Daily Wabash Express, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 8 December 1889 — Page 6

EDGAR WARM'S LETTER.

The Graphic Descriptive Writer Tells More About the ores.

THE MARVELOUS MELODIES OF THE CANARIES AND MERLOS.

The Hospitality of the People—A Rest at a Quaint Old Inn.

Copyrighted.

Special Correspondence of tlie iTxpresa. FURNAS, St. Michael, Azores, November 5,1889.—We were received with every manifestation of delight by the carboneiros, the hospitality o£ whose ancestors had proven so soothing to the Azorean Rip Van Winkle, Dobrado Madraco, that he has not yet awakened from hia two-centurieb' sleep. Our donkeys were tethered and cared for water for washing was brought in ponderous ewers from a cool ropresado or spring cheap wine, agoaardente or brandy, and tobacco in extraordinary quantities were provided queer, big-eyed and half-naked rapazos and menians, boys and girls, to whose simple consciousness thestrangers were as marvel and dream, gathered about us, looked, wondered, and with silvery burets of laughter flsd to their mothers or the forests for recovery a supper of such proportions, variety and grotesquenoss was provided as never before greeted the eyes of civilized man, and durring the long evening these half-wild men and women charcoal burners of the mountains—the brisk, shapely and muscular women digging out of odd corners of shadowy old cabins many a bauble and bit of finery for the occasiondanced for us, and with us, upon the grimy smooth-worn ground such hilarious zapateos, such outlandish bailes, and such grotesque fandangos a3 no fervid pen could describe or lax moralist be willing to approve. It was a Gipsy scene indeed, lacking only the hooded tents and the circling, huddled wagons for here and there the charcoal tires flared ae tlare the camp fires of the Gipsief, knots of fir flamed and flickered at tfce tops of husre pikes or from cressets bound to overhanging trees scores of swarthy forma whirled in the half lights and shadows, and the glowing stars, pulsing in their semi-tropic fires quivered through the weird, dark plumes cf luxurious verdure above.

We set our from the carbonoiros' camp at a very early hour the next morning. As we descended the mountains towards the coast we missed our way for a little, which gave us a pleasing deep-woods experience. Of a sudden we found ourselves in a dense forest of firs, broken here and there by abrupt juttings of lava rock along whose sides und over whose heights indescribable wealth of ferns ran in banks of gently-waving plumes. At the bases, and from the sides of each mass of rock numberless nature's fountains wimpled and spouted, and from these, little streams bounded and sang towards the vallevs below with surprising melodiousness. As far as we penetrated, the earth's covering beneath the firs was like a carpet of velvety puce. The footfalls of our donkeys could scarcely be heard. Up, up, un, thirty, fifty, sometimes eighty feat straight as an arrow Bhot the russet lir-trunks. Then the arches interlaced and the verdure grew eo densely thut the sky was shut from sight. Now and then in that upper lacswork of bow nnd shadow little flecks of enll'rony light seemed floating- tremulously. And in these what bird orchestras were welcoming the radiant day for our delight! Countless numbers of the famous green canaries and the alirioBt as wonderful singers, the merlos, or the Azorean blackbirds, were siuging their rival madrigals and the most remarkable part of it all was the e6eming regularity of alternation in their marvelous melodies. For a time the merlos would have it all to themselves. Again only the note3 of the canaries would be heard. Then both, iss if to out-sing each other or the really orchestral effects of the brooks beneath them, would blend their shrill trebles and soft contraltos into a sustained and ravishing diapason of bird-voice song. Old Manuel, the guide, regarded my enhancement for a time in dignified silence, and tiually with a grave shake of his head remarked: "Ah, yes, like women, beautiful to the eye or ear, but sad pests at times. When fliey sing so sweetly, we islanders knovjj it is because t.heir crops are full, and our field-stores have been devastated. So our government gives 20 reis per dozfn beaks for the cauario and the marlo. If Mateito and I could carry the beaks of all that are now singing above us back to

Ponta Delgndo, we could each be master of a quinta like the rich of the city!''

Mateito was eo excited over his sudden vision of itfiluenco that he set about larruping our donkeys in such a ferocious manner that the beasts of their own accord returned to the path from which \va had diverged. Indeed in the entire descent toward the northern coastwise villages such a rapid pace was made, that when we had reached the city of Kiberia Grande we welcomed a short rest at a quaint old inn. The host was an acquaintance of Manuel, which fact caused to be set before us such stores of food and Buch flagons of native wine as gave one wonderful notions concerning the resources of Azorean nature and Azorean cooks. The fat old landlord would let no one's hand but his own prepare the food: and so we sat and chatted, waiting and hungering in the smoky cozinha, and nt last securing really delicious grilled fowl, meal bread, roasted sweet potatoes, the sweetest of butter and milk, a pungent native cheese like the Brie of the French, and the blackest and vilest coffee one ever tasted outside an American sailing 6hip's dirty cabin. He 6tood beside us" while we ate, now helping us with ludicrous alertness to different acticles of food, now wiping the smoke and perspiration from his fiery red face with his great linen apron, again drinking our health and "a heaven-defended journey" in a very luciousness of hospitality with our own purchased wine. Tfcen the ponderous, paddy fellow ran behind our donkeys for a'good mile through the Btreets of Kiberia Grande, breathing prayers and petitions for our safety never desisting until the suburbs were reached and he

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could call the attention of his good townfolk to the importance of the guests he had that day ..entertained. As we turned up the mountain way our last glimpse of the odd Boniface was as he sat pufling upon the edge of a pleosont fountain, a prey to the attentions of jocose muleteers, while fanning his red and rubicund face with tho majestic linen apron in which he had served us.

Our fortune as to hospitalities of the road were less unctuous that night. Failing to reach Furnas and its lovely valley, our anxiety for housing was at last relieved by our wise donkeys suddenly pricking up their ears, and, in spite of us, striking into a great speed which WU3 not slackened until we were alongside a lonely roadside inn. We were gaily welcomed by a hulking, rough looking fellow armed and equipped as if for war. The structure was a long, low, one-story stone building, painted a curious yellow, with a porch of half its own size, under which were troughs and open stalls for animals. The interior was simply one large room, darkened and begrimed with the filth of generations. A half-dozen cumbersome wooden tables were scattered about, alongside of which were benches of mammoth size, Bnd some hewn stones, as seats. A stout plank, behind which were bottles with the vilest Azorean liquors, constituted the bar, at one end of which stood an entire wild boar-skin filled with wine, its open mouth suggesting all sorts of ferocious possibilities. Along the low rafters were countless pegs, upon which were hung strings of unnamable and pungent vegetables, strings of onions, bits of salt pork' and strips of taasalho, or jerked beef. After several hours waiting a supper, prepared by the landlord's wife over a coal urn fire, around which she seemed in constant shrill-voiced encounter with sundry goats, dags, game cocks and halfnaked children, was served. This consisted of an Azorean hodge podge or composto de varios viandas—meat, meal, greens and fish—which we were glad enough to get with the aid of horn forks and spoons. No hint whatever was given us of where we were to sleep and along towards midnight Manuel and Mateito foraged and wrangled until a portion of mountain heath was bestowed upon the huddled benches. With this ond our saddles, pouches, serons, and Eome rushwoven blankets, we bade defiance, in peaceful slumber, to goats, chickens and fleas, for the remainder of the night.

We had no cause to loiter at the lonely old mountain inn, and got away from the over-populous hovel before daybreak. A brisk ride over a pleasant road, with here nnd there clusters of peasants' cabins gleaming along the little valleys or pretty hillsideB in highlands, with now and then a moment of loitering at roadside fountains or upon stone-arched bridges where foaming cascades swept through lovely glens to the invisible ocean below, brought us to the upper plateau of a circling rauge of mountains nearly 3,000 feet in height. The 6un was just sweeping the eastern rim of these noble elevations, when suddenly turning the sharp point of a craggy hillock overhanging the road, the entire graud cyclorama of the famous Yalle das Furnas was spread before us.

From the height where we stood the valley appeared to be oval-shoped, from six to nine miles in length and from two to four in width. The mountains surrounding it are from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Their serrated edges are broken here and there by lesser valleys of woundrous symmetry,

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THE TERRE HAUTE EXPRESS SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 8. 188!).

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-Copyright—Ktmkel Bros., 1888—KUNKJSL'S UOVAJL EDITION.-

by natural cuttings in the lava through which wind estrados rivalling the Hainan roads of old, by precipitous gorges and canons flecked by misty cascades, and by pockets and hollows, in which from our elevation we could catch glimpses of silent lakes and shadowy tarns. Innumerable streams like sinuous lines of pearls blend, cross, separate and wind in fanciful ways within and through the lower levels. The heights are purple with heather, blending into masses of green where the firs stand thickly, merging into darker green over banks of bays, and shading into blue, or gold, or puce, as tho lights or shadows play upon the matted lichens of the wilder and steeper sides. Half a hundred peasants' cabins could be counted from where we stood. Twice that many goat herd paths like delicate ribbons of pink, and lanes, with blue or gray old walls half-hidden in masses of vines, interlaced the whole valley and mouutain-sides, or were lost in the blue tints of upland valleys, until the whole surface of the scene seemed traced and interwoven like the lines of a diminutive map of some populous continent. Away down, down below were the white walls, the red roofs, the single church dome scd the long, straggling streets of the quaintest old village in all the Azores. Passing us in the roadway where we stood, streaming down the mountains to our right and left, and from the opposite valley ascents, were tiny droves of milk white goots. To each was tied a little bell of different tone. The flocks were being driven to their daily milking in the village. The bare-footed goat-herds sounded their shrill pipes as they followed behind. From copse and hedije the black-birds and wild canaries, as if fired with elated rivalry, gave forth surpassing bursts of song—hundreds upon hundreds of silvery bells, scores upon scores of joyous pipes, thousands upon thousands of voices of birds, blending, chiming, swelling into the strangest, the sweetest, and yet the most tremulously tender, melody human ears aver heard! And yet thus is the morning ushered every day of the year in this wondrous vale of Furnas. Until now the silent vale was asleep. But see the picturesque response to the marvelous matin song. Issuing from the shadowy wajs of the serene hamlet below, from quinta or villa of the opulent demesnes of the gentle slopes at hand, or, far and neir, from pretty camarasinha or cabin embowered in vines or trees, appear as vestal-maids to do otlice before the priestess of day, an hundred Furnas maidens. Each chirps or chants her own best-loved cantiga, and upon her shapely head is a bright red ewer. Her 6kirts are blue, her bodice white, or pink or yellow. Her feat and arms and head are bare. Her form is Hellenic. Her eyes are deep and languorous, but liquid with light. The sun, sweeping above the hoary Pica da Vara over there, never painted such Vermillion as tinges her cheeks or such crimson 03 opens from her flashing teeth. Thus singing back to the herds, the birds and the morning, these witching water-car-riers thread the paths upward to the fountain?, interweaving in the idyllic scene bits of sound, color and life that win the heart entire. How long we feasted on the scene I know not, but it touched and thrilled even the turgid veins of my gray old guide. He broke the silence with a sigh. Then placing his shriveled hands upon his heart and rolling his eyes heavenwards, he lifted his cracked and nasal voice in such lugubrious soij£ the restless donkeys tl6t6

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brayed response in sympathetic miserere: ••Kste valle ralnha terra, K' minha terra natat,

Mas em bellezas qua encerr.i, No mundo nao tern rlvall'-

Thla my valley and my liome spot Tills liir own, my native land Ah, the glories that begirt thee

In tlie world unrivaled stand! That is the song out of all the hearts of the Furnas peasants to their witching, beloved valley. But its fame springs from more than its beauties. The now noble vale was once a vast volcano's crater. The hidden forces tell their nearness by unceasing spoutingsof thermal waters. In scores of lowest hollows, fissures in the mountain sides, in fountains and tarns, in marsh and beside stream, there is a never ending gurgling, boiling, hissing and pulsing from the fire-charged reservoirs below. In many places the heat of the earth will prevent your walking upon it. In some peasonts cook their food in nature's stew-pans. Everywhere are violent tremblings ond mutteringe, while within many of the geysers the thumping and pounding, as if from piston strokes of tremendous engines, convey an uncontrollable sense of the terrible to the stranger. Hundreds of years ago reclusss from the continent discovered the spot and, through the healing wcters, worked miracles here. Then the Jesuites came. They got control of the entire valley, and planted orange gardens and ynm fields. When

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order was expel'ed, a little

over one hundred years ago, the Azorean peasantry succeeded them. Nearly all own their little herdades or farms but there is a somnolence in the spot thatrepresses energv. They live idyllic lives for peasants. Their peeds are few. The earth is bounteous. Every one is simple, honest, contented. They scarcely know old age. Some of the conditions making this possible—the climate, the thermal waters, the languorous beauty of the surroundings, and the peacefulness of spot, make it a wonderful place for the ailing. A few from Lisbon first came. Then the aristocracy of the island began to come. Finally an adventuresome Englishman or American penetrated the mountains of St. Michael. And so the world began to know about, the Furnas valley and gave it fome. When our countrymen can get to it as easily as to London, much of its quiet beauty will go, but there will be a newer and greater Baden-Badn here. The climate will make this so. It ranges between 75 deg in summer and 52 deg in winter. A magnificent bathing house, to which the various thermal and mineral waters are brought has been built and you may bath here forever, free! That is the most remarkable thing in all the Azores. Living expenses are so low one is ashamed to call them aneauiva lent you have summer in winter, spring in summer, and the delights of tropic life in verdure and fruit the year round while in all southern Europe that which so entrances the traveler through the picturesque in peasant life and ways, cannot surpass what may at any moment be seen and felt from your quaint old Furnas balcony for -the glories thjitsurround tliee

In the wjrld unrivaled stand." EDGAR L. WAKEM.VN.

New York's Mushroom Aristocracy. "Do you knOw Mr. Marcus Browne?" "Know him? I guess. He was my champignon de voyage when I went abroad last summer," replied Mr. Malaprop.—[Life.

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A TRAGEDY OF SOUND.

A 1'urla Landlord and His Guests Terrill by a Practical Joker. Racently, in one of the Paris hotels a curious scene was enacted, which produced a great effect on the guests staying in the house. A few weeks previous to the occurrence a mm had taken two rooms, one a bad room and the other a sitting-room. Although no one ever visited him. his neighbors and the hotel servants frequently heard noises and voices issuing from his roomy,—ft feminine voice and a child's voice. In the corner of his room stood a big trunk, with two seals on it. The guest porticularly requested the servant never to touch the trunk. Ooce the guest called a servant, ordered a dinner, and told him not to disturb him again, as he intended to tuke a nap immediately ufter dinner. But about half-past seven in the even:ng a loud and oonfused noise aro-e in the rooms. Chairs and tables were heard to fall, and it seemed as it' there was a fight going ou. The hotel servants gathered at the door and began to listen attantively. Suddenly they heard the fall of a body, and desperate feminine cries. "Help! He will murder me!

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He will kill me!

Scoundrel! Air! I'm suffocating!" They rushed to the proprietor, 8nd he decided at once to unlock the door and examine the rooms.

But when they attempted to turn the key, which they had put in from the outside, the door was fastened within, and the guest shouted to them in an irritated voice: "Ljave me alone! It does not concern you what is being done in my rooms."

On the proprietor's replying that he will call in the police if the door is not directly thrown open, the guest angrilysaid: "Away I am the master here, and do what I please."

The police were sent for, and they immediately made their appearance. But when thay approached the door, no woman's voice was any more to be heard, but a child's, appealing in hesrt-rending tones.

Forgive me, papa, forgive! Do not kill me I will never tell anybody. have mercy on me."

Meantime around the entrance a great crowd had gathered, of gueste, servants, and others attracted by the disturbance.

The police officers ordered the door to be broken in, but just at this instrant the mysterious guest opened it, and 6tood before the besiegers. "Sieza that man!" cried the officer, while he and a few subordinates hastened into the bed-room.

The furniture in the room was in utter disorder. The trunk had been removed to the sitting-room, and from the inside the stifled groans issued, and the beating of the victim against its walls. At the same time, from the big clothespress in the bed-room, the sobbing of a child reached the ears of the officers, and the imploring words, "Mama! Papa! forgive I will reveal nothing!"

The officers surrounded the trunk, but it was locked, while the seals on it were perfectly sound. The groanB were suspended. Hastening to the clothes press it was also found locked. "Give up the keys!"ordered the officer, turning to the tightly held guest. The latter coolly proceeded to bunt for them in his pockets.

I am suffocating—I am dying!" came from the trunk again. The officers began to pound it vigor

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ously with some tools, but they were checked by the woman's voice from within: "Carefully, but quickly! I am dying."

When the trunk was finally broken open, it was found to contain anotheJ smaller trunk, also locked. Simultaneously the clothes press was broken open, and the officer tenderly lifted in his arms a 3 years old child, which he had found iu it. He was trembling with emotion.

But the child reassured him. "Thank you," it said, "but it was hardly worth the trouble. My papa ia a ventriloquist, while I am a paper doll."

And indeed the mysterious guest proved to be avfamous ventriloquist, whose business had not prospered at Paris, and who had hit upon this little scheme to obtain a lot of sensational and free adertising.

SHOT A CARRIER PIGEON.

A l'emr.ut Kills and Kats a MeHseneer of the Kmprotik of Austria. The pathetic adventures of a carrier pigeon lately employed by the empress of Austria to bear a letter to her daughter, the Archduchess Marie Valerie, may be noted by writers of fiction iu quest of new incidents. The bird was one of those which are trained for serv'ce at the arsenal of Pola, and when the empress recently sailed from Pola to Corfu sh»» took this pigeon on board her yacht, having arranged to let it fly with a letter for her daughter at a certain distance from the coast. It was supposed that the pigeon would return to Pola, and orders were given to forward the contents of the letter which it carried immediately b.v^ telegraph to the young archduchess. Unfortunately a peasant with a gun saw the bird aud shot it, and so, while he bore home the erupreaa' winged messenger for supper, the letter remained on the ground. It was accidentally found a few days afterwards, and now loyal newspapers are proposing that to prevent a recurrence of such mishaps pigeons should no more be shot at all. It is a wonder that no body ha6 suggested that carrier pigeons on state service should be put into a showy uniform, like those in which the Austrian civil servants are shortly going to astonish their fellow-subjects. to .. ..

Goad Hoy Tommy.

Mother—Tommy, I hear you got a thrashing in school to-day. Tommy—Yes, ma, the teacher whipped me, but he is getting so old and weak that it didn't hurt much. "Did you cry." "Oh, yes, I bawled so that you could have heard it on the next block." "Why did you do that?" "I wanted to make the old man feel happy onc9 more."— [T«xas Siftings.

A Good Tumbler.

Misa Knowall—Apropos of pigeons, Mr. McNoodle, there goes a fine specimen! '.JS?

Mr. MuNoodle—Why, wKere, Miss Knowall? Miss Knowall—There! Don't you see young Dudie McFlaah has gone head first down the companionway, proving himself a first-class "tumbler!''—[The Ocean.

She Who Must He Obeyed. It is a woman's wont to have her will* —[Richmond Dispatch.

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HE SITS SIDEWISE NOW.

Little Wlllio Tirig- Cutche* a Sjmnkinjr Iunlctil or a Woo.lchiiek. Little Willie Briggs, of Portland, as he sits on one side of himself to eat his meals, is ruminating contritely now on the text, "Behold what an infernal rumpus a little fire kindleth," writt»q Middteton (Coon.) correspondent. Willium is sore in mind and sorer in that part of the bjdy where a shingle in old Mr. Briggs' haud smote him. The lad hunted woodchucks last Saturday with companions in tho Connecticut river valley, just below Portlaud, and they chased woodchuck into a line, open-faced hole in the bank of the river. Willie wanted the woodchuck very much, and, after trying water, pouring bucketfuls of it into tho burrow unavailingly, the boys tried fire n«xt. They got together a great quaotity of leaves and dried wood, and, stuffing the fuel far down the hole, thoy touched it off with a match.

It burned finally, but the woodchuck wouldn't come out on the other.hand, the woods took fire. From Saturday nfternoon until Monday evening tne dwellers in the valley were fighting lire, but had no better luck in getting it out than was Willie's luck with the groundhog. A good many ucres have been burned over, hundreds of cords of valuable timber have been destroyed, and the only tangible fruit from the affrti'- io a lesson on a scriptural text to Willie Briggs, who sits sidewuys at his meals.

How She Was Dressed.

"The bride wore an appropriate aud becoming dress of gray grow grain silk, nnd a fishoo of white Vallention's lace, with long veil or white tool," was the description a rural editor gave of the bride's appearance at a wedding. The bride herself gave him the description, and he took it down by the sound, and as he wa3 his own compositor it w«s published just as he wrote it.—[Youth's Companion.

For Want of Koom.

John Thomas lleBlop, an English lad, has microscopic sight, and can see as fur wi the naked eye as any one can see with an ordinary telescope. He says that the leg of an ordinary housefly appears as big aa a finger to him, and he at first supposed them to be vultures. What he sees in a glass of beer is well worth recording, but ie crowded out of this issue.—[Detroit Free Press.

Another Krok«n Friendship. Miss EllieAncee(justengaged)—What do you think EJwin said last night? That if he had to choose either me or a million dollars he wouldn't even look at the million.

Miss Mary Tour (still waiting)—Dear, loyal fellow! I suppose he didn't like to risk the temptation.—[Time.

Honesty Doubly Ituwurderi. A man lately bought a pocketbook at Stewart's drug store "and when be arrived at home and opened it he diecov-^ ered that it contained a 320 bill, which he immedietely returned to the

Btore.

As a reward for bis honesty Mr. Stewart not onlv told him to keep the money, but give him a dose of pillB, too.—[Kerrville Paper.