C/o Leacock & Co.Funchal,Madeira.15 Jan. 1905.
It is good to see your hand and kind of you to write to me, especially as I fear that writing is not so easy to you as it once was. I do very earnestly hope that things go fairly well with you and that you have not much pain. Yesterday I was thinking a lot of your courage and my cowardice for I took an off day—off from the biography I mean—and attained an altitude of (say) 5250 feet (a cog-wheel railway saving me 2000 thereof, however) and I was bounding about up there like a kid of the goats—and very base I thought myself not to be lecturing. There is not much left of me avoirdupoisly speaking; but that little bounds along when it has had a good sunning; and to-day I have a rubbed heel and a permanent thirst as in the good old days. Missing a train on said railway I made the last part of the descent in the special Madeira fashion on a sledge glissading down over polished cobble stone pavement—a youth runningbehind to hold the thing back by a rope: it gives the unaccustomed a pretty little squirm at starting. Up in the hills it is a pleasant world—you pass through many different zones of vegetation very rapidly—at one moment all is laurel and heath—you cross a well-marked line and all is tilling—then you are out among dead bracken on an open hill-top that might be English. Get on a sledge and wiss (or is it wiz?) you go down to the sugar and bananas through bignonia and bougainvillia which blind you by their ferocity.
Leon y Castillo, 5,Telde,Gran Canaria.15 January, 1906.
I have your second letter, not your first. The first may be lying in the Hotel at Las Palmas and I must attempt to get it. This year it is difficult to communicate with the "ciudad" for there has been a prolonged drought and the roads—but did you ever try cycling across a ploughed field? Moreover people here are lazy and casual and the semi-hispanised English people who keep the English hotels are perhaps more casual than the true Jack Spaniards. Well, I must get that letter, for which I thank in advance, even if it costs me a day's labour and some strong language. Meanwhile I will talk of canary birds. The birds are named after our islands. What our islands are named after, nobody, so I am told, knows for certain. Whether thebirds are found wild in all the seven islands I don't know. Certainly there are many in Gran Canaria. Also there are many in Madeira. The wild canary is, I believe, always a dusky little chap, brown and green. The sulphur coloured or canary-coloured canary is, I am told, a work of art, and I have heard say that he was made at Norwich: by "made" of course I mean bred by human selection. The most highly priced canaries are, I believe, made in Germany. I have known two guineas asked for a "Hartz Mountain Canary": it sangpp.like a very sweet musical box. On the other hand, wild canaries are cheap here, especially if you go up country and buy of the boys who catch them. My wife quotes as a fair range of price half a peseta to a peseta and a half. The peseta ought to be equivalent to the franc but is much depreciated. So let us say that a bird can be had for a shilling. My wife adds that she would be very happy to import birds for your daughter—and this is not a civil phrase but gospel truth: she is never happier than when she is acquiring pets as principal or agent:—so it is, and I can't help it. I like the song of these dusky birds: it is not nearly so piercing as that of the Norwich variety. I daresay that I have told you some untruths in this ornithological excursus—but at any rate I make no mistake about the price of wild birds or about my wife's willingness—I might say eagerness—to transact business.
FOOTNOTES:[25]Middle Ages. In 1900 Maitland published a translation of part of Otto Gierke's (O.G.)Das deutsche Genossenschaftrechtunder the titlePolitical Theories of the Middle Ages.[26]The B. G. B. is theBürgerliche Gesetzbuch. Maitland was reading Mugdan'sDie Gesammten Materialien zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch. The Y. B. B. are the Year-books.[27]The Cambridge Modern History.[28]Otto Gierke's monograph on Johannes Althusius, published 1880.[29]To theCambridge Modern History.[30]Maitland was invited to succeed Lord Acton in the Chair of Modern History at Cambridge.[31]Mire Vd! No verá cada día el condicional de subjunctivo.[32]The Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, had criticised Mr Joseph Chamberlain's fiscal proposals.
[25]Middle Ages. In 1900 Maitland published a translation of part of Otto Gierke's (O.G.)Das deutsche Genossenschaftrechtunder the titlePolitical Theories of the Middle Ages.
[25]Middle Ages. In 1900 Maitland published a translation of part of Otto Gierke's (O.G.)Das deutsche Genossenschaftrechtunder the titlePolitical Theories of the Middle Ages.
[26]The B. G. B. is theBürgerliche Gesetzbuch. Maitland was reading Mugdan'sDie Gesammten Materialien zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch. The Y. B. B. are the Year-books.
[26]The B. G. B. is theBürgerliche Gesetzbuch. Maitland was reading Mugdan'sDie Gesammten Materialien zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch. The Y. B. B. are the Year-books.
[27]The Cambridge Modern History.
[27]The Cambridge Modern History.
[28]Otto Gierke's monograph on Johannes Althusius, published 1880.
[28]Otto Gierke's monograph on Johannes Althusius, published 1880.
[29]To theCambridge Modern History.
[29]To theCambridge Modern History.
[30]Maitland was invited to succeed Lord Acton in the Chair of Modern History at Cambridge.
[30]Maitland was invited to succeed Lord Acton in the Chair of Modern History at Cambridge.
[31]Mire Vd! No verá cada día el condicional de subjunctivo.
[31]Mire Vd! No verá cada día el condicional de subjunctivo.
[32]The Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, had criticised Mr Joseph Chamberlain's fiscal proposals.
[32]The Duke of Devonshire, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, had criticised Mr Joseph Chamberlain's fiscal proposals.