Among the Azores, is situated the beautiful Island of Fayal, with its orange-groves and profusion of flowers. But, notwithstanding the fruit and flowers, there is one thing which Americans who live there miss sadly, and that is fresh, cool water. There are no lakes or ponds, such as we have here; and so the people have to use rain-water, which they save in large tanks or cisterns.
There are a few wells on the island, which, as the water rises and falls in them twice in every twenty-four hours, are called "tide-wells." But there was a time, many years ago, when the people had neither cisterns nor wells, and were obliged to get water from hollows in the rocks. And this is the story of the first well.
The year 1699 was a year when scarcely any rain fell. The grain did not grow, the cows and sheep died from thirst, and many of the poor people also. Now there was a very rich man on the island, who had come here to live many years before, from another part of the world.

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