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Updated: May 9, 2025
On the fifth of April they passed the Azores, running close to the islands of Fayal and San Jorge so that the passengers might admire the zigzag rows of white houses that reached from the shore far up the steep hillsides. On the sixth day they sighted Gibraltar and passed between the Moorish and Spanish lighthouses into the lovely waters of the Mediterranean.
Malo; but being forced into Lisbon by bad weather, the ship received some damage by running aground in the mouth of the river Tagus, and was obliged to unload her cargo there; but finding a Portuguese ship there bound for the Madeiras, and ready to sail, and supposing he should meet with a ship there bound to Martinico, he went on board, in order to sail to the Madeiras; but the master of the Portuguese ship being but an indifferent mariner, had been out of his reckoning, and they drove to Fayal; where, however, he happened to find a very good market for his cargo, which was corn, and therefore resolved not to go to the Madeiras, but to load salt at the Isle of May, and to go away to Newfoundland.
In Fayal and Pico the most careless observer from the anchorage of Horta can scarcely fail to associate the number of smooth conical hills with former volcanic activity; and in looking over Captain Vidal's beautiful charts of the Azores, nearly all the principal hills throughout the group are seen to have their craters or caldeiras.
The islands being wholly of volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very rich. Nearly every foot of ground is under cultivation, and two or three crops a year of each article are produced, but nothing is exported save a few oranges chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, and nobody goes away. News is a thing unknown in Fayal. A thirst for it is a passion equally unknown.
Flores is one hundred and seventy-four miles from Fayal, and although it is a high island, it remained many years undiscovered after the principal group of the islands had been colonized. Early on the morning of July 20 I saw Pico looming above the clouds on the starboard bow. Lower lands burst forth as the sun burned away the morning fog, and island after island came into view.
In truth, the English had no little dread of the results of conference between the Jesuits and the Portuguese authorities of Fayal; but the conscience or humanity of Turnel revolted at the expedient which awakened such apprehension in the troubled mind of Biard.
But the best company in Fayal was so much less interesting than the peasantry, that some of us persevered in studying the vernacular. To be sure, one finds English spoken by more of the peasants than of the small aristocracy of the island, so many of the former have spent some years in American whale-ships, and come back to settle down with their savings in their native village.
In this opinion he was much confirmed by his friend Martin de Bohemia , a Portuguese and an able cosmographer, a native of the island of Fayal. Many other circumstances concurred to encourage Columbus in the mighty enterprize of discovery towards the west, by discoursing with those who used to sail to the westwards, particularly to the islands of the Azores.
The moss was the first primeval coating of vegetation just clothing those lava-rocks again. But the time was coming when we must bid good-bye to picturesque Fayal.
This fight took place in the open sea, 6 leagues to the southward of the sound or channel between Fayal and Pico.
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