1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

Funchal, and some Famous Wine-Stores there. 181

walls or seated on tlie doorsteps wliile displaying tlieir varied wares—tlie scene is full of life. The streets are mostly narrow, and the houses, as a rule,low. Whitewash is liberally applied to their fa9ades, which are set off with bright green shutters and balconies. Among the native population there appears to be but little socialintercourse,the agreeable evening paseo common to the townsof Southern Spain being here unknown. The small stipend of the civil and military governors forbids their enter taining the Madeirense magnates, while as regards the theatre wehave already explainedthatthere is none. With the exception, therefore, of an occasional ball, the only opportunities for ladies to display their toilettes de soiree are when a British man-of-war happens to come into port, and one or other of the leading shippers invites the officers to a dinner and a dance. The first armazens or wine-stores which I visited at Bunchal were those of Messrs. Cossart, Gordon,and Co.,the largest and oldest wine-shipping house in Madeira, its estabhshment dating from the year 1745. Their stores comprise three distinct sets of buildings,known respectively as the Serrado, Estufa, and Pateo armazens, all situate within five minutes' walk of each other. The ground on which the Serrado stores stand comprises between four and five acres, with annazens of a single story occupying three of its sides, the cooperage being on the fourth. Here we observed casks being made in precisely the same fashion as is followed at Jerez,withthe exception,perhaps, that the adze which the men handle so dexterously is a trifle heavier and clumsier than the one used by theh Jerez brethren. The Funchal coopers work by the piece, and each pipe, which is certainly a well-made article, costs something hke a couple of poimds. Eound about the cooperage were piles of American oak staves, already trimmed or in the rough, while in the centre of the plot of ground were sheds in which the casks are measured,branded,scalded,and steamed,together with a couple of large tanks. The vacant space between the sheds and the stores is occupied with rows of casks of various sizes, fresh from