(_Abridged chiefly from the Rev. Mr. Kinsey's "Portugal Illustrated."_)
_Spaniards and Portuguese._--"Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and
you make a good Portuguese of him," says the Spanish proverb. I have
heard it said more truly, "Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you
have the Portuguese character." These nations blaspheme God by calling
each other natural enemies. Their feelings are mutually hostile; but the
Spaniards despise the Portuguese, and the Portuguese hate the
Spaniards.--_Southey._
_Portugal._--Situated by the side of a country just five times its size,
Portugal, but for the advantageous position of its coast, the good faith
of England, and the weakness of its hostile neighbour, impassable roads,
and numerous strong places, would long since have returned to the
primitive condition of an Iberian province; but its separate existence
as a nation has been preserved to it by the strength of the British
alliance being brought into a glorious co-operation with all its own
internal means of defence.--_Kinsey._
_Column of Disgrace._--About the middle of the last century, the Duke of
Aviero was detected in a conspiracy with the Jesuits in Portugal, and
accordingly executed. His house, at Belem, was levelled to the ground at
the time of the Duke's decapitation, and on the site was erected _a
column of disgrace_, which still remains, though some shops have been
erected beside it to hide the inscription; a just symbol of the conduct
of the nation on this subject, for what they cannot alter they strive to
conceal.
Over the proscenium of the opera-house at Lisbon is a large clock placed
rather in advance, whose dexter supporter is old Time with his scythe,
and the sinister, one of the Muses playing on a lyre.
_A Lisbon Dandy._--A small, squat, puffy figure incased within a large
pack-saddle, upon the back of a lean, high-boned, straw-fed,
cream-coloured nag, with an enormously flowing tail, whose length and
breadth would appear to be each night guarded from discolouration by
careful involution above the hocks. Taken, from his gridiron spurs and
long pointed boots, up his broad, blue-striped pantaloons, _à la
Cossaque_, to the thrice-folded piece of white linen on which he is
seated in _cool_ repose; thence by his cable chain, bearing seals as
large as a warming-pan, and a key like an anchor; then a little higher
to the figured waistcoat of early British manufacture, and the
sack-shapened coat, up to the narrow brim sugar-loaf hat on his
head,--where can be found his equal? Nor does he want a nose as big as
the gnomon of a dial-plate; and two flanks of impenetrable, deep, black
brushwood, extending under either ear, and almost concealing the
countenance, to complete the singular contour of his features.
_A Lisbon Water-carrier_ earns about sixpence per day, the moiety of
which serves to procure him his bread, his fried sardinha from a cook's
stall, and a little light wine perhaps, on holidays,--water being his
general beverage, nay, one might almost say, his element. A mat in a
large upper room, shared with several others, serves him in winter as a
place of repose for the night; but during the summer he frequently
sleeps out in the open air, making his filled water-barrel his pillow.
_Vanity._--A young Lisbon dandy hearing an Englishman complain of the
intolerable filth and stench of his metropolis, retorted that, for his
part, when he was in London, it was the absence of that filth, and the
want of the smells complained of, that had rendered his residence in our
metropolis so disagreeable and uncomfortable to him. "No passion," as
Southey says, "makes a man a liar so easily as vanity."
_Dogs._--In Lisbon dogs seem to luxuriate under the violence of the
heat, and to avoid the shady sides of the streets, though the
thermometer of Fahrenheit be at 110 degrees; and scarcely an instance of
canine madness is ever known to occur. When the French decreed the
extinction of the tribe of curs that infest the streets, no native
executioner could be found to put the exterminating law in force; nay,
the very measure excited popular indignation.
_Golden Sands._--Perhaps originally it was the fabled gold of the Tagus
which attracted Jews to Lisbon in such numbers, and the general
persuasion indeed is, that the yellow sands of this royal river did
actually once produce sufficient gold to make a magnificent crown and
sceptre for the amiable hands of that patriot sovereign, the good king
Denis.
_A Dinner._--A dish of yellow-looking bacalhao, the worst supposable
specimen of our saltings in Newfoundland; a platter of compact, black,
greasy, dirty-looking rice; a pound, if so much, of poor half-fed meat;
a certain proportion of hard-boiled beef, that has never seen the
salting pan, having already yielded its nutritious qualities to a
swinging tureen of Spartan soup, and now requiring the accompaniment of
a satellite tongue, or friendly slice of Lamego bacon, to impait a dull
relish to it; potatoes of leaden continuity; dumplings of adamantine
contexture, that Carthaginian vinegar itself might fail to dissolve;
with offensive vegetables, and something in a round shape, said to be
imported from Holland, and called cheese, but more like the unyielding
rock of flint in the tenacity of its impenetrable substance; a small
quantity of _very small_ wine; abundance of water; and an awful army of
red ants, probably imported from the Brazils--the wood of which the
chairs and tables are made, hurrying across the cloth with
characteristic industry;--such are the principal features of the quiet
family dinner-table of the Portuguese.
_The Dockyard_ of Lisbon is scarcely as extensive as many of the largest
of our private ship-builders on the banks of the Thames and the Avon.
_Funerals._--In Portugal the corpse is placed in an open coffin, and the
head and feet are left bare. A vessel filled with holy water is placed
at the foot of the bier, which the priests and relatives of the deceased
sprinkle on the body. The service being concluded, the corpse is
followed by the relatives down into the vaults below the church, where
vinegar and quick lime having been poured upon the body, the falling lid
of the coffin is closed and _locked_, and the key delivered to the chief
mourner, who proceeds immediately from the funeral, with his party of
friends who have witnessed the interment take place, to the house of the
defunct, where the key being left with the nearest relative, and the
complimentary visit being paid, the rite is considered as terminated. No
fire is lighted in the house of a deceased person upon the day of his
funeral, and the relatives, who live in separate houses, are in the
habit of supplying a ready-dressed dinner, under the supposition that
the inmates are too much absorbed in grief to be equal to giving any
orders for the preparation of food. During the course of the ensuing
week, the chief mourners receive their several relatives and friends at
tea. The assembly is sorrowful and dull. It has been asserted, though
not corroborated, that such is the poverty and disregard of decorum on
the part of the Portuguese government, that when a person dies without
leaving behind sufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral, the
dead body is laid on the pavement of the most public street, with a box
upon the breast, into which passers-by drop copper or silver coin, until
sufficient has thus been obtained to defray the expense of interment;
and that a soldier stands at the head of the body to see that no money
is abstracted; for, in Portugal, even the sacred purpose for which it is
intended would not secure it without his protection.
There is no pardoning _soi-disant liberaux_, who prove, by their acts,
the greatest enemies of the sacred dignity of liberty.
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