50

"FLORES. FAYAL!"

The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a mour of mud standing up out of the dull mists of the sea. B we bore down upon it, the sun came out and made it a b tiful picture—a mass of green farins and meadows that sw up to a height of fifteen hundred feet, and mingled its u outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with sharp, s ridges, and cloven with narrow canons, and here and ther the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves into mimic tlements and castles; and out of rifted clouds came broad sl of sunlight, that painted summit, and slope, and glen, bands of fire, and left belts of sombre shade between. It the aurora borealis of the frozen pole exiled to a summer la

We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four miles f shore, and all the opera-glasses in the ship were called requisition to settle disputes as to whether mossy spots on uplands were groves of trees or groves of weeds, or whe the white villages down by the sea were really villages or the clustering tombstones of cemeteries. Finally, we stoo sea and bore away for San Miguel, and Flores shortly bec a dome of mud again, and sank down among the mists disappeared. But to many a seasick passenger it was goo see the green hills again, and all were more cheerful after episode than any body could have expected them to be, sidering how sinfully early they had gotten up.

But we had to change our purpose about San Miguel, f storm came up about noon that so tossed and pitched the ve that common sense dictated a run for shelter. Therefore steered for the nearest island of the group-Fayal, (the pec there pronounce it Fy-all, and put the accent on the f syllable.) We anchored in the open roadstead of Horta, 1 a mile from the shore. The town has eight, thousand to thousand inhabitants. Its snow-white houses nestle cosily i sea of fresh green vegetation, and no village could look pret or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphitheatre hills which are three hundred to seven hundred feet high, a carefully cultivated clear to their summits-not a foot of left idle. Every farm and every acre is cut up into little squ

"ON SHORE."

inclosures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect the growing products from the destructive gales that blow there. These hundreds of green squares, marked by their black lava walls, make the hills look like vast checker-boards.

The islands belong to Portugal, and every thing in Fayal has Portuguese characteristics about it. But more of that anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese boatmen, with brass rings in their ears, and fraud in their hearts, climbed the ship's sides, and various parties of us contracted with them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver coin of any country. We landed under the walls of a little fort, armed with batteries of twelve and thirty-two pounders, which Horta considered a most formidable institution, but if we were ever to get after it with one of our turreted monitors, they would have to move it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find it again when they needed it. The group on the pier was a rusty one-men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged, and barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides, and glared upon us; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when they accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from street to street. It was very flattering to me to be part of the material for such a sensation. Here and there in the doorways we saw women, with fashionable Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick blue cloth, attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and is a marvel of ugliness. It stands up high, and spreads far abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it like the man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote, as they call it—it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight points of the wind with one of them on; she has

52

A DISASTROUS BANQUET.

to go before the wind or not at all. The general style capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain so f

САРОТЕ.

next ten thousand years, but ea and shapes its capotes just er differently from the others to e an observer to tell at a glance particular island a lady hails fro

The Portuguese pennies or reis nounced rays) are prodigious. It one thousand reis to make a d and all financial estimates are in reis. We did not know this after we had found it out thr Blucher. Blucher said he wa happy and so grateful to be on land once more, that he wante give a feast said he had hear was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand quet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent di at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity prod by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the land presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his counten fell. He took another look to assure himself that his se had not deceived him, and then read the items aloud, in a tering voice, while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes: "Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis!' Ruin and d lation !"

666

'Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2,500 reis!' Oh, sainted mother!"

"Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis, 13,200 reis!' with us all!"

THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED RE

The suffering Moses!-there ain't money enough in the s to pay that bill! Go-leave me to my misery, boys, I an ruined community."

I think it was the blankest looking party I ever saw. body could say a word. It was as if every soul had be

A DISASTROUS BANQUET.

53

stricken dumb. Wine-glasses descended slowly to the table, their contents untasted. Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers. Each man sought his neighbor's eye, but found in it no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a desperate resolve settled

upon Blucher's countenance like a cloud, and he rose up said:

and

"Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars, Sir, and it's all you'll get-I'll swim in blood, before I'll pay a cent more."

Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell-at least we thought so; he was confused at any rate, notwithstanding he had not understood a word that had been said. He glanced from the

54

THE HAPPY RESULT.

little pile of gold pieces to Blucher several times, and th went out. He must have visited an American, for, when returned, he brought back his bill translated into a langua that a Christian could understand-thus:

Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's dinner party More refreshments were ordered.