CONVENTS AND PALACES
[Sidenote: Belem.]
In palaces and convents, churches, castles, towers, crumbling Roman
ruins, fine country houses, Portugal is as rich as any land. The chief
attraction of the Palacio das Necessidades at Lisbon is its splendid
grounds, now open to the public. From the Tagus the most imposing
building is the great mass of the Church of S. Vicente, which the morbid
visit to see the Princes and Kings of Portugal in their glass-covered
coffins. Of Lisbon’s ancient buildings that which most forcibly
appeals to eye and imagination is the ruined Carmo, now serving as an
archaeological museum, standing so nobly over the city and carrying
the mind back to the days of Nun’ Alvares Pereira, one of the greatest
figures of all time. But the finest building of Lisbon—since a street
now connects with the capital what was formerly a separate village, is
the Church and Convent of Belem. The village still, however, maintains a
certain individuality, with its wide common surrounded by low pink-washed
houses and primitive arcades, and its statue of Affonso d’Albuquerque
perched, like St. Simeon Stylites, on a high pillar, and looking out
across the Tagus to the Atlantic, its peculiar square Tower of Belem
jutting out into the river and, above all, the church of the Convent,
which in its perfect proportions and ancient grey colouring is one of
the most beautiful of the world’s buildings. To realise its beauty, the
church must not be seen too near, since the famous doorway will seem to
many excessively ornamented in its wealth of detail. But from the river
seen in spring above the flowering Judas trees, or above the yellowing
leaves in autumn, it might be some old Oxford college. And the interior
is worthy of such beauty, in spite of the Manoeline style, which does its
best to spoil the noble Gothic, in relation to which it stands as ivy to
the trunk of a tree. The pillars go straight up without a break to a
height of nearly a hundred feet, and about the whole place is a sense of
spaciousness and fine proportion which the Manoeline decoration cannot
mar. In little chapels round the church are the tombs of King Manoel I
(who built the Convent to celebrate the voyage of Vasco da Gama, the
buildings thus corresponding in stone to the Lusiads of Camões: _ceci n’a
pas tué cela_); of his son King João III, variously judged by historians
as a saint or a simpleton (it is not for nothing that the Spanish word
for “blessed,” _bendito_, means also a fool: _cf._ the English “silly,”
derived from the German _selig_); of Camões and of Vasco da Gama (the
tomb is his, but there was a mistake in the bones when they were
transferred thither from Vidigueira in 1880).
[Illustration: CONVENTO DE JERONYMOS, BELEM]
[Sidenote: Cintra.]
From Lisbon to Cintra is but a step, and it is equally pleasant to walk
or drive or ride, but the train will take you there in little over
half-an-hour. What strikes everyone on arriving at the village is the
curious prominence of the two uncouth gigantic chimneys of the palace.
This palace is now an archaeological museum, but the interest still
centres in the legends and history and natural beauty of its walls, for
the most part lined with fine old _azulejos_. The magpies of the ceiling
in the Sala das Pegas have not been whitewashed away, the Sala dos Cisnes
still keeps its swans, and the coats of arms cover the walls of the Sala
dos Cervos, a stag in each case supporting the arms of the old families
of Portugal—
Pois com esforços e leaes
Serviços foram ganhados:
Com estes e outros taes
Devem de ser conservados.
(Loyal services and deeds
Were yours to gain them:
By such services and deeds
Shall you maintain them.)
Cf. Marvell’s
The same arts that did gain
A power must it maintain.
A path or no path leads to the grey ruined walls of the Castello dos
Mouros above the village. Here legend would have it that the hapless
poet, Bernardim Ribeiro, came to sigh for his royal mistress, King Manoel
I’s daughter, who, however, probably left Lisbon and Cintra for Savoy
some weeks before Ribeiro came to Lisbon from Alemtejo.
[Illustration: CASTELLO DA PENA, CINTRA]
[Sidenote: Castello da Pena.]
Far above on its peak, conspicuous far out to sea on both sides of the
Serra, but in shape so different, as seen from Mafra or Collares and
from the Estoril side, that one scarcely realises that it is the same
building, stands the Castello da Pena, over 1,700 feet above sea-level.
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, husband of Queen Maria II of Portugal,
bought the place towards the middle of the nineteenth century for a few
hundred pounds. It was then merely a ruin of the convent built there by
King Manoel I. The surrounding woods and gardens and the magnificent
views from every window make this palace one of the most wonderful houses
in Europe, wonderful, too, in the wealth of designs on pillar and archway
(in imitation of the style Manoeline), and in many incidental beauties,
especially the altar of alabaster and grey marble in the chapel. Below,
set in luxuriant growth of azaleas and camellias, are the flower-gardens
and the Fonte dos Passarinhos or das Andorinhas, with its white marble
swallows drinking. In the palace private photographs and weapons
belonging to the Portuguese Royal Family still hang from the walls, and
the tables are covered with magazines and newspapers, dated October,
1910, precisely as on that autumn day on which Queen Amélie heard here
the faint booming of the guns from Lisbon in revolution. Those who are
not content with the exquisite partial view from the terrace of the
dining-room climb by a little outer staircase to the wind-swept cupola.
Winter and summer every wind that blows seems to redouble its force just
here. For the sake of the view a north-east wind is to be preferred,
but the view is always magnificent and extensive, in spite of the fact
that it is bounded on two sides by the Atlantic. White sands mark the
entrance of the Tagus with the Serra d’Ossa and Alemtejo beyond, and the
long headland which begins in beautiful sand-dunes—beautiful in certain
lights and days—and runs out to Cape Espichel. On afternoons of a clear
land wind the cape is lit up by the sun in every crevice of its sheer
white cliffs and stands out like an island in mid-ocean—with a strong
resemblance to the southern cliffs of England. Immediately beneath the
palace walls are the famous woods of the grounds down the sides of the
Serra. The Serra itself extends on one side to the small villages of
Charneca (Moor) and Areias (Sands), and on the other to Collares and
the Praia das Maçãs (Shore of Apples). All this country is really a
promontory some twenty miles across, between the Atlantic and the vast
estuary of the Tagus. To the east the view includes such fragments of
Lisbon as are not concealed by hills, while on the north a great black
patch in the level plain is the Convent of Mafra.
[Sidenote: Mafra.]
The Convent of Mafra is eighteenth century, and would be uninteresting
were it not for its sheer hugeness, which seems to defy you to criticise.
It bullies you into accepting its ugliness, and stuns you with figures.
Thus, you have scarcely recovered from the gigantic proportions of its
towers and the steps hundreds of feet long in front of them when you are
told that it was nearly thirty years a-building, and employed at times
nearly 50,000 builders, that the tale of its doors is 5,200, of its
windows 2,500. If you are incredulous, count them. The whole building
measures some 275 by 240 yards, nearly a sixth of a mile long. The church
is a glory of pink and white marble, magnificent but not beautiful. Yet
it is worth going through Mafra to see the front of Mafra’s Convent,
even if one does not stop to enter the building. The railway station is
ten kilomètres from the village, so that most people drive there, but if
anyone likes to take train to Mafra’s station, walk thence to Mafra, and
then straight across to Cintra, he will be rewarded by a splendid view
of the Serra to shorten his way. Seen from here, it is a gigantic wing
folded over the village of Cintra, grey crags and dark wooded ravines,
with the Cruz Alta, the Castle of Pena, and the Castle of the Moors to
mark the heights. Mafra is about thirty-five _kilomètres_ north-west
of Lisbon, and another hundred _kilomètres_ intervene between Mafra
and Vallado—no unpleasant three days’ walk. Vallado is at about equal
distance from Nazareth and the sea on one side and Alcobaça on the other.
[Illustration: CLOISTER OF D. DINIZ, ALCOBAÇA.]
[Sidenote: Alcobaça.]
To whatever pains the traveller may be put before reaching Alcobaça
he will think nothing thereof when he sees the interior of this old
Cistercian abbey, and to many the very remoteness of Alcobaça and
Batalha, lying fortunately miles from any railway station, is no mean
attraction. This Convent, like that of Mafra, is now used partly as
barracks and partly as prison—the mixed company of prisoners may be seen
white and hungry, stretching out their hands through the bars to the
village street. But, whereas Mafra as a barracks seems to be usefully
fulfilling its proper purpose, to quarter a regiment in Alcobaça’s
monastery savours of desecration. However, the principal cloisters, the
Cloisters of Dom Diniz, are still and peaceful, surrounding with their
beautiful arches plots gay with flowers, as when the monks sought or
sheltered from the sun here and were buried beneath the flagstones. Here
is an old well with its ferns and crumbling Gothic architecture, and the
whole place may give many an intense desire to have the good monks back
there to enjoy it instead of half-a-dozen flurried and unappreciative
tourists. The climate of Portugal makes it an ideal country for all whose
sole vocation is endless contemplation, and where better fulfil that
vocation than in these lovely convents! In winter the building provides
a hundred corners of hot sun, and in hot weather the cold stone and
the sound of running water recall some Seville _patio_. The guide-books
for every two or three pages given to Batalha, will devote but one to
Alcobaça. Yet for those who care for pure Gothic the latter is perhaps
even the more attractive of the two. The narrow aisles, plain majestic
pillars, and nobly sculptured capitals, make of its early Gothic church
a severe and lovely building, and historically, of course, the interest
of the place is very great. In the Sala dos Reis are statues of the early
kings of Portugal, and _azulejo_ scenes of the events which led to the
foundation of the convent. As is well known, it was Affonso Henriques
(that is, son of Count Henry of Burgundy), who began it, owing to an
oath he had made to build a convent in the event of taking Santarem from
the Moors. The capture of Santarem (1147 A.D.) was but one of the many
successes of that great warrior king, the first king and the real founder
of Portugal as a separate nation. Compared with so early a date, the
giant caldron taken from the Spaniards after the battle of Aljubarrota
(1385) is almost modern. It also stands in the Sala dos Reis, and it is
well that one memorial of the deeds of the great Constable should be
here, for the hero of Aljubarrota, Nun’ Alvares, and Affonso I had much
in common. Both won many victories, and founded churches and convents,
and both were inspired by a passionate love of the independence of their
country. If Nun’ Alvares was the more chivalrous of the two this must
be attributed to the intervening centuries. But it is not of Affonso
Henriques that most visitors think when they are at Alcobaça, but of a
time one generation earlier than that of Nun’ Alvares, who was but seven
when King Pedro I (1357-67) died.
[Sidenote: Inés de Castro.]
In one of the chapels of Alcobaça’s church are the tombs of King Pedro
and of Inés de Castro. Legend would have it that they were buried feet to
feet, in order that when the trumpet of the Day of Judgment sounded their
eyes might meet at once as they rose from the dead. In the striking lines
of the modern Portuguese poet, Snr. Affonso Lopes Vieira—striking by
reason of their fine sound and volume—
Hão de accordar sorrindo eternamente,
Os olhos um no outro emfim pousando.
(They will awake and smile henceforth for ever,
As their eyes meet at length in fond embrace.)
Such subtleties were scarcely of that age, but the tombs (and their
recumbent figures) certainly face one another, minutely and delightfully
carved in stone. The rivers Alcoa and Baça meet at Alcobaça, and a
tributary of the Alcoa, a tiny stream, runs beneath the convent. Some of
the tombs in this Capella dos Tumulos are green with damp and run a fair
chance of permanent injury. King Diniz’ mother as well as the children
of Pedro and Inés are buried in the same chapel. Round the cruel fate
of lovely Inés a whole literature has grown up in prose and verse, from
the fine verses of the courtier poet Garcia de Resende—far the best
that he wrote—in the reign of King Manoel I to the poem _Costança_ by
Snr. Eugenio de Castro, and the sonnet which the two lines quoted above
close. There is scarcely an educated Portuguese who does not try his hand
at poetry, and scarcely a Portuguese poet who escapes the temptation
to renew in verse the tragic tale of Inés de Castro. The temptation is
the greater in that she lived and died a stone’s throw from the halls
of Coimbra, in which most Portuguese receive their education, and
represents in her romantic story and sorrowful ending all that is most
_meigo_ and _saudoso_ in Portuguese _saudade_. From the fifteenth to the
twentieth century the Inés legend runs like a connecting link through
Portuguese literature, and if it has never yet been treated with more
than a pretty lyric wistfulness in minor poems beautiful but subjective,
perhaps these are the basis and preparation for the great poet who will
record it in a spirit of true and high Tragedy worthy of the subject and
of these Alcobaça sculptures. Pedro and Inés do not even meet in the
celebrated drama, _Inés de Castro_, by Antonio Ferreira (1528-69). He
discreetly left that for the Day of Judgment, rightly feeling, no doubt,
that his own powers of description and psychology would be inadequate
to the occasion. So they still lie waiting separated by these barriers
of incomparable sculpture in the gloomy damp Chapel of the Tombs. With
relief the visitor emerges to the sunny cloisters, a part of which
really dates from the days of stout-hearted King Diniz and escaped the
far-spread destruction of the Peninsular War.
[Illustration: TOMB OF D. INÉS DE CASTRO, ALCOBAÇA]
[Sidenote: Batalha.]
Portugal’s Battle Abbey, the Mosteiro da Batalha or de Santa Maria da
Vitoria commemorates a victory not over the Moors, but over the invading
Spaniard in the battle of Aljubarrota, King João I against King Juan I.
The military genius and enthusiasm of Nun’ Alvares won the day. King
João two years later married an English wife. Their children were given
an English education, and became Prince Henry the Navigator, King Edward
the Eloquent, one of the masters of early Portuguese prose, the Infante
Pedro, also author and statesman, and the Infante Fernando, who died
loyally in Africa, a happier death than that which awaited his brother
Pedro, killed in a civil feud in the reign of his nephew Affonso V.
English was all the order of the day, the story of King Arthur penetrated
deep into Portuguese Court life and literature, the knightly Galahad
was Nun’ Alvares’ model and hero. And under English influence, perhaps
English workmen, was begun the great monastery which stands so nobly
apart, grey traceries and pinnacles in a hollow of dark pine-covered
hills. It must ever continue to be one of the chief attractions to those
who visit Portugal, and it is to be hoped that it will ever retain its
rustic situation, far from trains, hôtels and all those appurtenances
of civilisation which usually dog the tourist’s footsteps. Indeed, this
sequestered region between Leiria and Alcobaça will to many, whether they
drive or walk, but especially if they walk, remain the principal among
their many delightful memories of Portugal. The church of Batalha is
more magnificent than that of Alcobaça, yet in some respects as severely
beautiful. These lordly pillars have none of the false ornament which
defaces the pillars of Belem, and the arches are of unrivalled boldness
and beauty of proportion. Some of the windows have kept pieces of fine
old stained glass among much modern stuff. In the Chapel of the Founders
are the tombs of the Master of Aviz, João I, of his wife Philippa of
Lancaster, and of their sons, Pedro, Enrique, João, and Fernando (the
Infante Santo), whose untimely fate probably hastened the death of his
brother, King Duarte, whose tomb is in another chapel of this church.
The king was equally unwilling to give up Ceuta, for the surrender of
which Prince Fernando had remained hostage, or to be responsible for
his brother’s death. It was only two years after King Duarte’s death at
Thomar in 1438 that the Infante’s sufferings in a Moorish dungeon ended.
They were borne with a patience and intrepidity which made of him a
true _principe constante_. His story is told in the _Cronica do Infante
Santo D. Fernando_, by Frei João Alvarez. It is poetic justice that this
splendid building should unite in death these five brothers who were as
talented and as mutually affectionate as they were ill-fated—if fortunate
implies long life rather than fine character or high deeds accomplished.
Alcobaça for the most part scorns the Manoeline style and the church
of Batalha is as purely Gothic. Its cloisters, however, and Unfinished
Chapels (Capellas Imperfeitas) are the very flower of Manoeline. This
strange style, typical of Portuguese restlessness and longing for new
things, was introduced in the age of Portugal’s great discoveries and
partly under Oriental influence. However inartistic its general effect,
in details it is often beautiful, and always interesting as commemorating
Portugal’s naval glories and the new animals, plants, shells, etc., found
beyond the seas. The many minute designs, as well as the cryptic “Greek”
inscriptions (really French: _Tant que seray lealte faray_) of these
arches in the Unfinished Chapels are full of interest. The first view of
Batalha gives an impression of greyness; but, nearer, the lower part is
found to be built of stone originally snow-white, which changes to the
most varied hues of yellow and grey as time and weather mould and stain
it. With keen regret must travellers leave Batalha to take their way
along the white road between pines to Alcobaça or Leiria.
[Sidenote: Thomar.]
A longer tramp or drive going East from Leiria takes one to Thomar in
the very heart of Portugal, unless one goes by train to Payalvo, a few
_kilomètres_ from Thomar on the other side. The town and its river
may have exchanged names since the ancient Nabantia apparently had a
river called Thomar, whereas the river’s name is now Nabão. The site of
Nabantia is supposed to be occupied now by the Church of Santa Maria do
Olival, the oldest church of the Templars in Portugal, built by Gualdim
Paes, one of the heroes of legendary feats of arms in the reign of the
first King of Portugal. If in parts of the interior of Batalha the
Manoeline style is seen in all its glory, in the Convent of Thomar it is
the outside walls that display it in a way so bold and magnificent as to
silence the carpers. It may be said that it is magnificent, but that it
is not art: yet it was well that in at least one great building the outer
walls should bear silent witness through the centuries to Portugal’s
great achievement. Chain and grummet and rope, coral from distant seas,
flowers and plants and birds from tropical lands, anchors and even—a
conception as strange as its execution was happy—great bellying sails in
stone, represent the story of those ships (ships of a few score tons)
Que foram descobrir mundos e mares.
The Convent contains a succession of cloisters and architecture of many
centuries, the original Church of the Templars being of the twelfth
century, when Affonso I relied on their strong right arms to force back
the Moors mile by mile to the south. Indeed, the building is a perfect
wilderness of courts and corridors. Gualdim Paes is not the only hero of
these now deserted halls, for Prince Henry the Navigator was Grand Master
of Thomar for over forty years, till his death in 1460, and devoted the
greater part of the revenues of the Templars to further the cause he had
most at heart—the extension of Christianity into lands and seas unknown.
The view from the terrace is of surpassing beauty, and it seems a pity
that there is no one living here permanently to enjoy it. The gently
sloping hills are covered with every variety of green, from the grey
of olives to the dark leaves of orange-trees. On the other side there
is a view of Thomar beneath the Convent, a most curious town, of bare
discomfortable look by reason of its angular buildings, steep towers and
spires, severe mediaeval churches and clean streets of cobbles without
side pavement. Its paper mills flourish, so that it does not stand aloof
from modern industry and progress, but its inhabitants maintain an
old-fashioned pride in themselves and their town.
[Sidenote: Coimbra.]
Coimbra lies some sixty miles due north of Thomar, on the other side of
the _Serra de Louzã_, westernmost offshoot of the _Serra da Estrella_.
Its look is far less grey and stern than that of Thomar. Most of its
buildings are whitewashed, and a few washed in pink or yellow, so that
the old cathedral stands out like a great mass of rock from among the
tier after tier of houses that cover the steep hill above the Mondego.
Indeed, it is the exterior of the Sé Velha that is chiefly remarkable,
in its massive and imposing grandeur. Coimbra has many other fine old
buildings set among its serried houses. The University or Schools (_Paços
das Escholas_) stands at the very top of the town, its clock-tower
pointing skyward. Students in their long black coats, white ties, and
flowing gowns (_capas_), bareheaded even in July, when the summer term
ends, are to be seen everywhere in the narrow streets or along the
river and famous walk under the poplars (the _Choupal_). The Faculty of
Theology is now abolished, but they may study mathematics, philosophy,
philology, medicine, and especially they study law as a preliminary to a
political career. They enter the University younger than is usual at an
English University and remain longer—about eight years. The University
with its spacious quadrangles, fine halls, and library, is surrounded by
a view of valleys, hills and river such as surely no other University in
the world can boast. The Mondego is one of the most beautiful rivers of
Northern Portugal, the land of transparent rivers and streams flowing
over granite and tinged by no taint of soil. Close to the Mondego across
the bridge is the remnant of the old convent of Santa Clara. It is now
a farmhouse and the fine capitals of its pillars between which the oxen
have their stalls are now but a few feet from the ground, so great is
the volume of sand carried down by the _cheias_ of the river. It flows
so _mansamente_, clear and gentle, but owing to the rockiness of its
bed has no elasticity, and a few hours of heavy rain suffice to turn it
into a huge rushing torrent. The new Mosteiro de Santa Clara is built
high above the level of the river, and the Quinta das Lagrimas stands
some way from its banks. Here the Fonte dos Amores flows from a rock of
ferns and flowers through a rough cross-shaped channel of stone, the
iron-red stains of which are supposed to mark the place where Inés de
Castro was murdered in 1355, a date hardly less celebrated in Portugal
than that other fifty-five of the great Lisbon earthquake four centuries
later. All these buildings are on the left bank of the river among a
lovely orchard-country of orange, cherry, and pomegranate. The principal
building in Coimbra itself after the Sé Velha is the Mosteiro de Santa
Cruz, which was built in the twelfth century, and contains the tombs of
Affonso and Sancho, the first two Kings of Portugal. Its church is much
later, built by Marcos Pires in the sixteenth century. He was also the
architect of the Convent’s Manoeline “Cloisters of Silence.” But Coimbra
as a whole seen from the green Mondego or from the Mosteiro de Santa
Clara beyond it, is a work of art, and both the town and surrounding
country deserve a far more prolonged study than they usually receive.
[Sidenote: Striking Positions.]
It is in the strip of country between Tagus and Mondego that Portugal has
massed her most famous and beautiful buildings, and the hurried traveller
can thus within a space of about a hundred miles see Belem and Cintra
and Mafra, Alcobaça, Batalha, and Thomar, Santarem, Leiria and Coimbra.
But Portugal possesses a hundred other towns and towers so splendidly
situated as to need little art for their beauty’s heightening. What can
be finer, for instances at random, than the position of Palmella or of
Covilhã, or high-perched Guarda, or Louzã, or the castle of Melgaço, or
the ruins of the monastery of Crato, the early home of Nun’ Alvares, or
of the castle of Almourol on its Tagus islet, the site chosen by the
Romans and the castle famous in the adventures of Palmeirim of England.
[Sidenote: Minho.]
The provinces of Minho and Traz os Montes, which limit Portugal to the
north, have few great buildings. Minho is celebrated rather for its woods
and hills and streams, its cheerful _quintas_ in pleasant surroundings of
maize and granite, than for its ancient buildings. It is not a country
of large towns. Several unpretentious small towns it has along its sand
and pine coast, Villa do Conde. Povoa de Varzim and Vianna do Castello,
the latter beautiful in its sheltered position at the mouth of the river
Lima. It is worth following up this river, which inspired the poet Diogo
Bernardes with his tenderest verses, and to which his thoughts turned
longingly when a captive in Africa after the battle of Alcacer Kebir, for
it really is beautiful, and the _quintas_ and villages most interesting.
The capital of Minho, Braga, has few old buildings besides the Cathedral,
which is said to date from the first years of Portugal’s existence, and
preserves the tomb of Count Henry of Burgundy, father of Portugal’s first
King.
[Sidenote: Traz os Montes.]
Traz os Montes, the neighbouring province to the east, has even fewer
towns. Its villages lie like those of Castille in a bleak and shadeless
country. The only two with pretensions to the name of town are Villa
Real, the capital, and Bragança. Both of these towns are most curious.
They have rather many interesting scraps of carved wood and stone than
any great buildings, but the Castle of the Braganzas is one of the
finest of the many noble castles that crown the hills of Portugal. It
is surrounded by a wall within which is a little village of streets and
shops of its own, so that it forms a miniature town above Bragança.
The wall hides these low houses, tiny shops and narrow streets from
sight, and the town of Bragança itself is in a hollow, so that from some
distance one sees only the great castle standing out among the bare
treeless hills.
[Sidenote: Oporto.]
Oporto, too, has succeeded in retaining its individuality. The towns of
Portugal have to thank their position on steep hills, strong sites chosen
against attack of Moor or Christian, for having kept in some at least
of their quarters a peculiar character of mediaeval charm. So steep are
many of Oporto’s streets that a strike of tramcars—which in Portugal
ascend streets truly perpendicular—leaves the citizens in a comical
helplessness, infants without arms. Oporto covers several hills on the
right bank of the Douro. The river is here so narrow, the granite banks
so steep that from some points of the city one may look across from one
bank to the other without realising that there is any break or that a
river flows between. Oporto is the only city of Portugal besides Lisbon.
The latest returns give a population of 194,000. The total number of
foreigners is 7,210, of which 3,110 are Brazilians, 2,764 Spaniards,
289 French, 229 Germans, and 579 English (census of 1911). It is a busy
industrial city, and has no parades of idleness like Lisbon, where the
busy workers are crushed away into side streets and quays, for fear the
foreigner should see such undignified behaviour. The true _Lisboeta’s_
ambition is to do nothing, and to do it elegantly. On the other hand,
the inhabitant of Oporto is proud of his business. He is more vigorous
and active, and has a sterner and more independent outlook on life. And
the two cities are rivals, sometimes almost bitterly hostile. It is the
steep right bank of the Douro which has provided Oporto with its most
curious and conservative quarters. There is here little scope for change.
The narrow streets descend so sheerly that they have become in places
mere flights of stone steps, and the coal smoke of Oporto gives them
a coat of blackness. It is the most northern in look of all southern
cities. If you were to transport a part of the City or some town of the
North of England to the radiant sunshine and crushing heat of Portugal,
you might have a like effect. Not that Oporto has not plenty of colour in
detail, but the first impression is one of iron-grey and gloom. The fine
old Cathedral stands immediately above these steep descents to the river.
One says “old” naturally, although it retains nothing of the twelfth
century, when it was founded, and much of it is quite modern: for the
granite of which it is built has a look of age even in its first youth.
The cloisters are five centuries old, the oldest part of the building.
In the sordid surroundings and in the summer heat, which can be more
oppressive at Oporto than at Lisbon, the Cathedral is a cool refuge to
which, however, few of the citizens have apparently the leisure to go;
or the energy, unless they live in some little black court or smothered
alley in its neighbourhood. More central is the eighteenth-century
Priests’ Tower—Torre dos Clerigos—nearly a twentieth of a mile high,
from which all Oporto and the surrounding country can be seen. Oporto
has older buildings, as the Church of São Martinho de Cedofeita, of the
twelfth century, but the real pride of its citizens is in the Jardim da
Cordoaria, planted fifty years ago, in the Palacio de Crystal, of the
same date, built in imitation of the Crystal Palace, in the statue of
Prince Henry the Navigator (1900); the “Avenue of Fountains” above the
Douro and the 200 ft. high bridge of Dom Luiz I across it. On top of the
left bank in rocky prominence is the old Convent of the Augustinians,
Nossa Senhora da Serra do Pilar, famous in the Peninsular War, and
beneath are the gaily washed cellars and _armazens_ of the port-wine
merchants in the most ancient town of Gaia.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW, OPORTO]
[Sidenote: Alemtejo and Algarve.]
Rarely does the foreign traveller in Portugal, rarely the Portuguese
traveller on pleasure bent, cross the Tagus. Alemtejo and Algarve are
relegated for the most part to the glare of the sun and to farmers,
engineers and commercial travellers. Only a few cunning persons know
that a whole new kingdom of pleasure and interest here awaits the
enterprising. But it must be confessed that the travelling is not easy,
and that the train which saunters along the single railway, zigzagging
towards Algarve, takes a whole day to reach Faro from Lisbon. The
foreigner coming from Badajoz sees the delightful town of Elvas, sees
perhaps Estremoz or Portalegre. But many other towns and villages deserve
his attention, Setubal for its position and groves of oranges, Santarem
for its splendid view of the Tagus valley, Vianna do Alemtejo, a white
village above wide charnecas, Monchique, high in the southernmost _serra_
of Portugal, the ancient Silves, once a flourishing city of the Moors,
Sines and Sagres for their more modern historical associations, Lagos in
its beautiful sheltered bay calling to all those who like hot winters,
Portimão with its no less beautiful Praia da Rocha.
[Sidenote: Beja.]
Beja, in the heart of Alemtejo, rightly has an ox in its city arms, a
strong frontier town transformed into a centre of agriculture since
the days of King Diniz. It is seen from far across the level plain, a
beautiful old town on a hill, its outline of crumbling walls and towers
clear against the sky. Its castle, with the magnificent Torre de Menagem,
was built, as so many other Portuguese castles, by King Diniz, who
clearly saw the importance of Beja as a centre for his “nerves of the
republic,” the peasants of the soil. The whole town is extraordinarily
picturesque, with no lack of colour in its narrow lanes and streets.
The water-carriers wheel their handcarts with holes for twenty-four
or a dozen jars from far outside the town, and the peasants go out in
troops to till the soil or gather the harvest, returning at nightfall to
Beja’s sheltering walls, as if some sudden attack of the Moors were to
be feared. This daedal of steep streets enshrines beautiful churches, as
that of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, but it is the streets themselves and
the lovely ruins of Beja that are its chief attraction. Both the Kings
Manoel bore the title of Duke of Beja before coming to the throne, which
is to say, that neither of them was the heir apparent, this being the
title borne by the King’s second son.
[Sidenote: Evora.]
The capital of Alemtejo is Evora, which thus keeps something of the
importance that formerly made it the second city of Portugal. It has
now sunk to a provincial life, although in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries it figured largely in Portuguese history as a favourite
residence of the Court. It remains, however, the paradise of the
archaeologist and student of architecture, as it was in the time of André
de Resende. Even before entering the town the old church of São Braz, of
curious and forbidding exterior, arrests the attention. It is more like
a turreted fortification than a church. Within the walls of the town one
comes at every step on some fine old building or ruin, or rather within
what remains of these magnificent walls. It was at the entrance of the
town that Trancoso in the sixteenth century placed an incident in one
of the most entertaining of his “profitable histories.” The poor man of
his tale, reduced to the extreme of misery, persecuted by all, and made
desperate by such injustice, threw himself over the battlement. Now it
happened that an old paralysed man was seated taking the sun beneath the
wall, and the poor man fell on top of him. He himself escaped unhurt,
but he killed the old man. Here was another charge against him, and the
old man’s son demanded a life for a life. The judge was the father of
Sancho, of the island of Barataria. He decreed that the poor man should
sit in the chair of the paralysed and take the sun beneath the wall of
Evora, and that the dead man’s son should throw himself from the wall on
top of him and so kill him. The whole town of Evora has been described
as an archaeological museum, and the narrow streets sometimes ascending
steeply with quaint wooden arcades on either side, the houses of massive
stone and ironwork and green shutters, the squares and _chafarizes_
(fountains), the hanging gardens of private houses, and the public
gardens brimming with flowers, the tiny shops, dark beneath arcades,
the fairs and markets, all make of Evora one of the most peculiar and
interesting of cities. And there is the fine imposing sixteenth-century
church of São Francisco, with its massive exterior walls and pillars,
and, inside the famous chapel, the Room of Bones (_Casa dos Ossos_)—
Nós ossos
Que aqui estamos
Pelos vossos
Esperamos.
(We bones that lie here wait for yours to appear.)
The early Gothic cathedral was originally finished in 1204, but is,
of course, as it stands, largely of later date. Its interior contains
much fine work of both the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Almost
touching it is one of the finest Roman ruins in existence, the “Temple of
Diana,” nearly 2,000 years old, its magnificent Corinthian columns still
supporting massive blocks of granite. It stands at the top of the town,
having thus little to fear from the encroachment of modern buildings, and
is outlined proudly against the sky. One may hope, since so many pillars
have escaped as by a miracle from the peril of earthquake, that it may
stand there during another score of centuries and escape destruction and
mutilation at the hands of man, though indeed to the materialist it is as
valueless as a flower, a crimson sunset, or a Cathedral evensong.
[Sidenote: Faro.]
Faro is nearly two hundred miles due south of Evora, and between the two
towns is all the difference between serious solid conservative Alemtejo
and gay epicurean Algarve. Faro cannot vie with Evora in the matter of
buildings, it has no palaces or convents, though it has an interesting
little cathedral. Of the Convent of São Bento only the cloisters survive.
But in its position on the sea, its lines of low houses washed in many
light hues, its inner harbour, like some still sky-reflecting lagoon, its
markets and the shifting scenes that enliven its streets and _praças_, it
is one of the most charming of Portugal’s towns, and gives the traveller
one of those lively impressions of contrast in which the whole land of
Portugal abounds. Surely no other combines in so small a space so many
varieties of natural scenery and of architecture.