FAYAL AND THE PORTUGUESE = 299 
being the horse and a sheep’s jawbone the 
wagon, and trots contentedly along, in almost 
the smallest amount of costume accessible to 
mortals. All this refers to the genuine, happy, 
plebeian baby. The genteel baby is probably 
as wretched in Fayal as elsewhere, but he is 
kept more out of sight. 
These children are seldom noisy and never 
rude: the race is not hilarious, and their polite- 
ness is inborn. Not an urchin of three can be 
induced to accept a sugarplum until he has 
shyly slid off his little cap, if he has one, and 
kissed his plump little hand. The manners of 
princes can hardly surpass the natural courtesy 
of yonder peasant, as he insists on climbing the 
orange-tree to select for you the choicest fruit. 
A shopkeeper can never sell you a handful of 
nuts without first bringing the bundle near to 
his lips with a graceful wave of salutation. A 
lady from Lisbon told us that this politeness 
surpassed that of the native Portuguese; and 
the wife of an English captain, who had sailed 
with her husband from port to port for fifteen 
years, said that she had never seen anything to 
equal it. It is not the slavishness of inferiors, 
for the poorest exhibit it towards each other. 
You see two very old women talking eagerly in 
the street, each in a cloak whose every square 
inch is a patch, and every patch a different 
