Morning journal and courier., 1894-04-14

these that the Azorean country folk, re- quiriDg hospital treatment, are brought to "da Misericordia" at Ponta Delgada; and 1t was in them that Slipson Cogleigh and the ponderous and rebellious Mrs. Clings- ly were comfortably and safely conveyed from their city inn to the baths of Furnas.
 To happy-hearted folk, like Bob and Hetty, Msnoel, Mateito and Jose, the journey could give but endlessly recurring pleasure and delight: The echoes of the last "Boa viageml-boa visgsmi" Good voysgel-good voysgeD had hardly died away behind them in the shadowy city street before Manoel began deecanting upon the flora of the island. it's fields, it's homes, its peasant folk and it's birds; and this kindly discourse was interestingly va ried by curious sights and scenes along the pleasant way.
 Here was a procession of donkeys rid den by peasant women, each cloaked and cowled, on their way to market, all man. ner of produce swaying from the wooden saddle yokes. Now and then 8 lone don key laden with water casks plodded along companionless, with a pitiful look of re- sponsibility on his gray old face. Piles of corn-leaves were heaped 30 high on the other donkeys' backs that 1t seemed the country stacks were waltztng into the city upon invisible legs.
 Bells tangled in muff1ed way beneath the fodder. Bare footed country boys prodded the lazily moving mysteries vi- ciously. A score of donkeys, laden with wheat and corn and fruit, in casks, pan niers and boxes, came tripping and min cling along with but one driver for the en- tire cavalcade. And whenever donkey or human was met, professional zsal upon the part of Mateito and Jose always found such vigorous expression in sundry thump- ings, whackings and proddings of the Cog leigh cattle that the ladies often lost their dignity and sittings and filled the rocky canons with shrieks of laughter or of fear; until Msnoel, stern and grave, would cry "Bastantel-bastantel" to the disturb ing imps behind, and then descend and gently 1srrup them back along the story way; from which sorties they ever re
 turned with faces full of happy, roguisf smiles.
 Two nights were passed at strange old roadside inns, and early on the morning of the third day they reached the edge of the mountain plateau from which the broad lava road descended into the ia.
 nous Valle das Furnas.
 Here they halted and dismounted te view the glorious scene. They saw three thousand feet below, the extinct crater o1 some olden and inconceivably vast vol cano, grad retrieved by kindly nature through the ages from desolation to the fairest and most luxurious vale inhabited by man, and in it's very center, the tiny clouds and outings of steam where the pent-up limitless cauldron below was etill hissing and muttering of it's latent pres ence and power.
 The serrated edges of the surrounding mountains, the olden crater's jagged rim, were broken here and there by lease,
 valleys of wondrous symmetry, by natu ral cuttings in the lava through which wound estradas rivalling the Roman roads | of old. by precipitous gorges and canens decked by misty cascades, and by pockets and hollows in which they could catch glimpses of the gleaming surfaces of silent lakes and shadowy tarns.
 The heights were purple with
 heather, blending into masses oi green where the frs stood thickly, merging into darker green over banks
 of bays, and shading into blue or gold, or puce, as the lights or shadows played upon the matted lichens of the wilder and sleeper sides; while innumerabfe streams, like sinuous lines of pearls, blended, crossed, separated and wound in fancifnl ways within and through the lower levels.
 Half hundred peasant cabins could be counted from where they stood. Twice that number of goatherd paths, like deli. cate ribbons of pink, and lanes with blue or gray old walls half hidden behind masses of vines, interlaced the valley and mountain sides; and away down, down below they saw the white walls, the red roofs, the single church dome, the long. strsggling streets, and the baths, with their plume-like vapors issuing from rumbling and pulsing caldeiras, of the quaintest old village in all the fair Azores.
 Everwhere on the mountain sides were tiny herds of milk-white goats. To each animal was tied bell of different tone. The focks were being driven to their daily milking in the village. Barefooted goat herds sounded their musical pipes as they blackbirds and canaries, as if fired by elated rivalry ,gave forth surpassing bursts of melody-hundreds upon hundreds of silvery bells, scores upon scores of joyous pipes, thousands upon thousands of voices of birds.
 Until now the lovely vale had been asleep. But they saw an instant response to this marvellous matin song. Issuing from the shadowy ways of the serene ham lot below appeared scores upon scores of Furnas maidsns, vestal maids to do office before the priest of day. Each chirped or chanted her own best loved cantiga and upon her shape]y head was ewer of bril- liant red.
 Her skirts were blue, her bodice white, or pink, or yellow. Her feet and arms and head were bare Her form was Hellenic. The sun, which swept above hoary Plea da tinged her cheeks. or such crimson as narfad from har fl aahino taafh
 Thus singing back to the herds, the birds and the morning, these witching water carriers threaded the upward paths to the fountains, while Manoel, Hetty, Bob and Slipson Coglsigh stood with barred heads and,eager eyes before the entrancing scene; and the remainder of the party suffered twinges of pain lest this Eden-like peace and balm should witchingly bsnish poor Slipson Cogleigh's rackipg agonies and fade and equslizs his thumping dichrotic pulse.
 The grim vultures had not long to wait the crisis upon which their hopes de- pended.
 Slipson Cogleigh had been "rubbed, soused and chuoked," as kind-hearted Hetty had enthusiastically promised, until the proponderating uric acid in his feeble system rose up, as 1t were, in raging re. volt. He was hastily brought back from his seventh bath to his apartment In Ger oimo's hotel, ss described by Mrs Drugget to the other relatives she encountered on their way to his bedside, '.in the agonies of articular mortice."
 His sufferiDgs must have indeed been very great, for the sweat of pain stood out upon his forehead, and Mir. and Mrs. CliDgsly, promptly on hand in the inter ests of the National Board of Heathen Helpers, with. reticule before them, were seated at the table hastily drawing up his last will and testament. .
 Upon the balcony wore Robert Forsyth and Hetty, the latter overwhelmed with unappeaseable grief, and Bob, pale from apprehension and affectionate anguieh, distraught between his attentions to his friend, the moaning of his wife, the vensl- fly of those who futtered about the sick room and his own vigorous though uncon- scious thumpings of his palm with his clinched fist, as though it were Slipson' Oogieigh's torturers' heads, all secured in chancery.
 Good old Manoel was singularly calm and bland for SO serious . calamity. He supported his master tenderly In his arms, moved him about as though he had been