37 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



immense influx and mixture of native races in their 

 blood. A pure Portuguese of European descent solely, 

 is difficult to find, for the Arabs during their occupation 

 of Spain and Portugal left scarcely a pure European 

 behind them. Not that a little trace of Arab blood is 

 detrimental to beauty on the contrary, many of the 

 most beautiful of the Spaniards have Arab blood in 

 their veins but the Portuguese have intermarried 

 with the low races from the western coast of India, 

 and with Africans from Loanda, which is certainly 

 not an improvement to the breed as it existed before, 

 nor to their manners and customs as they exist now. 

 Very many of the Fay ale se get away on the sly to 

 avoid the compulsory military service, and return as 

 naturalised Americans, and laugh at the authorities. 

 Smuggling goes on to a great extent. A former 

 American Consul, of some eighty years ago, had 

 realized a large fortune in the islands, and had spent 

 immense sums in importing tropical and other plants, 

 and they all did equally well. His heirs were the 

 princely merchants of the isle, but when I was there, 

 they appeared to be only too anxious to sell their pro- 

 perty and to return to the States. They had houses 

 and lands which they could not sell, yet like the dog 

 in the manger, they would not let them on hire, 

 and preferred letting them go to rot and ruin. They 

 were also very chary of assisting strangers, especially 

 the English, and although I applied to them for in- 

 formation about the shooting, I could get only vague 

 answers, but I soon found it out for myself, and I 

 was then a thorn in their sides, because for every bird 

 (quail) they shot, I killed a dozen. When I first 

 arrived I had broken the mainspring of my gun, so I 



