The principal _passetemps_ at Madeira consists of eating, drinking, and smoking; it is the life of a horse in a loose box, where the animal eats _pour passer le temps_. After early tea and toast there is breakfast à la fourchette_ at nine; an equally heavy lunch, or rather an early dinner (No. 1), appears at 1 to 2 P.M.; afternoon tea follows, and a second dinner at 6 to 7. Residents and invalids suppress tiffin and dine at 2 to 3 P.M. In fact, as on board ship, people eat because they have nothing else to do; and English life does not admit of the sensible French hours--_déjeuner à la fourchette_ at 11 A.M. and dinner after sunset. The first walk through Funchal shows that it has not improved during the last score of years, and to be stationary in these days is equivalent to being retrograde. It received two heavy blows--in 1852 the vine-disease; and, since that time, a gradual decline of reputation as a sanatorium. Yet it may, I think, look for a better future when the Land Bill Law system, extending to England and Scotland, will cover the continent with colonies of British _rentiers_ who rejoice in large families and small incomes. Moreover, Anglo-African officials are gradually learning that it is best to leave their 'wives and wees' at Madeira; and the coming mines of the Gold Coast will greatly add to the numbers. For the economist Funchal and its environs present peculiar advantages. The dearness of coin appears in the cheapness of houses and premises. Estates which cost 5,000_l_. to 15,000_l_. a generation ago have been sold to 'Demerarists' for one-tenth that sum. 'Palmeira,' for instance, was built for 42,000_l_., and was bought for 4,000_l_. A family can live quietly, even keeping ponies, for 500_l_. per annum; and it is something to find a place four to seven days' sail from England inhabitable, to a certain extent all the year round. The mean annual temperature is 67.3 degrees; that of summer varies from 70 degrees to 85 degrees, and in winter it rarely falls below 50 degrees to 60 degrees. The range, which is the most important consideration, averages 9 degrees, with extremes of 5 degrees to 35 degrees. The moist heat is admirably adapted for old age, and I doubt not that it greatly prolongs life. Youth, English youth, cannot thrive in this subtropical air; there are certain advantages for education at Funchal; but children are sent north, as from Anglo-India, to be reared. Otherwise they will grow up yellow and languid, without energy or industry, and with no object in life but to live.