Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Friday, June 9th, 1882

Friday June 9th Fayal Hotel.
We hardly moved all night, made 5 miles from 4 o’c until 7 a.m. and anchored at Horta about 11 a.m. Mr Wallach came out in the boat to meet me and Mr Herbert Dabney was on the wharf. I found Grace looking finely. She & Mama have had splendid times. Miss Dabney, Sen. Has been out with Mother every day and Grace has been out frequently in the palanquin. Milly Smith is enthusiastic over everybody and everything. After dinner Mrs Dabney, Miss Alice, Mr Herbert, the maiden aunts and one baby went down to Porta Pim[?] to see a whale cut up. It was not a very large one – not a very pleasant but rather interesting operation. We wandered over to the Dabney’s House and sat on the piazza talking while Grace went on in the palanquin with Miss Dabney & Mr Wallach as escorts. The place at Porta Pim owned by the Dabneys has wide stone floored piazzas and is only one store so it has the appearance of a decidedly Southern house. We came across the beach as the sun was setting and reached home just in time for supper. The walk was lovely. I was with Mrs Dabney & Mr Sanisberry all the way. In the evening we went to the Cardosas, to a party given in honor of the daughter’s “coming out”. I had no party dress but managed by turning in the neck of my white flannel and [continued below]

Books read on Barque Sarah.
The Shadow of the Sword by Robert Buchanan
File No 113 by Gaborian.
Matrimony by W.E. Norris
Mill on the Floss by Geo. Eliot.
Great Singers from Malitran[?] to
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.
Chas Auchester by E. Berger. Trans.
Bebi[?] by Onida

[continued from above]
Wearing a huge bunch of white roses which Miss Alice Dabney sent me to make a tolerably party like appearance. Mrs Edwards volunteered a fan and shawl and a great deal of jewelry which I refused. She was very much hurt to think Miss Smith & I were going in such simple costumes. The Dabneys came in two carriages. When we arrived at the house we were ushered up stairs to a dressing room where Mrs Cardosa met us. She was very graceful and kind. We went down stairs to the large parlor where there were rows of Portuguese girls with their chaperons seated around the room. In an adjoining room were all the young men and in still another, were the fathers smoking and playing cards. The dining table was loaded with glass and silver, and there was half a dozen men servants about. The Portuguese men were quite fine looking in regular dress suits, the young ladies had the closest kind of full back costumes in light colors and covered with sherrings [sic] and bows and loops. A few of them were very pretty and all were young. It has been a great season for engagements – one girl of 14 was pointed out to us. She looked as old as I. They all looked surfeited with society life. She was engaged. Miss Cardosa came to speak to us, through Miss Rose Dabney, and said it was her greatest affliction that she could not speak to us in English, she would speak to us in French. She wished us to know that she was engaged (16 yrs old) to the son of a Baron, a most insignificant little wretch 16 years old too. A gentleman came in to the room where we were and clapped his hands which was a sign that the dancing was to begin. Then the gentleman came in and took partners for a quadrille. The music was from the piano played first by Miss Cardosa and her lover and then by the guests in turn. The arrangements had evidently been programmed beforehand. Their dances are almost exactly like ours, though they go around without reversing in the round dances in a heavy sort of way. They had quadrilles, polkas, mazarkas, and the waltz. Between the dances the gentlemen left the ladies unless they were relatives. The Portuguese asked the Dabneys our relationship as they knew the gentlemen of the party were cousins or brothers from one sitting together. Everybody thought Mr Sanisberry my brother as we danced together ten or twelve times and we took no pains to indulge them. I danced with a Mr DeMello who is a Portuguese “Uncle Geo”, relative to the Cardosas and pointed out his nieces with great pride. He has been in Cal. is very rich and owns the pink villa back of the clock tower. I was [?] about him. At intervals of an hour refreshment was passed about, cakes on a big waiter and blk [black] & green tea, then cakes and jelly, then wine, etc, sandwiches – We ate a little of everything. This went on until morning. We stayed until 4 o’c and I danced almost every moment. Mr Sanisberry insisted on my waltzing with him to every {?] and waltz and I did so until I danced myself out. When we drove home it was dawn the old moon shining with a dull light and the effect very strange and beautiful. We had a great time rousing Antonio who escorted Miss Smith, Mr Wallch & [?] the Sagao to the dining room in his shirt, as cross as the Furies. I turned in for only two hours sleep. The Portuguese ladies always address each other as “your excellency” or “the lady”, never as you. When very intimate they say “thou”. Their [?] affairs are carried on in a very proper fashion. The young men stand outside the wall and throw flowers to the fair one who sits in the window or on the top of the wall. They never speak to each other. After a few months the gentlemen in dress suit and wht [white] gloves calls on the father and asks for the hand of the daughter. After that the lovers meet in the presence of the mother until the wedding time.

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