Its time to prepare you all for a quiet period at the end of August and into early September. I am going to be away for the period from August 29th till September 6 th. I will be back in work from September 9. Then beware I am coming after you all bluekippers and alt righters, In Portugal Corbynesque policies are triumphant. I will return to help establish them here. Bramble is going on holiday too. I must admit that I do have anxiety about that. We have never been apart from him. I feel like I id the first time i was away from Morgan my son. Anyway three weeks today we will be taking off....
Funchal – Europe’s most picturesque and cleanest capital
The city itself is nestled in a great natural amphitheatre, facing the blue Atlantic with a backdrop of dramatic mountains. Located in the stunning south of Madeira, on its sunniest coast amidst banana plantations and wonderful gardens where flowers bloom all year round in the shelter of the verdant mountains, it is an extremely lush, green and relaxed city by day, but scratch Funchal’s surface and you will find it to have a vibrant and varied nightlife scene with multiple personalities.
Funchal has also been, for many years, one of the Atlantic cruise-ships' main ports of call; with the liner harbour right in the middle of the city. The approach to Funchal harbour is well documented as one of the two most spectacular in the world, being on a par with Rio de Janeiro. It has now become a tradition that most European liners, on their maiden voyage, call here; it is quite usual to see upwards of four cruise ships in at any one time. Once ashore, the cafés, restaurants and history that mark this famed capital are just a stroll away.
Tourists in Funchal also roll up to enjoy activities, such as diving in the crystal-clear waters, surfing the waves, boat trips, swimming with dolphins, spending the day at sea ‘whale-watching’, taking daylong excursions along the coast and through the eucalyptus smelling mountain woods, paragliding on the coast, enjoying spectacular rounds of golf on the famous courses or simply just enjoying a snack at the numerous “people watching” cafes and outside garden venues.
Madeira’s first city has a somewhat less obvious nightlife scene than its neighbouring island counterparts, Gran Canaria and Tenerife, in so much that you might be forgiven for thinking that it is just a quiet sleepy city only for walkers and body and mind enthusiasts. But, you would be wrong, in fact 'night owls beware' on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, Funchal comes alive after midnight. There are two stages to an evening out in Funchal, one is the bars and clubs that operate between midnight and 4am, and the other is the 4am to 7am clubs. Locals and tourists 'in the know' enjoy dinner at the usual time but instead of going straight out from here, they go home and relax for a few hours before setting off again for an all night evening of partying, or they start the night in one of the many bars that exist, with good music and ambiance.
Of course Funchal has not lost any of its well-known charm as both camps of tourists (Day relaxers and Night revellers) work extremely well with each other. Not only does it cater for the mature tourist happy to enjoy their long stunning daytime walks, breathtaking scenery and al fresco evening dining, but it is also the preferred haunt of the new breed of young, trendy and affluent Europeans. Unlike most other European cities, with no crime on the island it’s safe to venture out any time of day or night without any gangs of rowdy drinkers creating binge-drinking ‘no-go’ areas. Funchal is a truly safe city, something which the new bunch of ‘fun loving’ tourists enjoy as well as respect.
Of the many festivals, perhaps the most well known are the world-record New Year’s Eve Firework display, which is one of the largest displays in the world (yes, the world) according to the Guinness World Records. The spectacular Carnival and the colourful Flower Festival, complete with samba beats and colourful costumed parade, are unmissable. During June, the Atlantic Festival International Fireworks Competition, every Saturday evening, is sure to impress.
Christmas is a fantastic fairytale season, with lights and festive decorations lighting up the whole city and night sky. The city centre becomes a wonderland, and the twinkling lights that line the mountain streets look down on Funchal like glimmering stars.
Last but not least, don’t forget the renowned Wine Festival!
The Madeiran people really know how to celebrate and they share it all with you!
Funchal’s history goes back over 5 centuries, when early Portuguese settlers colonised the coast of a bright and sunny bay where fennel (funcho) grew in abundance, giving its name to the new town of Funchal. Over the years the population grew, with international trade attracting the attention of all of Europe. Nowadays, Funchal is a very modern city with over 112.000 inhabitants. It is one of the safest and cleanest cities in Europe and is a place that takes real pride in itself. The perfectly cobbled streets in the centre mixed with the modern shopping areas, cafes, bars, restaurants and, of course, tourists make Funchal an interesting and exciting city.
BEGINNINGS
One of the beauties of Madeira, writes Sacheverell Sitwell, Is that, comparatively, it has no past.... It was a virgin island. There were no aboriginal inhabitants to exterminate. Recorded history tells us that humans first set foot on Madeira in the early 15th century. Legends tell another story; Ptolemy wrote of an island in the Atlantic called Erythria, the "Red island", because of the dye that was extracted there. (Many centuries later, Madeira would still be famous for its "Dragon's Blood", a resin used to color varnishes. Pliny, the 1st-century AD Roman writer, spokes of the "Purple islands", also named for their dye, that were discovered by sailors blown off course during a voyage to the Fortunate isles (his name for the Canaries). If the Romans were there, it is likely that the Phoenicians had been there before them. Certainly the Moors knew about the archipelago by the time they invaded the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century. They called the group El Ghanam meaning cattle (possibly a reference to goats or sheep breeding on the islands).Early Christians believed in a Holy Island off the coast of Africa, inhabited by St.Brendan and a colony of saint. It would disappear into mist whenever sinners approached. Sailors in the 15th century saw the clouds that continually enveloped Madeira's mountains, and were sure they were looking at the Mouth of Hell. Later they believed that the island was part of the lost continent of Atlantis, or the Hesperides -the islands which, according to the scholar Dr.Lemprière, were once residence of the Amazons, a celebrated place or garden abounding with fruits of the most delicious kinds. It was the Twelfth Labour of Hercules to fetch golden apples from this island at the world's end, wresting them from the dragon and the "daughters of the evening" (Hesperides) that guarded the tree.
Legend begins to overlap history with the tale of Robert Machim and Anne d'Arfet. Robert was a minor English nobleman during the reign of Edward III (1327-77). He traded with Genoa, Pisa and Venice in his ship La Welyfare, but was banished from the kingdom. This much is fact: his banishment is registered in the Rolls of Parliament. The rest of the story has almost as many versions as chroniclers. Possibly the most reliable is the one that comes to us through the 15th century writer and explorer Francisco Alcaforado, who probably had it on hearsay from sailors. Robert fell in love with Anne d'Arfet. She was from a higher rung of the aristocracy, and when her family found out about the affair they not only forbade her from seeing Robert, but also forced her to marry someone of equal status. Her parents must have had some idea of Machin's daring, as they got a warrant from King Edward to have him imprisoned until the wedding ceremony was over. As soon as he was free of the dungeon, Machim had a message smuggled to Anne, and the two eloped on his boat. They set off from Bristol, he headed for the continent, but a storm blew them out to sea. After a fortnight spent bobbing, lost, on the ocean, they came to a heavily wooded island and weighed anchor in a small bay - where Machico is today. Machim went ashore to explore the island, but when he got back he found that his crew had absconded with the ship, leaving just Anne and a page on the shore. The trauma proved too much for Anne, who died three days later. The crew reached the Barbary Coast, where, for their sins, they were captured by Moors and sold into slavery. Robert Machim buried his lover beneath a large cedar tree, putting a simple wooden cross above her grave, together with a letter telling the tale and asking anyone who discovered the grave to build a chapel in their memory.
THE REDISCOVERY OF MADEIRA
Some chroniclers leave Machim to die on the island too. The story was brought by some crewmembers of Machim ship to the Portuguese adventure João Gonçalves known as "Zarco" (which means "the squinter", or "One-eyed"). João Gonçalves Zarco (he later took his nickname as a surname) was a fierce fighter and a gallant knight. He had lost an eye in battle against the Moors at Ceuta, fighting for Portugal under the Infante Dom Henrique -who is better known as Prince Henry the Navigator. It is quite likely that the Infante had some idea of the existence of Madeira. In the Laurentian Library in Florence is a map, known as the Medici Map and dated 1351, that clearly marks three islands off the African coast, naming them as Porto Santa, Deserta and Isola de Lolegname (Italian for Island of Woods. Some believes that this is a corruption of the Moorish El Ghanam). The Prince who had Genoese navigators in his employ and who had spoken to hundreds of seamen must have had some inkling that the islands were there.Then in 1418 Zarco and a fellow navigator Tristão Vaz were blown off the coast of Guinea, which Prince Henry had sent them to explore. They ended up on Porto Santo. Beyond Porto Santo they found that "there hung over the sea a thick impenetrable darkness, which was guarded by a strange noise". After a few days rest they made a beeline for Portugal to tell the Infante of their discovery. The sailors were sure that the immobile mass of cloud they had seen was smoke from the mouth of Hell. Maybe Zarco had spoken to one of the sailors of Machim ship and knew better. More likely, it was Prince Henry who put two and two together. He lost little time in dispatching a ship under Bartolomeu Perestrelo to colonize Porto Santo and two more, commanded by the intrepid Zarco and Vaz, to explore further. The flotilla arrived at Porto Santo late in the summer of 1419 and early the following year Zarco and Vaz set off to investigate the distant smoke. They found a mountainous island a so thickly covered in tree that was perpetually shrouded in cloud and mist. Zarco named it "Madeira" (Portuguese for wood), either in response of the forest, or as a translation of the Italian name that Prince Henry had already made known to him.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
Zarco was made "captain" of the southwestern part of the island, and Vaz (who later adopted his wife's surname, Teixeira) had jurisdiction over the northeastern part. The dividing line ran from Ponta do Tristão in the north to Ponta da Oliveira near Caniço. Vas's capital was at Machico, where the settlers had found the grave of Anne d'Arfet and built a chapel. Zarco was the senior governor. He set up house in Câmara de Lobos, but very soon moved to the more favorable location of Funchal. His descendants were to rule in an unbroken line until the Spanish occupation in 1580. The old squinter himself lived to the impressive age of eighty. The story goes that just a year or two before his death three French pirate ships sailed into Funchal bay. Zarco mounted his grey horse, took up his famous two-handed sword and (discreetly propped up by lieutenant on either side) took up position on the beach in front of his men. Such was the old warrior's reputation that the corsairs turned and fled.In 1425 Dom João officially made Madeira a full province of Portugal, handing it as a gift to the Infante Dom Henrique. Colonization then began in earnest. Three strapping young nobles were sent to marry Zarco's daughters, and members of some of Portugals´ grandest families came along to help swell the population. Madeiran family names such as Bettencourt, Freitas, Almeida and Ornelas date back to these aristocratic settlers. The first children born on the island were twins, the offspring of one Gonçalo Ayres Ferreira. They were appropriately named Adam and Eve.
FAME AND FORTUNE
One of Zarco's first acts had been to begin clearing the island for cultivation. The enormous prehistoric trees proved too much for the handful of early inhabitants, who started fires to speed things up a bit. This is supposed to have unleash an inferno, which drove the settlers into the sea for two days, and was still smoldering in parts of the island seven years later. Tragically, the giant forest were destroyed, but the ash they left behind combined with the island?s volcanic crust to make a lusciously rich soil. Prince Henry had ordered vines from Crete and sugar cane from Sicily to be grown on the island, hoping to cut in on market monopolized by the Venetians and Genoese. He was successful. Both crops flourished enormously, and despite the fact that the influx of Madeiran sugar caused the market price to drop by 50 per cent by the year 1500, many people made their fortunes. Funchal became a properous capital -Portugal's third city after Lisbon and Porto. Wealthier landowners and merchants built grand houses in town, leaving the hard work to peasants and slaves. Only Pirate raids threatened the good life. Shipfuls of bandits would swoop in with alarming regularity and make off with rich spoils. Porto Santo is the more exposed island, had the worst of it. This, and the fact that rabbits introduced by Perestrelo and his colonists had nibbled the island bare, caused many settlers to leave Porto Santo for Madeira. In 1566 the French pirate Bertrand de Montluc fell on Funchal with a thousand men. They plundered and massacred for 15 days, then made off with 1.500.000 gold pieces before help could be fetched from the mainland. But Montluc's glee didn't long last -within days he was dead as the result of a wound he had received during the raid.THE SPANISH OCCUPATION
In 1580 Philip II of Spain laid claim to the Portuguese crown. Portugal's coffers were empty after a disastrous campaign against Morocco. The king, Dom Sebastian, had been killed, and the line of succession wasn't clear. The Jesuits and wealthy Portuguese backed Philip's claim, but it was the promise of Spanish silver that tipped the scales in his favour. In 1582 a new governor arrived on Madeira and for the first time united the two halves of the island into a single administrative entity. The Spanish modernized Madeira's fortifications, but saw the local wine industry as a threat to its own. They restricted vine growing and winemaking severely, and exports dropped to almost nothing. The sugar and timber trades, which weren't in competition with Spanish interests, continued to boom; the Spanish Armada that threatened to upset Sir Francis Drake's game of bowls was made largely of Madeiran wood.INDEPENDENCE AND MONOPOLIES
Spanish rule lasted until 1640, when a Catalan rebellion distracted the Castilian kings and gave the Duke of Bragança, a member of the old Portuguese ruling house of Avis, a chance to seize back the throne. He was crowned King João IV, but fighting went on until 1665, after the battle of Vila Viçosa, the Spanish were finally defeated and Portugal became fully independent. By this time Dom Afonso VI (1656-67) had succeeded his father as king, but he was quite mad and so his mother Dona Luisa de Bragança ruled Portugal. She was keen to strengthen ties with England, as France and Spain were showing disturbing signs of making peace with each other. Dona Luisa offered her daughter Catherine of Bragança as a wife to the newly restored King Charles II. Louis XIV of France had already turned her down, and so Dona Luisa upped the stakes a bit. Catherine came with double the usual royal dowry: solid weight in silver and gold, a concession for trade with Brazil, two million cruzados, Bombay, Tangier and -it is said- Madeira. But the scribe who was writing all this down was, reputedly, a Madeirense who couldn't bring himself to include his island on the list. He persuaded Dona Luisa to keep Madeira back as an ultimate lure, should King Charles fail to bite. Catherine traveled to England with a secret document, which adds Madeira to her dowry, but she didn't need it. The merry Monarch jumped at the opportunity of a source of funds for his lavish lifestyle. In return he agreed to defend Portugal as if it were England itself. Madeiran trade went from strength to strength. King João IV had ordered Portuguese ships to call in on the island and take on wine for the colonists in Brazil, thus laying the foundations for the modern Madeira wine trade. Eventually the island became the chief stopover for all ships wanting to stock up on supplies before beginning the long haul across the Atlantic. When, in 1665, King Charles issued his ordinance forbidding exports to "English Plantations oversea", save for goods leaving English ports in "English bottoms", he excluded Madeira from the ban. This meant that local wine merchants had what amounted to a monopoly over trade with America and the West Indies. Madeiran wine became one of the most popular drinks in the New World, and a strong community of British merchants grew up on Madeira. They cornered the wine market, expanded into sugar and other trades and were soon leading players in the island's economy.THE BRITISH
From the end of the 17th century onwards, the British played such an integral role in island affairs that many of them seemed to regard Madeira as a colony rather than foreign territory. Though the authorities were often concerned that the British owned too much property on the island, and had their fingers (if not their fists) in too many local pies, the relationship between the two communities has, on the whole, been cordial. Feelings only became a little strained when British troops were garrisoned on the island, and when an over-zealous pastor tried to convert local Portuguese to Protestantism and there was very nearly a nasty moment when Captain Cook visited the island in 1768. The famous explorer, then on his first voyage in the Endeavour, battered the ford of the Loo Rock...by way of resenting an affront that had been offered to the British flag. Exactly what the nature of the insult is we do not know, as the account was suppressed from official reports. Later, though, Cook made up for his petulance by going ashore and planting a tulip tree. The tree survived until 1963, when it blew down in a storm.NAPOLEAN AND THE BRITISH OCCUPATIONS
British forces twice occupied Madeira during the Napoleonic Wars -from July 1801 to January 1802, and again from December 1807 to October 1814. They were friendly occupations, aimed at protecting the island from the French, but the first one caused a diplomatic rumpus as no one had informed the Portuguese governor that he was about to be superseded. General William Carr Beresford, who was already quite a hero after campaigns in Egypt, South Africa and the Argentine, commanded the second occupation.Napoleon had tried to persuade the Portuguese to co-operate with the naval blockade of Britain. Portugal refused, and in 1807 French troops marched on Lisbon. The British whisked the Portuguese royal family away to safety in Brazil. Generals Beresford and Wellesley stayed on to deal with the French. On Christmas Eve Beresford arrived in Funchal Bay with a fleet of 24 ships, but soon realized that the island wasn't in need of quite so much protection. Beresford left with half his garrison in 1808, though the rest of the troops stayed on until peace was finally made with France -and contributed noticeably to the island's gene pool. Even today you see the odd blond or ginger mop bobbing along in an otherwise swarthy school of crocodile.
Napolean himself called on Madeira in 1815, on his way to exile in St.Helena. He found an unexpected admirer in the then British consul, Henry Veitch. Veitch sold Boney some pipes of excellent wine and got into hot water by addressing the ex-Emperor as "Your Majesty". He kept the gold he had received in payment, and buried them behind the foundation stone of the new English Church.
THE BRITISH FACTORY
During the course of the 18th century British merchants came to control the wine trade almost entirely. When the dreaded diseases oidium and the phylloxera struck in the second half of the 19th century, destroying nearly all the vines, many merchants moved over to sugar-refining, and soon the Brits had the grip on that too. Some time during the 18th century the merchants established the British Factory. This was the equivalent of a Chamber of Commerce made up of the senior partners of the island's leading British firms, and based on the feitorias that the Portuguese had set up in the 15th and 16th centuries to guard and administer their trading posts abroad. For decades the Factory held sway over the Madeiran British, acting almost like a small colonial government. The factors levied a tax on wine exports and built and financed a church, hospital and cemetery. They were a force not to be crossed (as young upstart traders soon learned), and adjudicated in (though sometimes propelled) the feuds that local families waged against each other. The Factory also acted as an agent for British merchants, enabling them to buy collectively, and so had enormous economic clout on the island. It was finally wound up in 1838, during a depression in the wine trade. The remaining factors started The English Rooms, an exclusive club on the seafront in Funchal. Later, as membership thinned out, they had to lower their standards and accept partners from less powerful firm's -and even managers- into the fold, and eventually the club closed down altogether.MIGUELITES AND LIBERALS
Even after the defeat of the French in 1814, the Portuguese king Dom João VI (1792-1826) remained in Brazil with his family and Beresford stayed on in Lisbon as marshal of the Portuguese army, But the army staged a coup, set up a Cortes (parliament) elected by universal male suffrage, and devised a new constitution. Dom João returned from Brazil in 1821, content to accept the restricted powers that this constitution imposed. But his younger son, Dom Miguel, had other ideas. When Dom João died in 1826, his elder son and heir Dom Pedro IV was still living in Brazil, having been made Emperor of what was by then a recently independent territory. Dom Miguel grabbed the opportunity to declare himself absolute monarch of Portugal and began a crackdown on supporters of the new constitution he had always disapproved of. Dom Pedro returned to Portugal and bloody battles ensued, in which the British actively took the side of Dom Pedro and the Liberals.In 1828 a new Miguelite governor was sent to Madeira together with 1000 troops. A small British force was quashed. Over 150 people were arrested, though many leading liberal figures were able to escape to Britain on the frigate Alligator. Dom Miguel was eventually beaten in 1834, and exiled to Austria. The monarchy weathered badly the political turbulence and economic desiccation that followed the Miguelite rebellion. Finally, in 1910 Dom Manuel II (1908-1910) fled to Britain and Portugal was proclaimed a republic.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
On 23 July 1905, the Paris edition of the New York Herald carried a report headed: "German Company Plans to Make Madeira an up-to-date Resort". In return for a promise to build a sanatorium and hospitals and treat 40 TB patients a year free, the Madeira Actien Gesellschaft, headed by Prince Frederick Karl Hohenlohe, was -by arrangement with the Portuguese government- to take over all business concerns on the island. The British were in a fury. When plans for some of the hospitals were exposed as being designs for hotels and holiday camps, the Portuguese realized that they were being colonized through the back door and promptly withdrew the concession. In 1914 all German property on Madeira was confiscated. Germany declared war on Portugal in 1916 after German ships had been impounded in Lisbon harbor. Madeira got off fairly lightly during the war, though Funchal was twice shelled by German U-boats, once in 1916 and again a year later. The decline in trade during the First World War, the Prohibition in America and the disappearance of the Madeira-drinking classes after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia knocked a large hole in the Madeiran economy. The mainland wasn't faring all that well either. The new Republic began to founder -there were 45 governments between 1910 and 1926. Shortly after a military coup in 1926, Dr.António de Oliveira Salazar became minister of finance. By 1932 he was Prime Minister and remained a virtual dictator until leaving office after a stroke in 1968. Although he balanced the books, his regime became increasingly cruel and repressive. In 1974, after a bloodless coup, his successor Dr.Marcello Caetano was overthrown and the basis of the modern state of Portugal was established.Madeira began the Salazar years on a bad footing. In 1931 a dispensation which became known as the Hunger Law gave a monopoly to a small group of local mill-owners. This not only caused a rise in the price of bread, but also had a domino effect on investors and companies throughout the Madeiran economy, which eventually led to the collapse of the island's two main banks. Thousands lost their savings. The mills were attacked and a general strike broke out. Lisbon sent troops, but some of the soldiers defected, joining the local garrison and a group of 300 political prisoners (who had been deported from the mainland a few month previously) to stage a coup. General Sousa Dias, one of the deportees, was declared dictator. Many British residents hopped aboard the passing Edinburgh Castle and left the island. Others holed up in the luxury hotels around Reid?s, protected by a small group of fusiliers and marines that had hurried over from Gibraltar. A punitive force arrived from Lisbon at the end of April, and the rebels were soon defeated. Some of the ringleaders sought asylum with the British, but most of those who had been involved in the fighting, including Dias himself, were imprisoned and taken back to Portugal.
From then on Madeira kept her grumbles to herself. Portugal remained neutral during the Second World War -though once again the decline in trade and tourism was bad for the island economy. The 1974 Revolution was greeted with rejoicing, even though it too meant a momentary blow to tourism. Local supporters of Salazar made a quick break for Brazil and new political parties sprang up. But within a year civil war loomed. On Madeira, as on the mainland, there was concern about growing communist influences. A right-wing separatist movement Frente de Libertação Madeirense (FLAME, the Madeiran Liberation Front) demanded complete independence from Lisbon and is believed to have been responsible for acts of sabotage around the island. On the mainland a counter-coup was defeated in 1975, and in 1976 a new constitution was drawn up. Under this constitution Madeira was given special status within Portugal as an Autonomous Political Region. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) on the island, under Dr.Alberto João Jardim, polled 65 per cent of the votes, while the Communists (PCP) scraped a mere 0.6 per cent. These proportions remain pretty much the same today, with a handful of other parties filling the gap and Dr.Jardim still very much at the helm.
President Jardim has proved a dab hand at landing EU subsidies for Madeira. Hundreds of billions of escudos have gone into building new roads, giving a boost to the tourist industry and establishing a Free Trade Zone. All this is changing the face of an economy that once relied heavily on farming and fishing. Today 46 per cent of Madeirans are in work, more than half of those in tourism and the service, and just over 14 per cent in agriculture and fishing. While villages that have a link with the tourist industry are booming, many others are in dire straits. In places people live in shocking poverty. The average island annual income is half the European norm -an unskilled worker can expect to bring in just 1 milj. Escudos a year. Young people don't want to farm the tiny terraces where labour is backbreaking and any sort of mechanization impossible. A ban on whaling and depletion in fish stocks has put many fishermen out of work. New jobs in the service industries are predominantly for women, and many men turn to alcohol for consolation.
Despite the trapping of luxury that surround most tourist, Madeira remains one of the most deprived areas of Europe. It looks forward to a period of growth, but all the signs are that growing pains will be servere.
Thoughts Upon Slavery by Jorge Castro-Correia
At some point in history, slavery has touched nearly every part of
the world. As with most places, Madeiran slaves were mainly captured in
Africa by more or less violent means. Warfare was the most common
method, with the enemy usually being sold off into enslavement. The
African societies that practiced slavery usually traded these slaves in
the 15th century with the Portuguese and later with the Spanish, Dutch,
French and the British.
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The legend of "Machim"
The legend goes that in the reign of King Edward III (1327 -1377) a young commoner Scotsman, Robert Machim, living in London besotted himself over a young gentlewoman, Ana de Arfet, from the English aristocracy.
Robert Machim was never to see his dear Ana again. Their love had been strong for each other and their promises made to each other to never love another forced them to rupture themselves from the good society of London and possibly elope. In desperation Robert Machim mustered some of his friends up and kidnapped Ana to Bristol. Plans had been made for a voyage to France and a boat was made ready for their escape upon arrival in the port city. With a couple of the close adventurous friends they set sail at night - avoiding any undue attention that may reveal their true identities. They headed out towards their destination unawares of the immediate dangerous events to occur in the days ahead.
The discovery of the island
A couple of days of successful sailing had passed when suddenly they were thrown into a vicious storm over the Atlantic. They lost their course and with the constant blanket of clouds over their heads the young abductee and her lover were unable to determine their position on the oceans. The roaring seas leads Robert and Anna to stare into the face of death...The lack of the guiding stars, the provisions becoming more and more scarce, and the somewhat inexperience of the sailing crew lost out on the ocean led to panic and hopelessness. The young couple who fled the claws and clinches of the society that precluded their love now found themselves staring in terror into the ultimate thief of their happiness - the grim reaper, in the shape of roaring waves and flooded clouds flung across the firmament.
After several days of deep despair the young crew woke up one morning with the seas assuaged and a calm breeze wafting the torn sails of their boat towards the horizon. Soon in the distance they saw, to their utter disbelief, land ! A golden light shone around the skies and the island glimmered in greens and golds. The land they had encountered was the drier south eastern edge of the island we know today as Madeira. They approached the enclave where a small basalt pebbled beach rose out of the waters to stretch into the valley where rare forest woods and green foliage grew verdejante and lush along trickles of crystal clear streams. They maneuvered their boat ashore and upon touching the soil of the land rejoiced and rejubilated their rescue from despair by the mysterious island. Flocks of birds having never seen human beings flew about them freely and without fear of being caught. In the waters sea lions would submerge and pop up again to investigate closer the young group of sailors. Robert and Ana had through their escape from England set passage to the entering of a jeweled paradise that theretofore had never been imagined.
The group knew that although they were free from the storm and the pursuit of any family members for Ana or Robert that soon enough the paradise they had encountered would outlive its novelty and prove insubstantial to maintain a healthy existence for a long time. tranquil streams on the newly discovered island. They decided to break up into two groups, one to remain on the boat and repair the damaged sails and equipment. While the other group would investigate and search for food and collect fresh water. Robert and Ana joined the group on the excursion to find food. When Robert, Ana and their companions returned from their trip to find food and water did they discover to their disbelief and shock upon reviewing the bay area that their boat had disappeared. They soon realised what seemed to be the separation of the boat by natural forces from its moorage. The tide had carried the boat out with the group of unfortunate and unskilled seafarers aboard.
The legacy left behind.
The legend goes further to say that this party of men that found themselves helplessly lost out at sea would eventually find themselves washed ashore on the African coast of the moors.
There they were captured by Moorish pirates along the coast and enslaved, but not without their adventurous story and discovery of a green jeweled isle made heard public. First to their Moorish overlords, and then to representatives of the Portuguese court who rescued them from the moors in a battle.
Meanwhile the couple who were left stranded on the island lost hope of being rescued and the now melancholic and sad Ana de Arfet sank into deep despair. The grief of which she would not recover. Robert watched in deep sorrow as his beloved Ana waned away. Under unendurable pain at the loss of the fair Ana to the grave he still manged to carve a cross out made in cider wood upon her grave. He too died soon afterwards. The other surviving members of the stranded group on the island racked a cross out of cider wood and placed it upon the sepulture of the deceased Robert. Upon this cross they inscribed the word "MACHIM" and invoked the future reader to submit to consideration the building of a chapel or a church in the name of the lovers on the spot where they were laid to rest.
The remaining survivors of the island managed to built a raft from the excellent wood available on the island and set route out to the east and around the island. They eventually managed, very much like their colleagues before them, to arrive on African shores. Soon after being enslaved by their Moorish captors. While in capture the surviving group of sailors repeated their story to countless others, including a Spanish scribe who would escape back to Castille and reorate and publish the story of the mysterious and magnificent isle that lay westward to the Moorish coast. Thus the legend passed down through the realms of Spain and Portugal, eventually kindling enough interest for the Portuguese sailors and men to set sail and make discovery of the high seas and its mysteries.
And such is the legend that lent the name of its principal protagonist to the now bustling small city of Machico in the south east of the island. Although the verdejante nature of Machico today is not as robust as the legend has claimed it still is blessed with an impressive flora population and plant diversity.
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