The Holbrook news., 1912-06-07

WELLERS on Cape Cod and
 elsewhere on the Massachu-
 sets coast are sometimes sur D prised to learn that many of
 their Portuguese neighbors never saw the mainland of Portugal, but are Azoreans of Island ancestry sometimes centuries old. F. N. vallan- nigham writes in the Boston Evening Transcript When the Portuguese re- public was set up It's enemies were not slow to annoy the new govern ment by stirring dissatisfaction in the Azores, and some Azoreans here fall Ing in with the movement, suggested that the time had arrived for the United StaeSs to annex the Islands. Nobody treated the suggestion very seriously; perhaps 1t was hardly ex- pected that anybody would. and afts-- 3 few mild demonstrations of discon- tent, the Azoreans seem to have ac- cepted the Portuguese republic with resignation if not with satisfaction.
 As a matter of fact the Azores will celebrate this spring the seventeenth anniversary of their attainment of Io- cal seIf-government In the winter of 1S94-5, Portugal, while still maintain Ing the Islands as province of the kingdom, yielded to an oft repeated demand for larger local autonomy, and granted permission for the official dis play of an Azorean flag in honor of the concession.
 In designing that flag the islanders took a lesson from us, but the Azor- can banner. even more than the stars and stripes, symbolizes the history and Political relations of the land. It Is a blue flag bearing a white hawk and nine stars, an emblem that pro claims the group to bs of nine chief Islands lying in the main blue ocean, and bearing a name derived from the Portuguese word for hawk, "acor," with the soft e." which in English be- comes "z" AS a matter of fact the Azores are our nearest neighbors on the east between this coast and Flu rope Corvo, the nearest of the isl Rn6s, is about two-thirds the distance from Boston to Lisbon. The summer Isotherm of 70, which cuts Boston, runs only a few miles north of the Azores, though the islands are about In the latitude of Baltimore. The win ter isotherm of SO almosttouches the most southerly of the group. Gagged between these two isotherms, the Azores have an equable climate Ly- Ing in the track of vessels bound for the Mediterranean, these islands are visited by many liners bound for the Italian ports, and thousands of Ameri- can tourists have touched at Fayal, but hardly one in a thousand of such tourists knows any others of the group.
 IsIands Acquired by Portugal.
 During some centuries all knowl- edge of the Azores was lost even to Europe. An Arabian geographer of the twelfth century described them as densely peopled, and hazarded the guess that they had been known to the Carthaginians. Upon a map made in 1851 the three groups con Btituting the archipelago appear as the Goat islands, the Dove islands and Brazil island One of the puzzles of geography is found in the legends of Brazil island, which was variously To- cated, and which finally gave name to the vast American empire of Portugal. It is said that a Dutch merchant ad- venturer, driven out of his course, cha1ced upon the islands in 1O32, and reported them upon touching at Lis bon, with the result that a Portu- guese expedition was sent out to take possession of them in the name of, the crown Another story is that Dom Henry of Portugal. surnamed the Navigator, housing over the maps that he loved so well. found the isl ands laid down, and dispatched an ex- pIoring expedition to find them
 At any rate, one Cabral, a Portu- Euese navigator, did reach the Azores In 1432, and some time later San Miguel, the Island that he visited, was officially proclaimed Portuguese terri tory. Soon after the middle of the century all nine of the islands had been rediscovered, but nobody guess cd that they were one-third the way | to a vast unknown continent By the | hme Columbus made his first voyage | Lo' America the Portuguese had made | fair start at colonizing the Azores.
 In the nearly 800 years since the Pugtnguese began redisc0Vering the l