her a drawback in learning any less
universal language, because the best company in any nation will usually
have some knowledge of French, and this tempts one to remain on neutral
ground and be lazy. 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 visiting the
smaller hamlets on the island, I usually found that the owners of the
two or three most decent houses had learned to speak English in this
way. But I was amused at the dismay of an American sea-captain who on a
shooting excursion ventured on some free criticisms on the agriculture
of a farm, and was soon answered in excellent English by the proprietor.

"Look at the foolish fellow," quoth the captain, "carrying his plough to
the field on his shoulder!"

"Sir," said the Portuguese, coolly, "I have no other way to take it
there."

The American reserved his fire, thereafter, for bipeds with wings.

These Americanized sailors form a sort of humbler aristocracy in Fayal,
and are apt to pride themselves on their superior knowledge of the
world, though their sober habits have commonly saved them from the
demoralization of a sailor's life. But the untravelled Fayalese
peasantry are a very gentle, affectionate, childlike people, pensive
rather than gay, industrious, but not ingenious, with few amusements and
those the simplest, incapable of great crimes or very heroic virtues,
educated by their religion up to the point of reverent obedience, but no
higher.

Their grace and beauty are like our impressions of the Italian
peasantry, and probably superior to the reality in that case. Among
the young men and boys, especially, one sees the true olive cheeks and
magnificent black eyes of Southern races. The women of Fayal are not
considered remarkable for beauty, but in the villages of Pico one sees
in the doorways of hovels complexions like rose-petals, and faces such
as one attributes to Evangeline, soft, shy, and innocent. But the
figure is the chief wonder, the figure of woman as she was meant to be,
beautiful in superb vigor,--not diseased and tottering, as with us, but
erect and strong and stately; every muscle fresh and alive, from the