nly three or four
hundred dollars a year, and yet keep several servants, and always appear
rather stylishly dressed. The low rate of wages (two dollars a month at
the very highest) makes servants a cheap form of elegance. I was told of
a family employing two domestics upon an income of a hundred and twenty
dollars. Persons come to beg, sometimes, and bring a servant to carry
home what is given. I never saw a mechanic carry his tools; if it be
only a hammer, the hired boy must come to fetch it.

Fortunately, there is not much to transport, the mechanic arts being in
a very rudimentary condition. For instance, there are no saw-horses nor
hand-saws, the smallest saw used being a miniature wood-saw, with the
steel set at an angle, in a peculiar manner. It takes three men to saw a
plank: one to hold the plank, another to saw, and a third to carry away
the pieces.

Farming-tools have the same simplicity. It is one odd result of the
universal bare feet that they never will use spades; everything is done
with a hoe, most skilfully wielded. There are no wheelbarrows, but
baskets are the universal substitutes. The plough is made entirely of
wood, only pointed with iron, and is borne to and from the field on
the shoulder. The carts are picturesque, but clumsy; they are made of
wicker-work, and the iron-shod wheels are solidly attached to the axle,
so that all revolves together, amid fearful creaking. The people could
not be induced to use a cart with movable wheels which was imported from
America, nor will they even grease their axles, because the noise is
held to drive away witches. Some other arts are a little more advanced,
as any visitor to Mr. Harper's pleasant Fayal shop in Boston may
discover. They make homespun cloth upon a simple loom, and out of their
smoky huts come beautiful embroideries and stockings whose fineness is
almost unequalled. Their baskets are strong and graceful, and I have
seen men sitting in village doorways, weaving the beautiful broom-plant,
yellow flowers and all, until basket and bouquet seemed one.

The greater part of the surface of the island is cultivated like a
kitchen-garden, even up to the top of volcanic cones eight hundred feet
high, and accessible only by steps cut in the earth. All the land
is divided into little rectangular patches of various verdure,
--yellow-blossomed broom, blue-flowering flax, and the contrasting
green of lupines, beans, Indian corn, and potatoes. There is
not a sp