CHAPTER XXXIV.
"Strickland .-- These doings in my house distract me.
I met a fine gentleman; when I inquired who He was--why, he came to Clarinda.

I met A footman too, and he came to Clarinda.
My wife had the character of a virtuous Woman----." "Suspicious Husband." "Let us no more contend Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive In offices of love, how we may lighten Each other's burden in our share of woe." MILTON.
I do not know a spot on the globe which astonishes and delights, upon your first landing, as the island of Madeira.
The voyager embarks, and is in all probability confined to his cabin, suffering under the dreadful protraction of sea-sickness.

Perhaps he has left England in the gloomy close of the autumn, or the frigid concentration of an English winter.

In a week, or even in a shorter period, he again views that _terra firma_ which he had quitted with regret, and which in his sufferings he would have given half that he possessed to regain.
When he lands upon the island, what a change! Winter has become summer, the naked trees which he left are exchanged for the most luxuriant and varied foliage, snow and frost for warmth and splendour; the scenery of the temperate zone for the profusion and magnificence of the tropics; fruit which he had never before seen, supplies for the table unknown to him; a bright sky, a glowing sun, hills covered with vines, a deep-blue sea, a picturesque and novel costume; all meet and delight the eye, just at the precise moment when to have been landed, even upon a barren island, would have been considered as a luxury.

Add to all this, the unbounded hospitality of the English residents, a sojourn too short to permit satiety; and then is it to be wondered that the island of Madeira is a "green spot" in the memory of all those who land there, or that they quit it with regret?
The _Bombay Castle_ had not been two hours at anchor before the passengers had availed themselves of an invitation from one of the English residents, and were quartered in a splendid house, which looked upon a square and one of the principal churches in the city of Funchal.