Show I Azores Take on n New Importance Since in ce Atlantic Fliers Halt There Now 0 o th that tt the have ha c become a s stopping slopping place for overseas o flyers the little group roup in lii the vast ast spaces of oC the Atlantic will take on an added im Irn- rhe They have o long Jon been tho alon along that pathway In the At Atlantic Atlantic At- At lantic which leads direct from America to Gibraltar Pre Presumably the they are arc the tops of oC mountains on that sunken m Island Atlantis once the homo of or thu tho t V b 4 Greek Greel gods and still sUlI a paradise paradiso of oC subtropical subtropical sub sub- tropical beauty The Tho A Azores have a total area of oC nearly neaT near l ly 13 1000 square miles and if iC the ocean n S E- E m i ix I x ii t 5 vS t j I 4 f I Jh- Jh r r- r i 4 sL b- b 4 C I r j 7 could be drained to Its bed the they would tower as a group of or great reat mountains Their highest his peak rises feet above aboe the surface of the sea which is about equal to the tho altitude of the loftiest summit in the United States cast east of the Hock Rocky mountains The islands are indeed tho the peaks of oC old volcanoes or are volcano The They abound In hot hol springs Earthquakes have ha often orten wrought ht much damage damas-c. This mountain group ris rises es above e the ocean at points about aboul miles apart in their extreme range east cast and west and about OO miles from Crom north to south The peaks can be seen at t a areat great reat distance In clear weather and thc they have been sighted b by uncounted thousands of oC passengers on ocean steamships going going- b by without stopping on their way ay between Europe and America Only miles from Crom the coast of or Portugal al the Azores seem to have been known to CarUla traders That Is indicated by the discovery of ot Phoenician coins on Corvo o one of oC the nine islands now inhabited Arab maps of or the middle a ages show the ex existence ec- ec of or tho thio Azores and arul they appear on an Italian map mado made in 1351 1151 perhaps perhaps perhaps per per- haps based on the Arab records Yet they were virtually found anew when the they were visited b by Portuguese navigators navigators navigators navi navi- gators from 1431 un to 1460 sixty one years ears at most before belore Columbus discovered discovered dis dis- covered ered America One of or the strangest facts about this group of or fertile Isles with their warm climate their beauty and their fruits Is that when the first Portuguese ad adventurer adventurer ad- ad reached them they were all empty empt of oC human inhabitants Now ow I there are are- about a quarter of oC a million I chiefly of Portuguese blood But there ther arc are some negroes and mulattoes and I from froni them have ha mi migrated rate to New ew En England England Eng Eng- land coast towns part lart at least of or the Ule Immigrants rants often spoken of oC in Now New Bedford Bedfor in Cape Cod villages es and elsewhere elsewhere else else- where on the Massachusetts coast as black Portuguese to distinguish them from the more numerous u white Portuguese who have ha come directly from Portugal The rhe Azores have ha belonged to Portugal Portugal gal al from th the tho time of their discovery discover and they have ha shared the general inertia and slow movement mo 0 of that country during the thc last two t or three centuries The They have ha been little but a picturesque stopping place for tor steamers on the route to and from Crom Mediterranean ports and the thc Atlantic coast cities of or Portugal al and Spain with some somo export trade in tropical fruits and a small but growing patronage as a winter resort l j Scenes in the Azores From Prom top to bottom bridge at Fayal public square at Punta Delgada landing place at Punta Delgada |