Morning journal and courier., 1889-12-28

AZOIeAn K00SAMt1s
 FATAL, Azores, Nov. 25.
 To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 After all, the human rather than the scen- ic or other interest in any land holds mind and heart closest. And in these human &C., tivities, I sometimes think, the living, doing and environment of the lowly furnish truest means for judgment of the relations of all classes; and certainly provide the most last ing impressions an earnest traveller may gain.
 Of the two divisions of the. lowly in the Azores, the peasantry are infinitely more captivating than the lowly of the towns. The servitors and the beggars of the score or more Azorean cities are in appearance quite the same as those the traveller will find in Havana, Lizbon, Barcelona and all Medi- terranean ports. Two delightful exceptions in their favor exist. They are the most kind hearted and sunny-faced folk that live; and the water-carriers, chiefly women and girls, are 80 remarkably picturesque class that they are really entitled, in poetry, TO-. nance and art, to extraordinary attention and distinction. Among every manner of city serving men and women there is ludi crous chivalry in interchange of civility such as I have found among no other lowly peo- pie. Their gravity and dignity in this re- gard are really wonderful. The cumulative adjectives applied to intensifying the formal expression of mutual regard and leading up to those highest titles of respect, Senhor and Senhora, never reach lower plane than ''most adored," "truest regarded" "most heart thrillingly beloved" or "exceeding and most illustrious.n s'Most dazzling and beau tiful neighbor and maiden, has the thrice- execrated catarrh left the roof of thy more than angelic nosea" grandly asks the bare- footed P;etro of wench at the fountain, who as gravely responds: 'Nobly conceived son of mother radiant beyond naming, the poison of its noxious presence sped away with the warlocks at the bidding of goat's- milk cheeae bound at night time on my pain racksd forehead. Our Lady's blessings on thee, thy household and all thy kindred, for the friendship shining like stars through the anxiety of thy ever-prized askingl" These poor, ignorant beings seem to think, act and exist in precisely such windy and wordy hes roics. After knowing it in every possible conscious and unconscious condition of their experiences for weeks, one needs no further information to understand why wages of all manner of servants in the Azores do not ex- coed eighteen cents per day. Even the beg gars speak to each other in just such fanfa- ronde; and I never found one here yet who, on my declining to contribute after his poet ic appeal, with a polite 'Pardonl-in the name of Godl" as Is the custom, did not fol- low to bless, and pile on his blessings, until my cheeks crimsoned with shame at the un- earned bsnedictions showered upon me. h. deed 1t is difficult to convey by pen any just resentment, the complete self-abnegation, and the ever- r-pressnt, never-varying sunni- ness of heart and act, in these lowly ones of home and street. It is found in all and the minutest instances. Come suddenly upon half naked child playing upon the damp stones of some grimy entrada, or tossing the glittering brown lava sand back into the sparkling plume of the incoming surf, below the quays, and it will look up into your own with face beaming with positive radiance.
 Distrust and all its train of hatefulness have no place in their composition. They possess
 nothing; acquire nothing; have burning
 ambitions for nothing. A bit of meal-bread
 washed down with water is 8 repast. Add
 to the bread bit of fish, or few swallows
 of wine, and it Is feast. The stinging
 scourge of necessity for providence with W
 our own poor is incomprehensible here. At their backs are mountains and valleys green to the sun and sky the whole year through,
 and never failing in their rich yield of fruit
 and grains. At their feet is the sea alive
 with luscious food free for the taking. None
 ever becomes rich. None ever arrives at our own most modest idea of competency. can be desirable. It may seem strange to you and l. The wonder with them is that any one should strive; that any human be- ing should ever be in hurry. As with the Cubans in their languor breeding cline whose "Mananal" (to-morrowD is the key to their torpor and vassalage, "Paciencial" or "Patiencel" tells the story here. Something is wrong with that one who would hasten. Crime surely turks under leanness and vigor. And good Citizen Train with his doleful prophecy that "Fat is Death" could awaken no response to his hygenic shibboleth save one of placid suspicion in the Azores.
 But the mountains and valleys of these islands give home to folk possessing all the winsome sunniness of the lowly of the towns without tithe of their apathy and slug gishness. You may read all the pastoral poems ever written from the idylls of Theo- critus to the "La Nencia" of Lorenzo, and you can gain no more colorfnl picture Of pastoral lives in endless content and peace fulness than yonr eyes may behold in an
  dure clad Western Isles. Rest is in the sun and sky, the earth and air, the home and | aeld, in all men and all nature. do not mean that no labor is performed. But all labor done has in it the seeming of mere | dalliance with toll. The senses are not sur feitea with odor, luxuriance and the almost | intoxicating profigacy of nature as in the ! tropics. Every active exertion of human l does not betray, as there, the superlative in- dolence painfully sffortful in the bare pro- cess of existence. But 8 restfulness pervades l these sea kissed lands which reveals slation | instead of sensuousness; peace rather than passion and pain. Just as upon our own land when the October days have come. | Then there is a subtle consciousness of the
 seasons' pause; of seen and unseen opulence; of sweetness and suficiency; and in and
 through it all, like the first thrill of wine, l an uplifting and exultation blending the l physical and mental aense perfectly and glo- I rioualy. I do not cay the Azorean. peasantrJ I know {. is as you and I are conscious of it. I But to the bsholder's eyes these humble pso Il pie 50 touch and color the scene upon which I he looks that their presence is an inseparablt element in it's essential harmony.
 The peasant tenant farmers of the Azores lI the land caseiros of the islands, retain theil holdings under life leases, and pay rentals tt the morgados, the owners of the estates, ol