“‘Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis!’
Ruin and desolation!
“‘Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2,500
reis!’ Oh, my sainted mother!
“‘Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis,
13,200 reis!’ Be with us all!
“‘Total, twenty-one thousand
seven hundred reis!’ The suffering
Moses! There ain’t money enough in the
ship to pay that bill! Go—leave me
to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community.”
I think it was the blankest-looking party I ever saw.
Nobody could say a word. It was as if every
soul had been stricken dumb. Wine glasses descended
slowly to the table, their contents untasted.
Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers.
Each man sought his neighbor’s eye, but found
in it no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last
the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of
a desperate resolve settled upon Blucher’s countenance
like a cloud, and he rose up and said:
“Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and
I’ll never, never stand it. Here’s
a hundred and fifty dollars, Sir, and it’s all
you’ll get—I’ll swim in blood
before I’ll pay a cent more.”
Our spirits rose and the landlord’s fell—at
least we thought so; he was confused, at any rate,
notwithstanding he had not understood a word that
had been said. He glanced from the little pile
of gold pieces to Blucher several times and then went
out. He must have visited an American, for when
he returned, he brought back his bill translated into
a language that a Christian could understand—thus:
10 dinners, 6,000 reis, or . . .$6.00
25 cigars, 2,500 reis, or . . . 2.50
11 bottles wine, 13,200 reis, or 13.20
Total 21,700 reis, or . . . . $21.70
Happiness reigned once more in Blucher’s dinner
party. More refreshments were ordered.
I think the Azores must be very little known in America.
Out of our whole ship’s company there was not
a solitary individual who knew anything whatever about
them. Some of the party, well read concerning
most other lands, had no other information about the
Azores than that they were a group of nine or ten
small islands far out in the Atlantic, something more
than halfway between New York and Gibraltar.
That was all. These considerations move me to
put in a paragraph of dry facts just here.
The community is eminently Portuguese—that
is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and
lazy. There is a civil governor, appointed by
the King of Portugal, and also a military governor,
who can assume supreme control and suspend the civil
government at his pleasure. The islands contain
a population of about 200,000, almost entirely Portuguese.
Everything is staid and settled, for the country was
one hundred years old when Columbus discovered America.
The principal crop is corn, and they raise it and
