Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/48

 32 ^^ST AFRICA. longer seen in the archipelago at all comparable to the sturdy peasantry of North Portugal. Epidemics occasionally break out, and the old chroniclers speak of " pestilence," which in combination with the Moorish corsairs laid waste the rising settlements. At present gastric and typhoid fevers are endemic, although their virulence is much diminished by the topographic distribution of the towns and villages. Trade has given rise to few large centres of population, the houses mostly following in long straggling lines around the island, and thus enjoying the invigorating influence of the sea breezes. The diet also is at once simple and strengthening, large quantities of maize bread being consumed with all the other aliments, such as vegetables, fruits, and fish. "To be wall fed, take all with bread," says the local proverb. Although very fertile, and in all the islands well tilled to a height of over 1,600 feet, the land no longer suffices for the support of the ever-growing popula- tion. This result must be mainly attributed to the distribution of the landed estates. At the time of Hunt's visit in 1840 the number of proprietors repre- sented only a thirty-sixth of the adult inhabitants, and although primogeniture has been abolished, the old feudal division has been largely maintained. San- Miguel still belongs almost entirely to about a dozen large landowners, as at the time of the first settlement. Several domains comprise a broad belt stretching from the rock-bound coast to the cones of the volcanoes. 'No doubt tenants have the traditional right of remaining on the cultivated land and receiving compensa- tion for improvements ; but the rack rents exacted by the landlords represent a large share, sometimes fully one-half, of the whole produce. Small proprietors are far from numerous, and at a change of hands the real value of their holdings is greatly reduced by the fees for sale and the other legal dues by which these small estates are encumbered. Thus the owner too often becomes dispossessed in favour of the rapacious lawyer, or of some wealthier emigrant returning from Brazil, who is willing to pay a fictitious value for the property. Hence the junior members in all families swarm abroad, the number of yearly emigrants varying from two thousand to three thousand, while the annual amount remitted to their relatives is estimated at forty thousand pounds. Shipping companies have been formed to take advantage of this movement, which is directed towards Brazil, the United States, the Portuguese African possessions, and recently also to the Sandwich Islands. In 1882 alone, over two thousand from the single district of Ponta-Delgada migrated to Hawaii, where in 1884 there were reckoned 9,377 of Portuguese race, mostly Azorians. Young men escape from the archipelago especially to avoid military serdce and the wearisome life in some Portuguese fortress. A recent law obliging them to deposit a sufficient sum to provide a substitute is frequently evaded. Agriculture is the great industry of the Azorians, whose implements are still of a very primitive type, the harrows tipped with fragments of lava dating, in fact, from the stone age. But so fertile is the land, that even so it yields twenty- fold the corn committed to the earth. Unlike other great feudatories, the proprietors are seldom absentees, residing constantly on their estates, and