Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1912-05-21

IL prised to learn that many of
their Portuguese neighbors
never saw the mainland of Portugal,
but are Azoreans OF island ancestry
sometimes centuries old, II N. Vallan-
dighafh writes in the Boston Evening
Transcript. When the Portuguese. re-
public was set up Its enemies We're
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 States to annex the Islands.
Nobody treated the suggestion very
seriously; perhaps 1t was hardly ex-
pected that anybody would, and after
few mild demonstrations Of discon-
tent, the Azoreans seem to have ac-
cepted the Portuguese republic with
resignation IL not with satisfaction.
AS matter of fact the Azores will
celebrate this spring the seventeenth
anniversary of their attainment of To-
cal self-government. In the winter of
1S94-5, Portugal, while still maintain
Ing the islands as a 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 1t
Is blue flag bearing white hawk
and nine stars, an emblem that pro-
claims the group to BIZ of nine chief
Islands lying in the main blue ocean,
and bearing q name derived from the
Portuguese word for hawk, "acor,"
with the soft &C." which In English be-
comes u" AS a matter of fact the
Azores are our nearest neighbors on
the east between this coast and Eu-
rope. Corvo, the nearest of the ISL
ands, 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 60 almost touches the
most southerly of the group. Gagged
between these twp 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
rtoHoy, ,,ortc ovd tbo,,eo,5. A,x,.,.,
can tourists have touched at Fayal,
but hardly one in a thousand of such
tourists knows any others of the
group.
Islands 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 map
made. in 1851 the three groups con-
stituting 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-
Gated, and which finally gave name to
the vast American empire of Portugal.
It Is said that Dutch merchant ad-
yenturer, driven out of his course,
CHANGED upon the islands in 1882. and
reported them upon touching at Lis
bon. with. the result that 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 we'll found the ISL
ands laid down, and dispatched an ex-
ploring expedition to find them. ~
: At any rate, one Cabral, "a Portu-
guese 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
ed that they were one-third the way
TO vast unknown continent. BY the
time Columbus made his first voyage
to America the Portuguese had made
Z fair start at colonizing the Azores.
In the nearly 500 years since the
Portuguese began rediscovering the