The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-10

export 100000 pineapples to London and Hamburg. Tobacco factories are numer- ous, but the most important local indus try is the manufacture of alcohol from sweet potatoes (convolvu1ous batatas) Then there are soap factories, breweries
 and terra cotta plants. Here the 1ssa- bella grape grows in luxur1ousnesS and at the north end of the island is great whaling station.
 San Miguel abounds in thermal springs and no less a. celebrated physician than Dr. Joseph Muir of New York has pro- nounced their water the sanitary water of the world"
 The greatest hospital of Ponta Delgada should not be neglected. Upon my first visit there saw a little hunchback stand
 ing alone in the twilight in the hospital garden. He had once lived in Boston and spoke English fiuently. He told me that
 he was waiting on his father, who was an inmate of the institution. and upon my | second visit, a year later, he informed Lme that his father had died. During my third visit the little fellow came aboard l the vessel selling nicknacks and recog- | nized me with apparent pleasure. When l I twitted him about not being married or having no sweetheart, his large. lustrous. . black eyes lit up with peculiar fire and I he replied. q do not want a sweetheart;
  mark was provocative of smiles on the part of the passengers, but I blessed the | little cripple for his manly speech. The l gardens surrounding the hospital are most | ornamentally designed and are hfcH with carnations, lilies, rosemary, lavendeA
 larkspur, magnolias and oranges. The | flowers are culled each morning to be
 fashioned into bouquet for the bedside | of each patient, while the oranges and pineapples are placed upon tables in the | center of the wards to perfume the rooms | with their aroma Ice is unknown, but the drinking water is kept cool by means | of porous carafes, the evaporation py
 which produces an extremely low temper | ature. Indeed if one of these earthen vessels is filled with water and placed in | a draught it will completely empty itself | in eight hours by evaporation. The at | tending physicians are all skilled in their profession and most of them are graduates | of the Parisian medical universities. Like l all of the Latin racese the Azoreans are more proud of the doctor than of any l other title and whether they be in the
 army. members of the cabinet or foreign
 envoys, this medical title is always prom | inently displayed in a long roll of other | insignia, provided they hold a diploma l warranting such a distinction. Neither
 the Azores nor the Madeiras are regard
 ed as Portuguese colonies, but they are
 considered as part and parcel of Portugal proper and the Azoreans are extremely proud of calling themselves Lusitanians, the old name of their mother country. | And they possess much to justify this national pride, for the annals of naviga- | tion contain no more illustrous names l than those of Cam, Dias, Cana, Cabral. Magalhaes and Albuquerque, rne last | named being known as the Portuguese | Mars," while of the worlds epics none boo trop pcto <,a l than Comoen's Iusiad.
 | Diaz was the first navigator to double | the south end of Africa and the fleet of Magalhaes was the first to circle the | globe.
 The life of Camoens reads as romance. | Driven from court through his passion for Donna Caterina de Ataide he was l banished to Africa. and lost an eye~fn a | naval engagement near Ceuta. Subse- | quent escapades resulted in his transpor- | tation to India and after IT years of weary wandering. persecution and imprisonment. | he was allowed to return to his native | land, where his literary success but er1- | bittered the court against him.
 | He lived poor and neglected and so l died," was the epitaph written upon a
 marble tablet to his memory on tho w7lf of the church of the convent of Santa
 Anna, but church and tablet were de- | stroyed by an earthquake in 1775.
 His Lusiad ran through sstedstions and ] is translated into every language in Eu- rope. The influence of this poet preserved \ the Portuguese tongue from destruction
 during the period of the Spanish occupa- | ton when Castilian was the language of the court. He sang of his country and her heroes, and garnered all that splendid
 and heroic achievement. historical narra' | ton and popular fables could supply,
 which he wove into Portugals crown of | effulgent glory.
 It was dusk when I sailed away from
 the Azores. leaving the simple people in | their primitiveness and happiness and
 with regretful eyes I watched the rapidly
 receding shores and fading mountains of | the Lost Atlantis ~