a lower temperature than 52°. So it may be seen that an invalid in Funchal can neve be exposed, under the most untoward circumstances, at midnight, when snow is fall ing on the mountains, to a temperature more than 1 or 2 degrees below 50°.

Now, the average minimum temperature for January may be stated to be 56°, and we have just seen that the lowest recorded extreme is only 10° colder. Placing these figures side by side with those of the co rresponding season at Mentone, we have:

Regarding maximum temperatures, the average limit in January is 67°, and dur ing the winter months the heat, under any circumstances, seldom surpasses 730. For many consecutive weeks the register thermometer usually does not pass the limit of 65° or 66°, but a transient phase of weather has yet to be noticed in which the temperature is in advance of these ordinary figures. In this place it may suffice to state that the highest winter temperature in my experience, 78°, occurred in the month of March, 1867.

Of the extreme temperatures of summer I am not so competent to speak, inasmuch as those seasons, during my observation, appear to have been exceptionally cool. The mean maximum of the hottest month I have already stated to be 750.05, and that average may be taken as the ordinary standing of the thermometer in the hottest part of a summer's day, and the summer maximum is subject to very little oscillation. I should remark, however, that these conclusions relate to Funchal, whereas the mountain districts frequented by invalids enjoy a much cooler summer temperature.

The summer of Madeira is also liable to an exaggerated phase of weather similar to that which we have just noticed as passing the ordinary limit of the winter maximum, and under exceptional circumstances the extreme heat of 90° was once recorded. In my own experience the extreme heat of summer has never reached 84° in the shade, and the weather usually has been characterized by freshness and the constant flow of land and sea breezes.

If we may exclude for a moment the rare sirocco temperatures above given, we may notice, as with minimum temperatures, the small difference between average and extreme maximum temperature.

INFORMATION FOR VISITORS TO MADEIRA.

From the above remarks it will be seen that the climate of Madeira must be highly advantageous for many consumptive cases. For persons suffering also from nervous exhaustion and overwork, a better recruiting ground than Madeira cannot be imagined. There is sleep in the air; there is little society; there is neither theater nor opera; there is but one fast mail a week from Europe; there are few books in the only large library which would tempt a diligent and cultivated reader; there is a climate in which one can almost live out of doors; there is a multitude of beautiful excursions among the mountains; there is the easiest method of locomotion known, a hammock swung on a pole carried by two men. Although the square area of Madeira is so diminu tive, the mountains are by no means so. Pico Ruivo, the highest, rises to 6,056 feet. Seven other peaks rise from 4,000 to 6,000 feet. The island is a miniature Mexico without the tierra caliente.

Were there a direct steamer from here to New York, I have no doubt we should have many American visitors during the winter months. As it is, people are deterred from coming by the long detour which is necessary, via Liverpool, and the expense of the passage from England. From New York to Liverpool, a ten days' journey, costs $60; from Plymouth or Dartmouth to Madeira, a four days' journey, costs $97.08. To put it another way: New York to Liverpool, cost of journey for every twenty-four hours, 36; Plymouth or Dartmouth to Madeira, cost of journey for every twenty-four hours, $24.27, or more than four times as much, in an inferior steamer.

A large portion of this extortionate charge is due to the characteristic folly of the Portuguese Government, which keeps visitors out of the island by the ridiculous taxes it levies on the steamship companies, which, of course, must make up their loss by charging excessively high passage rates. Thus, according to Portuguese law, a Cape of Good Hope mail steamer of say 4,000 tons, stopping but two or three hours to coal at Madeira and landing four passengers, will pay no passage dues. The same steamer landing five passengers, will pay tonnage dues (4) cents a tou) to the tune of $180; fees, $6-$186.

Thus for bringing one passenger over four the company has to pay $37.20 for every passenger. To protect themselves from this not seldom occurrence the companies not unnaturally charge a very high rate. Even then it must be allowed that $97.08 is too high a price to pay for a four days' journey. It is alleged, however, with some reason, that Madeira passengers take up the room which would be otherwise occupied by passengers for the Cape, and may therefore fairly be called upon to pay a portion of the loss thus entailed upon the company.

Arrived in Madeira, the American visitor would, until late years, have found little to cheer him in the way of hotel accommodation. The hotels were as bad as English hotels usually are; no gas and no water in the bedrooms; the table as heavy and uninviting as might be expected from landlords who had never heard of a cordonbleu; the wines fiery and heavily brandied, to suit the English taste. All the hotels, moreover, were situated in the town; the first established and original, which proudly proclaims itself "royal," in charming proximity to an odoriferous drain emptying into the harbor; the others in close, noisy, and dirty quarters of the city. Recently two new hotels have been opened under happier auspices. One of these is situated just outside the town, from the low portions of which it is separated by a ravine, commanding a beautiful view of the sea and mountains, and possessing that rare luxury for mountainous Madeira, a large garden, laid out on level ground. The other hotel occupies the house formerly inhabitated by Mr. Howard March, for many years United States consul in Madeira, and is charmingly situated in the country about a milefrom town.

There are numerous houses (by courtesy to the landlords called fur nished) to rent at from $250 to $600 for the season. Servants are cheap, but it requires two Portuguese to do the work of one American.

It is highly advisable that Americans coming to Madeira should be provided with passports from the Department of State. No one can leave the island (except for Portugal) without the civil governor's passport. To issue this passport the governor requires proof of the nationality of the person applying. Different governors vary in their interpretation of the Portuguese law defining the nature of this proof. A former governor has refused to accept for proof a passport issued by the Department at Washington, while being willing to accept the American consul's certificate of nationality.

The present governor does not refuse to accept the State Department passports.

American citizens coming here without passports place their consul upon the horns of a dilemma. He may be certain in his own mind that they are citizens, and yet be unable to issue a legal certificate to that effect. L. DU PONT SYLE,

UNITED STATES CONSULATE,

Consul.

Funchal, May 10, 1883.

MADEIRA.

Report by Vice-Consul Hutchison, on the commerce of the island of Madeira for the year 1883.

It may be stated that the statistics attainable in this island are not to be assumed as in all cases trustworthy. From the following tables it appears that the trade has decreased in 1883. The year has been unfavorable also in regard to agriculture. Owing to the ravages of the phylloxera in the vines, as well as to the age of the sugar-cane plants in many districts of the island, both the wine and sugar crops have been below the average quantity, and the wine is somewhat inferior in quality. The following table shows the decrease in these the principal productions of the island.

Comparative view of the sugar, sugar-cane spirit, and wine produced in the years 1882 and 1883.

Comparative view of the estimated value of imports and exports at the port of Funchal during the years 1882 and 1883.

Statement of values of the several articles cleared for export at Funchal in 1883.

Statement of the merchant shipping which entered the port of Funchal in the year 1883.

Report by Consul Mathews, of Tangier, on the present state of Morocco, its trade, commerce, and navigation, for the year 1882-83.

In my last year's report I gave an account of the geographical features, besides a historical review, of the Empire of Morocco, to which I beg to refer in this instance.

However much may have been said and written respecting Morocco, its trade, prominent geographical position, and natural resources, it be-comes difficult, if at all possible, to arrive at anything like exact data or statistics upon which to base reliable calculations. There being as. a rule no means of checking accounts of the different administrations. (more especially the custom-house), it is utterly beyond human power to ascertain the quantity of imported or exported goods, their exact source or destination. On the other hand, there are so many privileged personages at every port that it may be safely alleged that 20 to 25 per cent. of what passes through the custom-house is neither taken note of nor accounted for. Then, again, custom-house registers are so irregularly kept that many articles originally from Germany are accounted for as French or English. Brazilian produce is taken as English, French, or Gibraltarian, and American goods undergo the same metar orphosis in Moorish registers.

To illustrate this I would cite a few examples to prove the statement.. Custom-house registers consist mostly of ordinary diaries, or memorandum books, such as are used in other countries for rough memoranda. These books are as frequently changed as new administrators are named for the different ports, which comes about different periods, sometimes in one year and sometimes even in six months, and as every set of offi cials which is removed take their books away with them, no trace is ever

left for the public to get reliable data as to anything; as to the statements and entries of quantities, it being a rule that every official is exempt from paying duties, many of his relatives, and even friends, avail of their connections to pass their articles free, and as nothing but what pays is entered in the books, these numerous lots, added to the large amounts which are smuggled in and out, are naturally omitted, and the statistics become incorrect as to their statement. There are, for instance, German sugars, candles, spirits, and ironmongery, which come through France in transit, and being shipped at Marseilles, come under the category of imports from France, while those that find their way here through England are invariably qualified English.

Coffee comes in under the category of English, French, or Gibraltarian production. Tea is qualified English, while Indian drugs and spices are again taken under the heading of imports from England and France. American products fare no better at the hands of the customs clerks, who put raw cotton as denizen of the country under whose flag it comes, generally English or French; American deals are again qualified Gibraltar production, because part of the cargoes which arrive at the latter port is shipped to the ports of Morocco, and the same happens with the cargoes of American flour and Indian corn. American machinery and agricultural implements, pumps, and arms, which come in in small quantities at a time, being generally passed off free of duty as for private use, no tally is ever kept of them to mark the progress of introduction of these industries. Petroleum, which is becoming an article of daily consumption, is represented by $9,460 value, which I may safely say is far less than half the quantity imported, while Gibraltar and Algeria are entered as the producing countries of this oil. I mention these few articles to show how difficult it is to arrive at an exact calculation; still we can only report what we can get as official returns, and therefore I supplement these with additional tables, comparing the year 1882 with the preceding one, and adding a few remarks which may prove useful to our industrials at home, who are no doubt familiar with the manufactures of different European countries, and can trace the articles of consumption in Morocco.

From the statistics it will easily be perceived that the country has no industry of its own, and that while it has to supply all its requirements from Europe, yet its exports consist of the few articles of agricultural products and raw materials which are allowed to be exported, while the real resources of riches in the country are prohibited and remain in the land where it has no outlet.

As the returns will show more or less correctly how the trade is divided, I shall confine myself to give an insight into the operations connecting the United States with Morocco. As far as importations go, they consist of petroleum in the first place, deals (American pine), raw cotton, spirits, pumps, agricultural implements, and, in a small way, arms and ammunition, furniture, and other fancy articles. But as these American products and manufactures invariably arrive by foreign bottoms and are shipped at London, Marseilles, or Gibraltar, they are never entered as American.

As to export from Morocco, some men are still living who remember American sailing vessels taking cargoes of Morocco produce to the United States direct until our civil war, when many of our vessels changed their flags and ceased calling at Morocco. Then, as steam became more common and lines of steamers were established between Morocco and England and France, American buyers found it more convenient to buy at Marseilles, London, and Liverpool such articles of