Written for the newspaper, Portland Transcript.

A TRIP TO THE AZORES.

The Island of Flores.—Landing in the surf at Santa Cruz.—Description of tiled roofs.—A monument of lava.—An island of flowers.—Politeness of the people.—The Plaza.—Ancient church.—Washing clothes.—What Portuguese heads are made for.—The Capote.

The island of Flores is small, being only nine-miles long by seven wide. The island of Corvo, four miles by two and a half, is about eight miles northeast of Flores, and contains a population of five thousand[58], while Flores has twelve thousand or more, nearly all of whom live upon the eastern side. From Santa Cruz, the only city on Flores, there are two roads leading north and south to different parts of the island, rising higher and higher, until their many turns are lost to sight. A structure high up on the southern hills excited much speculation as to its nature, whether a windmill or a church, but was decided in favor of the latter, by bringing the long and powerful ship’s spy-glass to bear upon it.

Against the rocks on the northern part of the island we could see the sea breaking high—at least one hundred feet—and a grand sight it was—while we had plenty of sea-room; but, driving upon those high cliffs before the blast, with a disabled vessel and a heavy sea running, they would have looked anything but pleasant to the poor doomed wretches, who would thus be forced to look death in the face, and meet him among the cruel lava rocks, that here make far out into the stormy Atlantic.

Laying to off Santa Cruz, some boats came off, and then began a scene like nothing ever seen off the American coast, so far as I have ever witnessed.

A half-dozen bare-footed, swarthy, villainous-looking Portuguese boatmen, man one boat, rough and clumsily built, with oare in two or three pieces “fished” together, making an oar about twenty-five feet long, the length outside the gunwale being counterbalanced by a heavy ball or bar of iron set in the square end inside. There are no thole pins or row-locks on the boat, but, instead, a half moon shaped piece of plank is spiked fast to the bottom of the oar, and an iron pin from the gunwale of the boat passes up through a hole in it and serves all the purposes of tholepins.

Telling, swearing, gesticulating, with the utmost fierceness—with hands, face, and whole body, these islanders surrounded us, swarmed over us, and begged tobacco, and something to eat, of every one they saw.

A lot of corn was to be sent ashore here, besides furniture and baggage of seven passengers, and stowing in separate boats off we started. The men at the oars tugged, strained and sweat, as now high upon the summit of a swell, now in the trough of the sea, they tolled at the great clumsy oars; while at a little distance, with the top-sails and top-gallant sails aback, lying to, was the good barkentine, sitting as gracefully upon the water as a sea bird; while, dearer sight than all the rest, at the mizzen-top, floated out upon the breeze the beautiful stars and stripes, looking ten times more beautiful in that far away place than at home; and in our heart of hearts we breathed a prayer for that loved flag and the country of which it is the emblem; then, looking landward, we saw where a stream of lava from a peak back of the town, towing down, had cooled, while great pillars and blocks of it, running out into the ocean, had become worn by ceaseless buffetings with storm and wave, and hence had assumed many fantastic shapes among which the waves swept with resistless fury, and a roar like the loudest thunder. There is but a narrow channel where boats can enter, and a rod either way and they would be dashed on the bare rocks which forms the entrance to this little bay.

They look like a row of columms in some old ruined cathedral, rising many feet in height, misshapen, rugged, and with many a contortion, as though they felt the agony of mortal pain.

About the first thing that engaged our attention as we stepped from the shoulders of our “life boat” was the peculiar construction of all the houses within sight, and which we afterwards found to be true of the whole group of islands.

Every house was built of lava, plastered, and whitewashed outside, and instead of shingles the roofs were covered with red earthern tiles.

To those of your readers, the younger especially, who are not acquainted with this form of keeping out rain, a word of explanation may be allowed. The tiles are made in sections of about a foot to a foot and a half long, semi-circular in shape, wider at one end than at the other. A row of them is laid with the concave side up, and near together, as we lay shingles; then one is laid with the convex side up over the edges of two laid in the former style, and so it is carried on.

Even in the heaviest rain, they make a perfectly tight roof, although from below you can see the clouds through the spaces, and it also afforded very good circulation of air for ventilating purposes, and for the exit of smoke in kitchens, for there are no chimneys to be seen and no chance for fires except in the cooking-rooms.

The cryptogamic plants are so abundant, and life among the vegetable orders is so prolific and easily maintained that were they not scraped thoroughly once in four or five years, the roofs would become covered with a dense mass of vegetation.

Santa Cruz contains some three thousand inhabitants, who live in the compact part of the place, while several hundred more dwell in the suburbs in their gardens. There has been an overflow of lava, from one of the sharp peaks back of the city, which here spread out into a plain some three miles long, by a mile and a half broad, nearly level, and a more pleasant place, gently sloping to the water, and surrounded on three sides by sharp, high hills, can hardly be imagined; as the lava flowed on, it was arrested and broken by the sea, forming those curious appearances of columns and ruined battlements alluded to above.

In a ravine back of the town, stands a huge block of lava—in shape not unlike a monument. It is too large to have been washed there, and I conjecture it was shot bodily up from the “Caldeira,” or crater, miles away, and came down in its present abode. I did not take the dimensions of it, but it must have been at least forty feet in height, by twenty square at the base.

Flores is so called from the vast quantities of flowers that is met with there,—flores being Portuguese for flowers—and right worthy is it of its name, for in every nook and cranny multitudes of flowers could be seen in bloom. Up the main street we wandered, looking at all we saw with wonder, and no doubt exciting as much remark among the islanders as they with us; yet one thing we noticed, they did not lose sight of the inbred politeness which especially distinguish the Gallic race, for all who met us would remove their head covering and stand in a respectful attitude till we passed.

The houses there are mostly one story, although some of the better class are of two, and they stand close to the street. There are no side walks, and the streets are paved with what in America, we should style the Russ pavement, and it is laid evenly and regular, and would be creditable to any city.

Passing on we at length reach the Plaza, or square, in the center of the town. Here is a fountain upon one side, where the water issues by means of three iron pipes set in the high wall, for, kind reader, in every island city where houses do not shut off the view, immense walls of lava do it instead; and in Ponta Delgada, the capital of San Miguel, I have seen them twenty-five feet high—but of that more anon.

Down to the left there is a street leading to a great massive church, which had attracted our attention from the vessel. It was over two hundred years old, built of lava in the Moorish style, entirely destitute of furniture, and possessed only two or three paintings. All who come there are expected to kneel on the bare floor, and it is but justice to say that the devotion of the islanders to their religion is so great that they never hesitate to drag their robes through the dust that may be there, without a murmur or complaint, and hardly ever make an effort to reduce the amount of it.

When we returned to the Plaza we found a number of women had assembled to wash their clothes. Would the lady readers of the Transcript like to know how that feat was accomplished? I will endeavor to tell them. As I remarked, the water flowed from the pipes set in the wall at a distance of about four feet above the ground. The streams ran into a little basin by the roadside, and around this basin was a number of smooth-slabs of lava, inclined at about an angle of forty-five degrees or less, and upon these the women did their washing by beating their clothes with a heavy stick, and “sousing” them repeatedly into the little pool.

While looking at them one could not escape the uncomfortable reflection that they must keep one lot of clothes to wear and another to wash, or that they either washed from custom and not from principle, or the clothes they were so furiously manipulating as to make the buttons fly off like a charge of bird shot were the property of some other people; the sanitary impulses of our doctor were aroused, and he proposed trying the experiment of pitching the whole lot in with the clothes, neck and heels; but the Colonel over-ruled it, upon the score that if they should lose a layer of dirt they would take cold and, perhaps, die, and we should lose caste by it.

By some means the news spread that a doctor was on shore, and as there is none nearer than Fayal, 130 miles distant, and also no drug store, our doctor was overwhelmed with applications; suffice it to say that he answered seventeen calls in the short space we were on shore, and positively refused to see any more patients without being paid for his services—which at once closed up his practice.

One of the first things that strikes the visitor as peculiar, is the scarcity and small size of cattle and horses. They use, for general purposes of burden, the small but hardy donkey; carts and wheels are hardly suited to go up the narrow canons, that are so abundant there; and there is nothing that will take the place of mule or man power. It is no uncommon spectacle to see a man trotting along under the weight of a heavy chest, box, trunk, or a bundle of fagots, which he has brought perhaps five miles from up in the mountains–heavy enough to be a load for a horse; I have seen them in Fayal carrying barrels of flour upon their heads, and women balancing huge baskets of clothes, or water-jars capable of holding six to eight gallons of water, without ever steadying it by a finger even; they would stride along the streets or go up and down stairs and I have never yet seen them spill their load. Truly, they have determined the question, as far as they are concerned, “What was a Portuguese’s head made for?”

The covering of the head varies apparently with the caprice of the wearer. Thus some wear a felt or straw hat, while others content themselves with a nondescript woolen affair, knit in various colors, like a cone in shape, the end of which is ornamented with a tassel, and is permitted to fall over the side of the face. Such an affair, however, is donned only by men of mature age; boys wear a closely fitting knit skull cap, which, like their older relatives, is sometimes knit entirely of one color, as blue or red, or, as is more often the case, in variegated colors.

The women at all times wear a corner of a shawl or a handkerchief over their heads, and among the better class may often be seen the monstrous “capote.”[59] This is made of blue broadcloth, and, like boots or shoes, is only worn by the “upper ten;” the poor cannot afford them, as the whole arrangement costs from $40 to $70 [?]. There is a cloak of the same material attached to it—or the “capote” surmounts the cloak. I can’t say which is the proper term to employ, and is, really, the ugliest piece of millinery that lovely woman could possibly contrive. For the benefit of my fair readers I will attempt a description of this ungainly affair, the like of which is to be found nowhere else on earth—so far as I have any knowledge.

I took the dimensions of one, one day, as follows: “Fore and aft,” twenty-three inches, and from “keel to truck” twenty-one inches! a sharp-pitched roof, and drawn in a little at the neck, but as sharp-edged in the rear as on top; there are several thicknesses of paste-board, over which the outer covering is stretched to keep it in position.

To see several ladies taking their “constitutional” reminded me forcibly of a procession of A tents perambulating around the streets—seen through an opera-glass, reversed, with a plate of blue glass interposed. The form of the “Capote” varies slightly in each of the islands, so that one who is well posted can tell by that means from whence a lady hails. The younger ladies seem to evince a disposition to discard the cumbrous affair, yet I noticed some of the young and fair who evidently made use of it as an aid to their street flirtations, for one corner of it would be drawn aside, and a roguish, brilliant black eye would glance at you, and instantly be concealed by its friendly shade. Verily, is human nature not so very different in this quiet nook, as among those who dwell amid more stirring scenes.

C. J. RICKER.

Research done by Professor Emeritus Manuel Menezes de Sequeira, who currently resides on the island of Flores.