travel in bullock-carts and hammocks to and from the city. Those who can afford to take their breakfast in bed rise at eleven, stroll in the gardens, and in the afternoons ride into town and play cards. In the Casino there is a daily concert and a nightly ball.

Americans who fall under the sway of the "quinta” life declare that it is ideal—a lotus-eating dalliance in a Garden of Eden.

When Colonel Roosevelt started for Africa on his hunting expedition in 1909, the first stop was at Ponta Delgada on St. Michael's Island in the Azores. This island is the largest and most attractive in the archipelago. Bicycles and motor-cars are used here more than on some other islands. The nature of the climate-neither winter nor summer-has led to a curious method of storing maize, which is left in the cob and hung to a pyramidal structure of laths; such an erection is found in the yard of nearly every cottage passed along the road.

What greatly impresses the visitor at every island, and especially at Ponta Delgada, are the gardens attached to the imposing palaces of the nobility. One of these gardens contains a collection of several thousand different species of trees and is most admirably laid out. In the adjoining gardens are palms which have attained unusual dimensions. One garden near the pier is chiefly admirable for its most lovely arrangement of rockeries and tree-ferns.

Many of the women of the Azores wear a falling

CAPOTE É CAPELLO

33

cloak of black or dark blue material which completely conceals the figure, surmounted by a monstrous hood,

both fashioned on vigorous and definite lines, as is usually the case with any local COStume; the hood is puffed out by strips of whalebone in such a way that the face of the wearer is scarcely visible to the passer-by. This cloak is called the capote é capello, and is said to be of remote Flemish or Algarve origin and is jealously retained by what may be described as the

Azorean middle

class. The people of the Azores are quiet, honest and industrious.

CHAPTER III

GIBRALTAR AND TANGIER

SEVEN weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm

Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more

We ride in still water and the calm

Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore

Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er,

Our exile is accomplished. Once again
We look on Europe, mistress as of yore

Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.

Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill
Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
And, at the summons of the rock guns' roar,
To see her red-coats marching from the hill!
-WILFRED SCAWEN BLUnt.

TANDING at the western entrance to the Mediter

STANI

ranean, Gibraltar, the world-famed promontory, has well been termed "unique in position, in picturesqueness and in history." Another triple title which it bears is "a fortress, a colony and a prison." Gibraltar is not large geographically—perhaps two miles in extent north and south, and less than a mile east and west. It has three summits, two of them being about fourteen hundred feet high-about the same altitude, by the way, as Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Appearing in the distance like a crouching lion, Gibraltar advertises by its physical appearance

THE PRIZE OF WAR FOR CENTURIES 35

that it is the property of Great Britain. Rising abruptly out of the sea, a few miles from the strait bearing its name, the Rock forms an interesting picture with the Sierra Nevadas in the background.

The history of Gibraltar dates back to the Phoenicians; later it was in the hands of the Romans, the

Goths and Vandals and Moors succeeding in holding it. Ferdinand IV, after fourteen sieges, captured Gibraltar in 1309, but it was lost again after twentytwo years and not regained by Spain until 1462, when the Moors were in temporary possession. It was said that Queen Isabella took her seat outside the fortress, vowing that she would not leave it until the Spanish flag should float over the citadel. The gallant Moor

ish Governor saved her Majesty from death by politely raising the Spanish flag for a moment.

For eight centuries the Rock of Gibraltar was the prize of war between Spaniard and Moor. Its very ame under British rule attests the story of the Moorish invasion, Gibraltar being merely Gebel-al-Tarik, the Mountain of Tarik the Moor, who first took possession of it, and planted the Crescent on this one of the Pillars of Hercules. Ten times the Cross and Crescent floated alternately from its highest peak; never was Christian or Moor in undisputed possession of what both considered the pearl of great price until 1598, when the Moor departed for the last time from Spanish soil. For more than a century after that date Spain was master of the situation, but she had soon after that to meet a foe, like herself, bearing the Cross as one of its chief banners. In order to determine which of the two claimants for the throne of Spain should be seated, half of Europe became involved in the War of the Spanish Succession. In this contest England took a hand and sent a squadron into the Mediterranean. Accomplishing little from his cruise, Admiral George Rooke decided to capture at least enough territory for a landing-place for the Austrian pretender to the Spanish throne, whom England was supporting. Not long afterward the Archduke was received at Gibraltar as the lawful sovereign of Spain and proclaimed King by the title of Charles III. Failing finally to receive the throne, he could not