FARO

southernmost city of Portugal, capital and concelho (township) of Faro distrito (district) lying on the Atlantic coast near Cape Santa Maria. Held by the Moors from early in the 8th century until 1249, when it was recaptured by Afonso III, the city was the last Moorish stronghold in Portugal. It was sacked by the English in 1596 and was almost totally destroyed in the earthquakes of 1722 and 1755. Notable remaining buildings include the Renaissance cathedral (restored in the 18th century); the Convent of Nossa Senhora da Anunciao (1513) is in ruins. The former bishop's palace library was pillaged by the Earl of Essex in 1596 and formed the nucleus of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Agriculture is the primary economic activity, and Faro exports fish, wine, sumac (for tanning), and fruit. The publishing industry dates from 1489, when Jewish printers were operating presses in Lisbon and Faro for the country's earliest incunabula in Hebrew. Eucalyptus trees, originally imported from Australia, are an important source of pulp for the paper industry. During the 1970s the Portuguese government designated a reserve near Faro to conserve both the environment and the traditional architecture. Faro district is coextensive with the historical province of Algarve. The district is popular with tourists because of its mild climate, fine beaches, and Moorish-looking towns. Henry the Navigator chose the district as a base for his expeditions in the 15th century, which sailed from ports near Faro city. Area district, 1,915 square miles (4,960 square km). Pop. (1991 prelim.) city, 31,966; concelho, 51,321; (1990 est.) district, 344,900. one of the oldest gambling games played with cards, supposedly named from the picture of a pharaoh on French playing cards imported into Great Britain. A favourite of highborn gamblers throughout Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Faro was the game at which the young count Rostov, in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, lost a fortune. Faro was introduced to the United States in New Orleans. Common in American gaming rooms, especially in the West, until 1915, the game had all but vanished by 1925, except in a few Nevada casinos. In the game the 13 cards of the spade suit, representing the ranks of all suits, are enameled on a layout on which the bets are placed against the house. A bet may be placed on any rank to win or (by coppering the beti.e., placing a copper counter on the chips) to lose; or, by the manner in which the chips are placed on the layout, a bet may cover several ranks. A shuffled pack of playing cards is placed face up in a dealing box. The top card is removed and not used. The next card taken from the box loses (the house pays the coppered bets placed and takes in bets placed on the card to win). The card left showing in the box wins, and the house pays the amount of any bet placed on that rank to win. The two cards constitute a turn. The dealer then removes the exposed card from the box, puts aside another card (which loses), and leaves exposed another card (which wins). The game continues in this fashion through the pack. The last card in the box does not count. When cards of the same rank appear in the same turn and so both win and lose, the house takes half of each bet on that rank, whether to win or to lose. This is called a split. Stuss is a variant of the game in which the cards are dealt from a pack held face down in the dealer's hand, not from a dealing box. When a split occurs the house takes all the bets on that rank instead of only half of them.