I shall never be brought on board again but by a guard of marines. We go on Friday night. This island is entirely lovely. Nothing is worth a day at sea, but as that cannot be avoided I am glad Madeira is our resting-place. We landed at three yesterday, after visits from the consul, salutes, &c., and got into palanquins at the landing-place, and were carried through a long narrow street with occasional intervals of gardens, where are palms and bananas and great orange-trees covered with fruit, and odd Murillo-looking women taking great care of each other's hair-in short, everything looked tropical, and like a book of travels, and untrue. By-the-by, that puts me in mind that we went out of our course one night at sea, to avoid Cape Finisterre. Can't you hear poor Mrs. Mather's voice teaching us Cape Finisterre? and I never believed it was a real thing, or that it would ever come Cape-ing and Finisterre-ing into my actual path of life; but there is no saying how things may turn out, only there is no use in learning it all beforehand.

Well! our palanquin-bearers trotted us into the hall of a large house belonging to a Mr. Stothard, which George had been told to make

his home by the other half of the firm in London. It turned out that no ship had arrived from England for a month, so the letter of recommendation was still at sea, Mr. Stothard in the country, and Mrs. S. ill. However, a little clerk received us, and Mr. Stothard was fetched up from the country, and found us four and Captain. Grey, and six servants and a dog, all settled in his house, mad for food, and intending to stay with him. He took it all as a matter of course, got some dinner as soon as he could collect his servants, gave us magnificent rooms, with delicious large clean beds that did not rock nor creak, and to-day he has been showing us the country, and we are all violently attached to him.

delightful man, so hos

I never saw a more pitable and pleasant. To-morrow we are to dine with the Portuguese governor, who sent in a guard of honour and an aide-de-camp every half-hour to know if we wanted anything; and Madame came to see Fanny and me in the only carriage that grows at Madeira, for the streets are so narrow and the hills so perpendicular that a carriage is of no use. We took such a ride to-day-three miles up these hills! which

I think incline a little forwards; but that may be a traveller's story. It was dreadfully hot at first, but we rode up into the clouds, through such hedges of fuchsia and myrtle, with geraniums covering the ground, and that great pink cactus that we keep in hot-houses making the common fence by the roadside. Each pony has an odd wild-looking driver, who runs by him. and lays hold of his tail coming down; but the descent was awful! It is as says, 'just the case, for "God is good, and Mahomet is His prophet," so let us each take the tail of each other's pony and slither into the sea. The Jupiter" must send out her boats to pick up the great man.'

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As for my state of mind, the less I say about that the better; but it is not cheering to pass ten days entirely on my own thoughts just after leaving all of you-a way of life that is perfectly hateful to me. I cannot read to keep myself straight. However, I suppose things will turn out better somehow; if not, 'the time is short' as compared with what follows. And so God bless you, my dearest friend, and tell the chicks that their picture hangs at the foot of my bed, and is a great comfort to me."

Of course you never do anything but write

to me?

Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

TO THE HON. AND REV. ROBERT EDEN (LATE LORD AUCKLAND).

Funchal, Thursday, October 15, 1835.

MY DEAREST ROBERT,-We arrived here on Tuesday, the 13th, exactly ten days after we left Portsmouth, and six days from the Lizard's Point. The three last days we averaged 240 miles a day, and it is believed a most excellent I have no doubt of it, but may I passage.

never know another!

Our captain is more than sailor enough to take us anywhere; he is quite wrapped up in his profession, works the ship himself, and even on shore is occupied the whole day in taking observations, &c. He seems a thoroughly scientific sailor. has set his heart on

going to Penang, on our way from the Cape, and has coaxed the whole ship's company into wishing it too; and now Captain Grey is occupied in proving that it will not take us more than seventy miles out of our course. As

bad as 700 in that dear coach-and-four we last is mad to eat some man

met in. But

gosteens; he has collected all the descriptions of the fruit he can meet with, and runs on for ever about it. It shows how little of self there is in me,' he says, 'for the angels are always allowed a little taste of mangosteen on Sundays, so I am sure of eating some at last, but many of you may never see it. I speak entirely for your sakes.'

We are staying here with a Mr. Stothard, a great wine merchant, in such a delicious house; such large high rooms, and so clean, and quite out of sight of the sea and the 'Jupiter;' and the man himself is really quite delightful. He makes us quite at home, and we have our palanquins at all hours, and ponies for going up the steep hills, and he finds us the best sketching places. I hope everybody will buy his wine.

George desires me to tell you, with his love, that he has bought a hogshead of Madeira for you, and is taking it with us to the East Indies, for the good of its health; so you will have it on the return of the 'Jupiter,' as good as wine can be, he hopes.