Identifier: azoresorwesterni00walk (find matches)
Title: The Azores : or Western Islands : a political, commercial and geographical account ...
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Walker, Walter Frederick
Subjects: Azores -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : Trubner & Co.

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l astronomers inEurope, became conspicuously visible in these islands inMarch of that year, and as these mysterious bodies wereat that time looked upon as presaging dire calamities, andas the visible signs of divine wrath, the superstitious inhabi-tants were filled with fear, and by fastings and prayer stroveto ward off the threatened evil. It so happened that a fewdays after the appearance ol this comet a choleraic epidemicbroke out in Ponta Delgada, the daily mortaliirj^ being sogreat that the cemeteries could no longer afford room forinterments. At this juncture, many processions were re-sorted to, and a religious and charitable confraternity es-tablished, known as a irmandade da misericordia, whocommenced their ministrations by a solemn procession withinthe precincts of the town, beating a large drum, that itssounds might expel and drive away the malignant fevers.This belief in the efiicacy of sound to drive away wyckedspirytes seems to have been pretty general at the time, for on
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117 the authority of Brand, bells were rung- in England to driveaway divils and tempests. The old Portuguese chroniclergoes onto say that no sooner had this procession issued from thechurch th£;n the sickness ceased ; a special service of thanks-giving wati thereupon held at the Matriz, attended by thou-sands of tl e inhabitants. The service had scarcely commencedwhen a dove was seen to fly into the crowded edifice, andafter fluttering about for some time, alighted on the chiefaltar piece. The preacher, being equal to the occasion, hailedthe bird as the harbinger of peace, assured the multitudethat their prayers had been heard, and that the Divinewrath had been appeased. Every year this festival isheld on Easter Monday—the anniversary of this occa-sion—the same miraculous dove always putting in anappearance. Another famous ceremonial is the Imperio do EspiritoSanto or, as it is sometimes called, Imperio dos nobres,from its aristocratic associations, which had its originin remote

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