Rambles in Madeira

Under the title Rambles in Madeira and in Portugal in the early part of M.DCCC.XXVI, a rather curious work attributed to Mr Lyall appeared in London in 1827. It provides a great deal of information not only on various places in Madeira worth visiting, but also on the history and climate of the island and the ways and customs of its inhabitants. Speaking of the ladies of Funchal, the author says that they go out only to attend Mass or, now and then, to visit a friend, in which case they travel by palanquin and in their finest clothes. Referring to a Portuguese ball he attended, he adds that the ladies were carried in palanquins and received at the door by the master of the house and other gentlemen, who escorted them to the upper floor. To see them gathered in a drawing room is a dazzling sight for a foreigner little used to facing so many large dark eyes. The author of the Rambles in Madeira also refers to the habit the ladies of Funchal have of sitting at their windows, where they receive the greetings of gentlemen passing on their way to the cathedral; to the theatre that the governor Dom Álvaro ordered to be demolished; to Carnival; to the Ash Wednesday procession and that of the Stations of the Passion (passos, wayside oratories depicting scenes of Christ's Passion), etc., etc. He also sought to describe, as accurately as possible, the features of the nun Maria Clementina de Vasconcelos, whom we have already discussed in this Elucidário.