolved. It will hand over to the Administrative Committee, against an inventory, the apparatus, tools and equipment it acquired.

Immediately after the works are completed, the Administrative Committee will set up the irrigators’ association of the levada concerned, in accordance with the approved statutes. It will summon the irrigators by public notice to meet and elect the board, to which the works and statutes will be handed over by a formal record (auto). Another decree, also published in the Diário do Governo, deals with this matter.

Membership of the irrigators’ associations will be compulsory for the owners, usufructuaries, emphyteutic tenants, fiduciaries, colonos, leaseholders and sharecroppers of the land that benefits from the respective hydro-agricultural schemes.

The maintenance and operation of the works, and the resolutions of the irrigators’ associations, will be supervised by the Administrative Committee and, once it has been dissolved, by the Hydraulic Services under the General Council of the Autonomous District (Junta Geral do Distrito Autónomo) of Funchal.

The improvement and irrigation charge, intended to reimburse the expenditure on the hydro-agricultural works, will consist of a fixed annual payment per hectare, calculated at an interest rate not exceeding 3% and varying according to the agricultural and economic potential of the land, on the basis of repayment over 50 years.

This annual payment constitutes a real encumbrance on the property, and it may be collected together with the rural property tax, though on a separate document.

The operating and maintenance costs of each hydro-agricultural scheme will be borne by the beneficiaries from the proceeds of an annual charge called ‘operation and maintenance’, fixed by the higher authorities according to the works to be carried out or foreseen, after consulting the board of the Irrigators’ Association.

The use of irrigation water is compulsory on properties definitively entered in the register. The General Council or the Association, with Government approval, is authorised to expropriate properties that do not use it, at the value they had before the works, plus the capitalised annual payments already made.

Where the area commanded by the levadas included in the approved plan contains some properties that are not irrigated and others that already are, distribution will as a rule give preference to those not yet irrigated whose owners, tenants or colonos have no water that could economically be channelled to them. Where the water of a levada can be used both for irrigation and for generating electricity, the latter use will be arranged so as not to harm the irrigation regime.

Once the hydro-electric installations and their general network are complete, the sale of power will be operated under a lease, over the whole island or by zones, unless the Government decides otherwise. The basis for tendering will be the progressive rent payable to the State and the General Council, according to the brackets to be fixed in the specifications.

The powers conferred on the Government by the above provisions will be exercised through the Minister of Public Works and Communications.’

The construction of several levadas is therefore soon to be carried out. They will continue the great undertaking begun centuries ago, which is one of the most important factors in the prosperity of this district.

XXI – Usual terminology

It is common knowledge, and the preceding pages have made it clear, that the ‘levadas’ are the chief element of Madeiran agriculture and one of the most important factors in the economy of our whole archipelago. They also render other valuable services: they supply water for all domestic uses to several thousand people living in the localities along their course, they provide the motive power for many watermills, and they feed numerous public wash-houses with the water they need to be used all year round. Such is the case with the abundant flow of the Levada dos Piornais over a course of more than ten kilometres.

For four centuries now, peculiar terms have been used throughout the archipelago to designate the conditions and means employed in Madeira’s distinctive irrigation system. Although they are well known and used daily by the rural population, they are not familiar to a considerable number of town-dwellers, and in particular to people who visit Madeira only briefly and in passing. It is above all for these readers that we have sketched here this short ‘nomenclature’ or ‘terminology’ of our aqueducts or irrigation channels.

Levadas

Although it has already been said, we shall repeat that they are narrow channels cut into the ground and generally built of solid alvenaria. They are less than a metre wide, and their depth seldom exceeds fifty to seventy centimetres. Almost all of them start from central points of the island, most of them taking their water from the torrents that run in the stream beds, and some are tens of kilometres long. Flow or ‘volume’ of water. – The flow or ‘volume’ of water running in each aqueduct varies considerably, even when that ‘volume’ is wholly destined for irrigating a single place. It becomes more variable still when the common ‘volume’ passing through the channel is divided into two, three or four parts so that irrigation can be carried out in as many different places. The volume of each linha (fishermen’s depth unit of about 23 braças, c. 50 m) of water for irrigation at a single point may vary roughly between a continuous flow of 12 and 30 litres per second, that is, from 720 to 1800 penas. Some levadas have a scanty flow that serves only certain crops, while others have a more copious flow that can serve for all kinds of irrigation.

Head of the levada (madre da levada) – This name is given to the places where a levada originates or where it joins other aqueducts, and also to the walls of masonry or clay that form the levadas themselves. In Madeira, the point where springs or ‘tornos’ of water gushed out was once called the ‘madre de água’.

Levada channel (caixa da levada) – This is the aqueduct itself, considered apart from the water flowing in it.

Levada wall (mainel) – The ‘mainéis’ are the walls of the levada, and particularly the part that stands above the adjacent ground.

Levada path (esplanada) – This is the narrow footpath that generally runs alongside and parallel to the levada for almost its entire length. It is generally used as a right of way and a path by those living nearby.

Dividing box (caixa divisória) – Some aqueducts carry an abundant flow that is to be divided into two, three or four ‘branches’ (lanço, ramal), or secondary aqueducts, for irrigation at various points. This exact division takes place at a spot built for the purpose, called the ‘Dividing Box’.

Tunnels (furados) – In Madeira the small tunnels or narrow underground passages built to carry the aqueducts are called ‘furados’. The most important are the Furado Velho of the Levada Velha do Rabaçal, 450 metres long, and the Furado Novo of the Levada Nova do Rabaçal, 800 metres long; there are others of much more limited length.

Branch – When a flow is divided so that irrigation can be carried out at various points, each of these divisions is called a ‘lanço’ or ‘ramal’, and this may sometimes be subdivided in turn.

Adufas – This name is kept for the small ‘sluice gates’ made in the levada walls of the aqueducts to release the water at the points where irrigation takes place.

Rotation (giro) – In the broader sense, ‘giro’ means the whole irrigation period, which normally runs from April or May to the end of September. In the narrower sense, ‘giro’ is the time between one watering of a piece of land and the next, a span of days that generally does not change for any given levada. It does, however, vary from one levada to another, each rotation lasting between fifteen and thirty days. In some cases the rotation is divided, with a ‘small rotation’ and a ‘large rotation’.

The expression ‘a year of rotation’ is used to mean the right that cultivators have to irrigate their land throughout the year, that is, during the normal irrigation season, by virtue of leases they have taken out with the state levadas or with private levadas. When it is said that a rural property ‘has one hour of water (hora de água, an hour’s right to the levada’s flow per rotation) in a fifteen-day rotation’, this means that the property has the right to be irrigated every fifteen days, for one hour, within the ordinary irrigation period.

Heréus

“

At present,’ the illustrious commentator of the Saudades tells us in the year 1873, ‘in this island of Madeira, [the heréu] is the owner of any portion of water in a levada, but originally he was the farmer or tenant farmer (colono, under the colonia contract) who cultivated irrigated land.’ Although Dr Azevedo informs us that this term was used in a similar sense in mainland Portugal, the truth is that we have not found it recorded in modern dictionaries of the language, and it seems to us that it is today used exclusively in this archipelago with the meaning given above.

As stated earlier, and as various legislative instruments show, there are in Madeira several associations of heréus (holders of a share of a levada’s water), legally constituted and formed by the owners of levada water, with their own administration exercised by a ‘Committee’ elected by those same heréus. The more important levadas each have their own administration, autonomous and independent of the other levadas. The term ‘heréu’ already appears in an official document of the year 1485, with the same meaning that it is given today.

Levada judge

For centuries the State regarded itself as the sole owner of the waters intended for the common use of those who cultivated the land. The donataries, the governors-general and the governors and captains-general were in charge of all services relating to these waters, and for this purpose they appointed a ‘Judge’, usually chosen from among qualified members of our local society. Little by little the heréus freed themselves from this tutelage and acquired ownership of the waters, and went on to appoint administrative committees, which a law made autonomous and endowed with their own legal personality, provided that certain conditions were met. It hardly needs saying that this system applies only to the private levadas, since those of the State, which have existed for little more than a century, are administered by the respective public works departments.

Sacadas

This name is commonly given to the ‘walls’ of stones and clods of clay set across the streams, which furtively divert the water onto the land along their banks before it enters the channels, thereby reducing the flow of the levadas.

Terral

This term was known, and in some places still is, as the name for the contribution payable by each heréu towards the costs of maintaining the levadas and paying the staff employed on them. A tenant of the water who was not a heréu did not pay terral, but contributed a modest sum for the same purpose, which was called ‘the vigia’.

These terms are in very common use in irrigation work: tornadouro (point where the irrigation water enters a field) for the place where the stream of water enters the land to be irrigated or the cultivated furrows (regos); levadeiros is the name for the men responsible for distributing the water among the various properties for irrigation; and minadoiros are the small springs of water that emerge at the surface of the ground.

Levada watchmen (vigias)

During the irrigation period, a number of men constantly patrol the banks of the levadas to keep the flow moving freely, clearing the channel of any obstacle that might impede it.

XXII – Levadas and forests

It is said somewhere, perhaps hyperbolically but with a certain picturesqueness, that ‘trees are the mothers of the levadas’, a phrase that expresses the close affinity between forest vegetation and the springs that feed the channels used for irrigation in Madeira. This close correlation is a most elementary truth, recognised even by the humblest tillers of the soil. It embodies the evident need to promote and maintain vigorous reforestation, especially on the mountain heights and above all in the vicinity of the sources of the springs concerned. Meanwhile, whenever the opportunity arises to discuss the ‘levadas’, it is obligatory to mention the rich and inestimable contribution that the forests make to the flows that form those same ‘levadas’.

It is common knowledge that wooded heights greatly favour the formation of mists, the condensation of dew and the fall of rain, and the whole forest cover may be considered one of the most powerful means of attracting the rainwater that makes a region fertile. The meteorological phenomenon is easily observed in Madeira, despite the limited area of its eight hundred square kilometres.

The necessary conservation of water, its gradual infiltration through the soil and its regular distribution over the slopes and hillsides are due in large part to the beneficial presence of the woods. In this way the fountains and springs are fed and abundant, precious sources are formed. Otherwise the rainwater would turn into more or less swollen torrents, causing the greatest damage to the land along their banks, and would moreover be lost in the stony beds of the streams.

The more or less regular and uniform distribution of rainwater, favoured by the survival of large stands of trees, not only prevents the frequent washing away of much arable land, as has been said, but also secures and consolidates the stability of many plots already under cultivation and of valuable agricultural yield. Without barriers to hold them back, torrential rains would destroy these plots in their violent passage. This is certainly an inestimable benefit which the forests, albeit indirectly, render to the most important and widespread Madeiran industry, besides forestalling and guarding against incalculable losses.

Long years of experience have demonstrated beyond dispute that the flows of the levadas are shrinking in direct proportion to the destruction of the woods. It is true that favourable climatic conditions and the exploitation of new springs have partly made up for this lamentable loss, but the evil persists and threatens to grow alarmingly worse. No one can doubt that in the course of time, if the now traditional vandalism continues, irrigation water will be reduced to very limited proportions. This would deeply affect agriculture, on which seventy per cent of the Madeiran population lives, and would inevitably produce a great and perhaps irreparable imbalance in the whole economy of the archipelago.

It is therefore neither impertinent insistence nor misplaced redundancy for someone to take up, even for the millionth time, the ‘old and hackneyed’ yet ever new and topical subject of the afforestation of our mountains.

The vigorous repressive measures issued by the government of mainland Portugal to combat the destruction of this island’s woods go back a long way. The earliest on record is the royal decree (alvará régio) of John II of 1493, which was followed by other legislative instruments, notably the well-known ‘Timber Regulations (Regimento das Madeiras)’ of 1515, which has been called the true ‘Forest Code of Madeira’. Some of these royal decrees contain express provisions on the benefits that woods confer on springs, providing for the permanent conservation of these sources so that they might serve the important purpose of irrigation. Other measures were adopted over time, such as the royal decree of John IV of 12 January 1641, which so severely condemns the most harmful practice of ‘our mountains being ever more stripped bare, with continual and increasing felling of trees, to the detriment of the necessary atmospheric condensation, of the rainfall regime and consequently of the flows of the levadas and fountains.’

We do not refer here to the beneficial influence that woods exert on various aspects of the climate, to their use as fuel, as fodder and as raw material for certain industries, or to their other valuable applications, as these lie outside the particular subject of this chapter.

XXIII – Legislation and bibliography

For those who wish to have a more detailed account of this subject – so important for our island – of the aqueducts and springs used for irrigation, of which we have given only a brief sketch here, we shall briefly list the principal legislative instruments and the best-known writings that bear particularly on this matter and provide very valuable material for its study:

Of all the legislative instruments cited, the royal letters of 1493, 1515 and 1563 and the decrees of 1841, 1888, 20 April 1914, 14 February 1931 and 21 October 1943 must be regarded as the fundamental bases, constituting the true organic laws governing the levadas, although the others contain valuable material for anyone wishing to acquire a broader knowledge of this important subject.

Among the writings published on the levadas of Madeira, three stand out above the rest for their relative length, complete impartiality and acknowledged competence. None of them is a comprehensive work, for their authors, treating the matter from limited points of view, did not intend a complete study, but only to set out the particular subject with which they wished to deal. Nevertheless, all these writings certainly contain valuable data and information that are indispensable for any study one might wish to undertake. They are: Representação dirigida ao Governo acerca das águas de irrigação na Madeira, by the presidents of various associations of heréus, drafted by Dr Quirino Avelino de Jesus and published in 1897 as a pamphlet of 34 pages; Plano Geral de distribuição das águas da Levada da Serra do Faial, by the engineer Adriano Augusto Trigo, a volume of 138 pages, published in 1911; and das águas no Direito Civil Português, by Dr Guilherme Alves Moreira, published in 1920, which contains a substantial chapter, number 21, entitled ‘Os direitos adquiridos sobre as águas e levadas na Madeira’.

The concession or award of contracts for the levadas, the application of the mainland’s water regime to Madeira and the plans to sell the levadas provoked long and bitter debates in the Funchal press, in which political passions, interests and hatreds played a large and deplorable part. It is nevertheless beyond doubt that these articles, numbering about a hundred, provide valuable material for anyone wishing to write a detailed history of the phases through which the management and direction of the Madeiran levadas have passed.

One may consult in particular the Diario do Comercio of August and September 1896, the Diario do Comercio of March, April, August, September and October 1897 and April 1898, the Diário Popular of July, August and November 1897 and April, May and July 1898, the Diário de Noticias of May 1897 and April and May 1898, and the Correio do Funchal of January and February 1897. The numerous articles in the Funchal press on the 1916 plan to sell the levadas, published in February and March of that year, were collected in a volume of 196 pages entitled A Imprensa e os três projectos.

In the columns of O Jornal, under the general title ‘Problema Máximo’ (‘The Greatest Problem’), we published a series of articles in which we argued for the need to build a few more levadas, to maintain and improve the existing ones, and to exploit new springs in order to increase the volume of their flows.