In The Azores

( Originally Published 1905 )

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes And fondly broods with miser care;

Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams their channels deeper wear. —Burns.

AFTER my visit to Furnas I understood why Edmund Waller chose the Azores for the theme of his "Battle of the Summer Islands." The air is balmy and invigorating, the climate semi-tropical and the soil rich in chlorides and nitrates. On the outer edges of Ponta Delgada and here and there in the island of San Miguel are the gardens and summer homes of the titled and wealthy Portuguese who come here with their families—and the germ of race suicide has not yet entered the blood of the Portuguese—to be alone and revel in atmospheric and climatic joy.

When visiting Furnas I was honoured with an invitation from the Marquis de Fonte Bella to pass a day at his villeggiatura, or country residence. I say honoured without reservation, for the Portuguese and Spaniards of the nobility are the most exclusive and to strangers the most reserved class of all Europe. They are the of elyektoi, and when you enter their social circle you come into a highly rarified atmosphere. But once admitted to the charmed circle you are at home. The home air is impregnated with hospitality, with easy courtesy and a gracious freedom of action intimating in every movement a generous welcome and an assurance that the house is yours.

The road through the estate from the highway to the residence was lined with cork trees, pollard oaks and chestnuts, whose branches met and intertwined, forming a shaded avenue of refreshing coolness. Breaking the line of continuity were box-edged paths leading to beds filled with flowering plants of the older fashion, asters, balsams, heliotropes and scented verbenas. Here also were beds of geraniums, blue and scarlet salvias, fuchsias of the more primitive kind, and yerba-santa, whose delicate blossoms stood star-white against the foliage. An electric button at the gate lodge notified the palace inmates of the approach of visitors, and when I stepped down from the carriage I was met by His Excellency who welcomed me with the true, courteous cordiality of the Portuguese gentleman.

After luncheon, the marquis retired to his siesta hammock, commending me to the attention of his son and daughter. The young count was educated at Ushaw, England, spoke English and French fluently and had travelled in North and South America. With him I rambled through the family demesne and forest. Our conversation drifted into the origin of languages and their structural differences. " When I was travelling in North America," said the count, " I visited a settlement of Free-Lovers in Western New York and since then I never think of the spelling and pronunciation of your awful language without also thinking of the Free-Lovers' community." "Where does the affinity or likeness enter ?" I asked. "In that there is no marriage between them, there is no law or rule governing your spelling and pronunciation, no legal bond holding them together and as a result your language is anarchical and confusing. Then take your colloquial phrases, particularly in America, how is it possible for any educated foreigner to understand them ? To give you an example. The evening after the presentation of my letters to a gentleman in Chicago I was taking a bath, when a bell boy knocked on the door, pushed an envelope under it and shouted loud enough to be heard in every room on the corridor, ' A letter for you, sir.' Well, I hastily threw on my bath robe, thinking the matter was of immediate importance, opened the envelope and read, ' My Dear Count, If you have nothing on to-night will you dine with me and a few friends—say nine o'clock. Don't dress but come just as you are.' "

Many years ago the father of the present Marquis do Conto laid out the splendid grounds of the estate. He was a great traveller and enriched his princely property with exotics from Asia, South America and Africa. Here were conifers from the highlands of Brazil and slopes of the Himalayas, and orchids from the forests of Guiana. The count pointed out to me loquat trees from China, large and shady as fig trees, with aromatic blossoms, gum trees and eucalypti or Australian fever trees whose slender polished branches bore long drooping leaves with a mellow splendour of russet, red and yellow. We strayed into a side path and at once I was conscious of a heavy, vaporous odour. "These are the manchineel trees," said the count, " and if you fall asleep under them you'll never wake." Here also were bella-sombras, huge forest trees from Brazil and flowering magnolias from Central America, forest giants throwing out a white scented flower; camelias from Japan, as large as apple trees; and oleanders or South Sea rose trees, beautiful and odorous. Scattered among the imperial beauties were pomegranates, tall papaws and golden fruited species of the citrus, from the gigantic shaddock to the diminutive lime.

In the very frensy and wantonness of unchecked luxuriance grew orange trees, spice trees, okra and wild aloes. I stretched out my hand to a fruit of fairest appearance. "Don't touch it," spoke the count, "it's nux vomica." One must be careful here, I thought, not only of his language but even of his eating. We crossed a rustic bridge spanning a rio, or small river, fed from a mountain stream that fell and tumbled in cascades over volcanic boulders which bore no traces on their surface of glacial action. We returned to the house by a tufa road whose edges were rich in rose geraniums, white jessamines, chrysanthemums and great bushes of the yellow-flowered madre silva and the saffron tinted sedume, gay and bright and charming from sheer force of health and freshness.

The public squares, parks and gardens of Ponta Delgada invite inspection and comparison with those of any city of its size in Europe or America. But to see the living city in miniature one ought to take a seat in the public park or Largo do Ioao Franco, and witness the viascope of the ever-changing procession. Before you, pass in review peasants of the farm lands, richly uniformed officers of the local regiments, students in their academic robes, fashionably dressed ladies with their escorts or duennas, priests in soutane and barettas, uniformed policemen, sailors from Japan and the islands of the sea, soldiers and subalterns in parade dress or mufti; women of the middle class, cloaked, or shrouded in a hideous garment called capote e capella. Here also pass of an afternoon young ladies chaperoned by their mothers, beggars whose right hands are stiffened into the horizontal from habitual extension, working girls in picturesque costumes, nursery girls pushing go-carts, and now and then a venerable or sturdy peasant wearing the old time hat with the falling or Havelock neck-shade, or carapuca, as it is called here.

Everything in these Azores that walks on four legs, save rats and cats, is harnessed to a cart and made to earn its food. To a stranger from over the sea it is very amusing to pass a sheep drawing a diminutive wagon and a big husky fellow seated and holding the reins, or a goat pulling a ten-gallon keg of wine followed by a dog trotting along with a load of salt. Of course there are fairly good horses and mules here, but they are in the liveries or owned by the wealthier class. But the donkey owns the town. His importance entitles him to a capital D, though his villainous looks should condemn him to penal servitude for life. You meet him everywhere : in the lanes, at the church doors, in the public squares, on the streets; he is all over and his awful hee-haw, hee-haws, when first heard startle you as would the war-whoop of a Seneca.

For three hundred years there has been no noticeable immigration to these islands and the population is now pure Azorean, for the sixty years of Spanish occupation was altogether military and did not affect the unity of the race. Four hundred years in the life of an island people is a period sufficiently long to develop racial traits, a racial character and entity. To judge from appearances an infusion of new blood would do no harm, for an insular race when left too long alone must, by an inexorable law of nature, deteriorate. Yet there are many fine-looking men and women here. Fifth Avenue can turn out no better dressed nor cleaner groomed men than those one meets in the streets of Delgada on a Sunday afternoon. The silk hat, kid gloves and cane or silk umbrella are de rigueur, and without which no gentleman will appear in public. The Azorean, like the Spaniard, is never full-dressed unless lie is well shaved, and unlike the celebrated De Cosse,

Duke of Brissac, he never shaves himself. Timoleon de Cosse, the impecunious Duke of Brissac, could not afford the luxury of a private barber and disdained to mingle with the common herd in a tonsorial shop. He compromised with his dignity when sharpening his razor by the necessity of doing something. " God has made thee a gentleman, 0 de Cosse, and the king has made thee a duke. It is, therefore, right and fit," he would repeat, "that thou shouldst have something to do; therefore, thou shalt shave thyself."