CHAPTER X

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN PORTUGAL 308

ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

FROM A WINDOW IN OPORTO _Frontispiece_

EVENING: OPPOSITE OPORTO _To face page_ 8

FROM THE RIBEIRA, OPORTO _To face page_ 16

A SHOP IN OLD OPORTO _To face page_ 28

THE AFTER-GLOW AT BRAGA _To face page_ 40

ON THE TERRACE, BOM JESUS _To face page_ 50

ON THE HOLY STAIR, BOM JESUS _To face page_ 52

ON THE WAY TO MARKET, TAIPAS _To face page_ 58

FROM THE BATTLEMENT, BUSSACO _To face page_ 96

THE HOTEL FROM THE WOODS, BUSSACO _To face page_ 102

IN THE GARDENS, BUSSACO _To face page_ 106

THE PORTA DA SULLA, BUSSACO _To face page_ 108

“BUSSACO’S IRON RIDGE” _To face page_ 112

THE BATTLE MONUMENT, BUSSACO _To face page_ 116

ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTER, BUSSACO _To face page_ 120

ON THE SUMMIT OF BUSSACO. THE CRUZ ALTA _To face page_ 122

A STREET IN COIMBRA _To face page_ 128

SANTA CLARA, COIMBRA _To face page_ 136

A COUNTRY RAILWAY STATION _To face page_ 142

A CORNER OF THE TOWN HALL AND THE MONASTERY, THOMAR _To face page_ 144

SOME BEAUTIES OF THOMAR _To face page_ 146

CHURCH OF S. JOÃO IN THE PRAÇA, THOMAR _To face page_ 156

THE BRIDGE AT THOMAR _To face page_ 158

IN THE MAIN STREET OF OUREM _To face page_ 160

THE CASTLE, LEIRIA _To face page_ 164

ON THE ALAMEDA, LEIRIA _To face page_ 166

THE ENCARNAÇÃO, LEIRIA _To face page_ 168

ON THE PRAÇA AT ALCOBAÇA _To face page_ 188

UNDER THE ACACIAS, ALCOBAÇA _To face page_ 192

THE OLD PALACE, CINTRA _To face page_ 204

ON THE QUAY, LISBON _To face page_ 234

LISBON, FROM THE NORTH _To face page_ 306

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

MANUELINE ARCHITECTURE AT THE HOTEL, BUSSACO _To face page_ 94

ON THE VIA SACRA, BUSSACO _To face page_ 104

THE CHOIR AND CHAPTER HOUSE, THOMAR _To face page_ 148

THE CLOISTERS, BATALHA _To face page_ 180

THE UNFINISHED CHAPELS, BATALHA _To face page_ 182

MANUELINE WINDOWS IN THE OLD PALACE, CINTRA _To face page_ 224

THE SOUTH DOOR AT BELEM _To face page_ 238

THE “TEMPLE OF DIANA,” EVORA _To face page_ 300

INTRODUCTION

Portugal had been familiar to me from my earliest youth, for my road to

and from Spain had often lain that way, and circumstances had made me

conversant with the language and history of the country; and yet this

book is not the outcome of any such previous knowledge, but mainly of

one short voyage in search of change and health. It happened in this

way. As oft befalls men who in this striving world have to wring their

brains for drachmas, the completion of a particularly arduous book had

left me temporarily a nervous wreck, sleepless and despairing. The first

and most obvious need dictated to me by those who settle such matters,

was to forget for a time that pens, ink, and paper existed, and to seek

relaxation in a clime where printers cease from troubling and reviewers

are at rest. But where? Spain certainly would offer me no such a haven:

France was too near home, Germany I disliked, Switzerland was trite and

overrun, the novelty of Italy I had long before exhausted, and Greece

was too far away. A sea voyage was a desideratum, but it must not be too

long, and as the autumn was already verging towards winter the south

alone was available.

Then in the midst of my perplexity the happy thought suggested itself

that, often as I had passed through Portugal, I had never seen the

country. Why not try Portugal? I had some prejudices to overcome,

prejudices, indeed, which up to that time had prevented me from seeking

a deeper knowledge of the land and people than could be gained by an

incurious glance on the way through. For I had been brought up in the

stiff Castilian tradition that Portugal was altogether an inferior

country, and the Portuguese uncouth boors who in their separation from

their Spanish kinsmen had left to the latter all the virtues whilst they

themselves had retained all the vices of the race. But, withal, I chose

Portugal, and have made this book my apologia as a self-prescribed

penance for my former injustice towards the most beautiful country and

the most unspoilt and courteous peasantry in Southern Europe. Portugal

and the Portuguese, indeed, have fairly conquered me, and the voyage, of

which some of the incidents are here set forth, was for me a continual

and unadulterated delight from beginning to end, bringing to me

refreshment and renewed vigour of soul, mind, and body, opening to my

eyes, though they had seen much of the world, prospects of beauty

unsurpassed in my experience, and revealing objects of antiquarian and

artistic interest unsuspected by most of those to whom the attractions

of the regular round of European travel have grown flat and familiar.

It is impossible, of course, to pass on to others the full measure of

enjoyment felt by an appreciative traveller in a happy trip through an

unhackneyed pleasure-ground; but it has occurred to me that some record

of my impressions on the way may lead other Englishmen to seek for

themselves a repetition of the pleasure and benefit which I experienced

in the course of a short holiday trip through Portugal from north to

south. I am not pretending to write a guidebook: those that exist are

doubtless sufficient for all purposes, although I have intentionally

refrained from consulting any of them, in order that my impressions

might not be biassed, even unconsciously, by the opinions of others; nor

do I claim to speak of Portugal with the fulness of knowledge exhibited

by Mr. Oswald Crawford in his books on the country where he resided so

long. My object is rather to treat the subject from the point of view of

the intelligent visitor in search of sunshine, health, or relaxation; to

suggest from my own experience routes of travel and points of attraction

likely to appeal to such a reader as I have in my mind, and to warn him

frankly of the inevitable small inconveniences which he must be prepared

to tolerate cheerfully if he would enjoy to the full a holiday spent in

a country not as yet overrun by tourists who insist upon carrying

England with them wherever they go. If he will consent to “play the

game,” and not expect the impossible in such a country, I can promise my

traveller a voyage full of colour, interest, and novelty in this “garden

by the side of the sea,” where pines and palms grow side by side, and

the stern north and softer south blend their gifts in lavish luxuriance

beneath the happy conjunction of almost perpetual sunshine and moist

Atlantic breezes.

MARTIN HUME.

THROUGH PORTUGAL

I

OPORTO

I stood in the centre of a daring bridge, spanning with one bold arch of

nigh six hundred feet a winding rocky gorge. Far, far below me ran a

chocolate-coloured river crowded with quaint craft, some with

high-raised sheltered poops and crescent-peaked prows, some low and long

astern with bows like gondolas and bright red lateen sails, upon which

the fierce sun blazed sanguinely. On the right side thickly, and on the

left more sparsely, climbing up the stony sides of the gorge, were piled

hundreds of houses, pink, pale-blue, buff, and white, all with glowing

red-tiled roofs, and each set amidst a riot of verdure which trailed and

waved upon every nook and angle uncovered by buildings. Trellised vines

clustered and flowers flaunted in tiny back-yards and square-enclosed

courts by the score, all on different levels, but all open to the

down-gazing eyes of the spectator on the bridge high above them. Here

and there a tall palm waved its plumes as in unquiet slumber, but

everywhere else was the impression of ardent, throbbing, exuberant life,

such as all organic creation feels under the spur of stinging sunshine

and the salt twang of the sea-breeze. The river gorge winds and turns so

tortuously that the view forward and backward is not extensive, but as

far as the eye reaches on each side of the umber stream the hills of

houses and far-spread terraced vineyards beyond rise precipitously, with

just a quayside at foot on the banks of the stream, thronged now with

folk who swarm, gather, and separate like gaudy ants, and apparently no

bigger, as seen from the coign of vantage on the bridge. To my left, as

I stand looking towards the west, there crowns the summit of the ridge

close by a vast white monastery against a green background; a monastery

now, alas! like all others in this Catholic land, profanated and turned

to purposes of war instead of peace, but, withal, there still rears its

modest rood aloft upon the crest one poor little round chapel where the

sainted image of Pilar of the Ridge stolidly receives the devotion of

the faithful. To the right, the height is crowned by a vast square

episcopal palace, and near it, over all, is the glittering golden cross

that shines upon the city from the summit of the square cathedral

towers. This is Oporto, The Port _par excellence_, which gives its name

to Portugal, seen from the double-decked iron bridge of Dom Luis over

the Douro.

For days I had been striving in vain to get into touch with the psychic

principle of this strange city. I had mixed with the motley multitudes

that lounge and labour upon the quays, I had lingered in the gilded

churches where worshippers were ominously few, and stood for hours

observant in chaffering marketplaces and amidst the crowds of sauntering

citizens in the inevitable Praça de Dom Pedro; but till the revelatory

moment came to me in one enlightening flash upon the Bridge of Dom Luis,

I had always been alone in a foreign throng whose composite inner soul I

could not read. But now all was changed. Thenceforward I saw Oporto

whole and not in disintegrated fragments as before; for I had learnt the

secret of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and the heart of the

city was bared to me, a stranger.

Every large, enduring community comes to attain a distinct character of

its own, which the outlander can only know by long association or

sympathetic insight, sometimes not at all. I had looked for a people

exuberant and gay in outward seeming with an underlying spirit of bitter

mockery, such as I had known in so many other Iberian cities; but

somehow these Oporto people were quite different. Grave and quiet, with

introspective eyes, even the children seemed to take their play soberly.

Look at the slim slip of a boy who gravely walks at the head of this

team of enormous fawn-coloured oxen, toilsomely dragging their ponderous

load up a hill so steep as almost to need a ladder to ascend. The urchin

cannot be more than ten or eleven, and in any other country would

alternately skip and idle, or at least allow his attention to wander

with every fresh object that struck his fancy. Here he stalks along for

hours at a time, without lingering or straying, always calm and patient,

whilst his soiled and hardened bare feet plod on, heedless both of the

white mire and sharp stones of the way. Over his shoulder he carries a

long lithe wand, double as tall as himself, with which he directs the

course of the great wide-horned bullocks. A mere turn of the wand is

sufficient to indicate the way, and with low bowed heads beneath the

heavy yoke the dull beasts plod slowly onward as long-suffering as their

guide. The whole equipage might belong to the times when the world

itself was young, so idyllic is it in form. The wain is narrow and

high-set upon two wheels, like an ancient chariot, with boards or high

rods to form its sides; the wheels are built up ponderously of solid

wood, the two thick spokes that connect the heavy tire with the hub

filling up most of the circle, and the axle, a heavy log of wood, itself

turns with the wheels. In this part of Portugal there stands erect upon

the neck of the team an adornment which is usually the pride of the

owner’s heart, and the one superfluous article of luxury he possesses.

It is a thick board of hardwood, about eighteen inches high and some

five feet broad, intricately and beautifully carved in fretted open-work

arabesques. The patterns are traditional, handed down from time

immemorial, and usually consist of involved geometrical and curvilinear

designs; sometimes, but not often, with a cross introduced in the

centre, and with a row of little bristle brushes as an extra adornment

along the top. A glance at this elaborate piece of ox furniture will

show that its decoration is of Moorish origin, and the _canga_ itself

may be the survival of the high ox yoke still seen in some oriental

countries. To complete the quaint picture of the universal ox team, for

this part of Portugal is not a country of horses or mules, the dress of

the small teamster must be described. The boy’s breeches usually do not

reach below the knee, the rest of the legs and feet being bare; a jacket

of brown homespun is slung upon one shoulder, except at night or during

the cold winter days of December and January, when it is worn, and the

shirt, open at the neck and breast, leaves much of the upper part of the

body exposed. The headgear is peculiar. It is nearly always a knitted

stocking bag cap, something like an old-fashioned nightcap, with a

tassel at the end of the bag which hangs down the back or upon the

shoulder of the wearer, its colour being sometimes green and red, but

more frequently black.

The boy, like his similarly garbed elders, takes life very seriously,

but neither he nor they seem sad or depressed. There is here none of the

squalid misery or whining mendicancy that are so distressing to

strangers in Spain and Southern Italy, for the Portuguese of the north

is a sturdy, self-respecting peasant, who works hard and lives frugally

upon his three testoons (1_s._ 3_d._) per day; and so long as he can

earn his dried stockfish, his beans, bread, and grapes, with a little

red wine to drink, he scorns to beg for the indulgence of his idleness.

These are the people, and their social betters of the same race, whom a

sudden flash of sympathy brought closer to me, as in the pellucid golden

sunlight all Oporto was spread before and beneath me, palpitating with

life. The absence of vociferation and vehemence in the people did not

mean sulkiness or stupidity, but was the result of the intense

earnestness with which their daily life was faced; their unregarding

aloofness towards strangers was not rudeness, but the highest courtesy

which bade them avoid obtrusive curiosity; and soon I learnt to know

that their cold exterior barely concealed a disinterested desire to

extend in fullest measure aid and sympathy to those who needed them. In

all my wanderings I have never met, except perhaps in Norway, a

peasantry so full of willingness to show courtesy to strangers without

thought of gain to themselves as these people of north Portugal, almost

pure Celts as they are, with the Celtic innate kindliness of heart and

ready sympathy, though, of course, with the Celtic shortcomings of

jealousy, inconstancy, and distrust.

I know few more characteristic thoroughfares than the road by the

river-side at Oporto, called the Ribeira, which is the centre of

maritime activity of the port. The path runs beneath what was the

ancient river-wall, now pierced or burrowed out to form caverns of

shops, where wine and food, cordage and clothing are sold to sailor men.

Many of the open doors have vine trellises before them, in the shade of

which quaintly garbed groups forgather, and a constant tide of men and

women flows along the path, eddying into and out of the cavernous

recesses in the ancient wall. Colour, flaring and fierce in the sun,

flaunts everywhere; for the multi-tinted rags of the south festoon and

flutter from every door and window and deck the persons of all the

womankind. Swinging along, with peculiar and ungainly gait, go the women

with prodigious burdens upon their heads. Everything, from babies to

bales of merchandise, is borne upon the female head in Portugal; and

these women of the north wear a peculiar headgear adapted to this

custom. It is a round, soft, pork-pie hat of black cloth or velveteen,

fitting well upon the top of the head, the upper rim being adorned with

a sort of standing silk fringe. Such a hat, especially when surmounted

by a knot, suffers no damage from a burden placed upon it; but the

constant carrying of tremendous weights upon the head of females, even

of little girls, quite spoils the figures of the women, thrusting the

hips and pelvis forward inordinately, and rendering the movements in

walking most ungraceful. The women and girls almost invariably go

barefooted, whilst the men, except the fishermen, usually are shod; and

the females of a family share to the full the work and hardships which

are the common lot.

[Illustration: EVENING OPPOSITE OPORTO.]

Along the shore of the busy Ribeira lie ships unloading, small craft

they usually are, for the bar of the Douro is a terrible one, and the

big ships now enter the harbour of Leixões, a league away. In a constant

stream the men and women pass across the planks from ship to shore,

carrying the cargo upon their heads or shoulders in peculiar boat-shaped

baskets, which are the inseparable companion of the Oporto workers. Here

is a smart schooner hailing from the Cornish port of Fowey, from which

stockfish from Newfoundland is being landed on the heads of women, flat

salt slabs as hard and dry as wood, but good nutritious food for all

that; and farther along, with their prows to the shore, rest a dozen

un-ladened wine and fruit boats from up the Douro, and flat-bottomed

passenger skiffs into which women and men with baskets and bundles,

representing their week’s supplies purchased in Oporto, are crowding to

be carried back to their homes in the rich vineyard villages miles up

the river. One by one the quaint craft hoist their crimson sails, and

struggle out from the tangle of the bank, until the breeze catches them,

and in a shimmer of red gold from the setting sun they hustle through

the brown tide until a projecting corner hides them from view. It is a

scene never to be forgotten.

The centre of the Ribeira is the Praça called after it, where a sloping

square facing the water opens out. The scene is picturesque in the

extreme. The space is thronged by men, either sleeping in their baskets

or carrying them filled with fish or merchandise upon their heads: a

motley, water-side crowd, men of all nations, pass to and fro, or gossip

under the vine trellis before the wine shop overlooking the square, and

as the observer casts his eyes upwards he sees the gaily coloured houses

piled apparently on the top of one another, until at the top of all, as

if overhead, is the glaring white palace of the bishop, and the

glittering cathedral cross, standing out hard and clear against a sky of

fathomless indigo.

This busy river-side way of the Ribeira is, so to speak, a street of two

storeys. Below is the walk I have described, with the cavernous shops in

the face of the old river-wall, and on the top of the wall is another

path reached by occasional flights of steps, and also bordered by the

squalid medley of dark shops in which strange savoury-odoured victuals

are washed down by strong red wine, and quiet brown men and women, and

grave-eyed swarthy babies are inextricably mixed up with brown

merchandise in the gloom beyond the glaring sunlight. Unexpected steep

alleys, arched and mysterious, lead to the thoroughfares higher up the

precipitous slope, and the next storey, a parallel narrow street, the

Rua do Robelleiro, narrow, dark, and ancient, is almost as picturesque

as the Ribeira itself.

A slab let into the river-wall by the beach commemorates one of the most

terrible days in Oporto’s history. The English army had been chased to

its ships at Corunna, and the Spanish levies scattered: the Peninsula

seemed to be at the mercy of the French legions, which, under Napoleon’s

greatest marshals, held the richest provinces of Spain in the name of

King Joseph Bonaparte. But 9000 English troops remained in Lisbon, and

with Portugal in the hands of his enemies Napoleon knew that he would

never be master of Spain. So the word went forth that Soult was to march

down with a great army from Galicia, and sweep the English out of

Portugal. It seemed easy, and authorities even in England believed that

Portugal was untenable and should be evacuated. All but one man, Arthur

Wellesley, whose victory at Vimeiro in the previous year had been wasted

by the inept old women who were his superior officers. With 20,000 men,

said Wellesley, he would hold Portugal against 100,000 French, the

marshals notwithstanding; and the great Englishman had his way.

Beresford was sent out to reorganise the scattered Portuguese fighting

men, and Arthur Wellesley sailed from England with his little army to

face Soult in Portugal. Before he arrived in Lisbon the French had swept

down from Galicia, and on the 27th March 1809, Soult summoned Oporto to

surrender. The warlike Bishop of Oporto was heading the hastily

organised defence; his forces were undisciplined and badly armed, but

their hearts were stout, and behind their poor earthworks the citizens

of Oporto and their bishop bade defiance to Soult and his invading army.

On the 29th March at dawn the devoted city was stormed by Napoleon’s

veterans, who swept all before them. There was no quarter, no mercy, and

the steep streets of the city were turned to blood-smeared shambles.

Down to the river bank flocked the affrighted people, falling as they

ran under the rain of bullets that pursued them. Over the river from the

Ribeira was a bridge of boats, and upon this the crowd of panic-stricken

fugitives poured. The weight sank it, and thousands were drowned in the

Douro, or struggled ashore only to be despatched by the French, whilst

many of those who had been in arms deliberately drowned themselves

rather than surrender. Eighteen thousand Portuguese perished on that

awful day, without counting the drowned who were never recovered; whilst

of the whole Portuguese host only two hundred live prisoners were taken.

Six weeks afterwards the tables were turned; six weeks spent by Soult in

intrigues for his own advancement, and by his officers in discontented

idleness. On the 12th May Wellesley and his army from Lisbon surprised

him at Oporto in broad daylight, crossing the river a few miles above

the city by a brilliant piece of daring, and Soult ignominiously fled

north, leaving impedimenta and baggage behind him, harassed and

scattered by the Portuguese peasants in arms, until a mere remnant of

his force finally found refuge in Spain. The very dinner to which he was

about to sit down at Oporto when he was surprised regaled Sir Arthur

Wellesley instead, and the victor took up his residence in that big

white monastery on the Serra de Pilar, which from the height on the left

of the bridge affords a panorama of unequalled beauty of the city

opposite on its amphitheatre of hills, shining white and stately against

the dark background of the sky.

However you go from the lower level by the river-side to the main

streets of the city the climb is a severe one, for in this town of

precipitous hills the gradients are startling, even for the electric

trams which of late years have completely taken possession of the

streets. But we will leave the electric trams on this peregrination, and

face the ascent on foot from the lower level of the bridge on the

Ribeira itself to the upper town. First some toilsome flights of steps

which have taken the place of the lower end of a precipitous alley, cut

away to make the approach to the bridge, lead you up about two hundred

feet to an ancient winding lane which itself is almost a flight of

steps. Quaint foreign interiors are disclosed through the open doors of

the dark humble abodes that line the way, and poor little home

industries are carried on _coram populo_; half-way up the ladder-like

ascent there is a ruined church, and by-and-by on the right we skirt the

great battlemented wall of the vast disestablished monastery of Santa

Clara. At a turn in the wall the corner of the grim old edifice itself

appears, fortress-like and looming here as built for defence in the

fierce times of long ago. Through the doubly-grated windows, a few feet

above our heads, brown paws are thrust out, and a hoarse murmur from

within takes form, by-and-by, as a demand for alms in the name of God. A

glance inside makes one start back in horror, almost in disgust, though

the sorry spectacle unfortunately soon becomes familiar to those who

sojourn in any large Portuguese town. Huddled in squalor and filth

together are half-naked, savage-looking criminals, old men, sturdy

vagabonds, and youths almost children, staring out from the gloom of the

prison-house through the unglazed barred windows, with whining prayer

for charity, ribald jest, or explosive curses. These gaol-birds, herded

publicly in their unutterable degradation behind the gratings, form the

blackest spot visible in Portuguese life. Even Spain for the most part

has brought her prisons into some semblance of civilised order, but

Portugal in this one respect lags inexplicably behind.

[Illustration: FROM THE RIBEIRA, OPORTO.]

A few yards distant, through a little maze of mediæval streets, is the

cathedral, the Sé, with a quiet little courtyard before it, from the

parapet of which the red roofs and abundant verdure of the city spread

downward in waves to the water-side. These north Portuguese cathedrals

are marvellously alike; sharing the early beauties and later barbarities

of their successive generations of masters. This of Oporto is a good

specimen. The sturdy warrior kings who wrested Portugal, bit by bit,

from Castilian and from Moor, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,

were true crusaders. Where they set their foot sprang up the Christian

church, to testify for ever their gratitude for victory vouchsafed to

the Cross that symbolised their faith. Solid and staidly devotional were

the edifices they raised; and wherever their work remains unconcealed by

the scrolly banalities of a later age, it bears still the impress of

simple faith and unostentatious grandeur. Here on the hill crest at

Oporto stand two massive low towers, one still crowned by the pointed

Morisco machicolations of the twelfth century, whilst its fellow, partly

rebuilt, is spoilt by the addition of a trivial eighteenth-century

parapet, with urns as an adornment. Still, the massive solidity of the

towers remains, which is something to be thankful for when we regard the

hideous top-heavy early eighteenth-century façade that connects them.

The south door, of majestic romanesque, is similarly marred. Around it

has been built a barbarous porch, overloaded with meaningless ornament,

which not only obscures the serious work of the early builder, but half

covers and cuts in two a lovely old round window above the door which

lights the transept inside. But, however much these curly horrors of the

late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries may distract the eye,

they do not destroy what is still visible of the old edifice. The double

flight of low steps, for instance, which leads to this south door has

for handrails two ancient stone serpents, so simple in design, yet so

effective and perfectly adapted for their purpose, as to prove the

unaffected but consummate artistry of the designer, whose taste must

have been formed whilst yet the Byzantine traditions were strong in the

stern romanesque.

One is struck at once in entering any of these cathedrals, and more

particularly that of Oporto and its close congener Braga, with the vast

difference between them and the pompous, splendid Spanish cathedrals. In

the latter the span of the nave is usually tremendous, the church is

plunged in tinted gloom, and the whole of the centre of the nave is

blocked by an immense choir. Here in North Portugal the note struck in

the cathedrals is not mystery richly dight, as in Spain, but sincere

austerity, and a simple faith so essential in the edifice that the grave

granite columns and arches appear as unaffected by the heaps, and piles,

and masses of curly carved gilt wood around them as a monolith might be

by the lizards that bask and slither round its base. Here in Oporto, for

instance, the low, massive, granite pillars that line the narrow nave,

and support the round romanesque arches, seem sullenly to bid defiance

to time and decay; such is their prodigious solidity. And yet even these

a later age has surmounted, if not adorned, with curly Corinthian

capitals of carved gilt wood! Every altar here, and indeed nearly all

over Portugal, is an overloaded mass of this particular barbaric style

of decoration dear to the Portuguese since the seventeenth century. The

skill in its production is undeniably great, especially in the chapel of

St. Vincent in Oporto Cathedral; and in moderation the employment of

richly painted, carved, and gilded wood generally may be advantageous

where the light is low and the architectural style ornate. But here,

where the simple romanesque prevails and the churches are flooded with

light, it overwhelms one. In this low, old, plain Sé, either gilded wood

or high-relief designs in beaten gold or silver in endless intricacy

strike the eye unmercifully at every turn. On one of these ornate

altars, screened by a curtain which a fee will raise, stands the ancient

effigy, which those who still hold the simple faith of their fathers

venerate so devoutly—Our Lady of Alem. Ages ago, so the story runs, when

this old fane was yet a-building in the twelfth century, some Douro

fishermen found their nets heavy with an unusual burden, and raising

them, found this image, a miraculous gift vouchsafed them from the sea.

Since then the prayers of those who win their living on the deep have

been ceaselessly offered to the Lady of Alem for safety and good luck,

and simple offerings of gratitude for boons thus gained—for sickness

healed or safe return—hang thickly round the shrine.

The beautiful little cloisters of the cathedral are of a later date than

the church—grave and simple Gothic of the late fourteenth century, with

three small pointed lancet arches in each span, and a plain round light

in the tympanum above. But even here the eighteenth century has done

some damage by building out highly ornamental buttresses between the

main spans. All around on the inner wall of the cloister is a decoration

which abounds in nearly every Portuguese church that has lived through

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—namely, large pictorial

representations in blue and white tiles, like those commonly connected

with the town of Delft. In the churches these tile pictures usually

represent scenes from Scripture history, with a large admixture of

heathen mythology or ordinary emblematic fancies, as here in Oporto, and

the effect is quaint and not unpleasing. One of the things indeed which

most strongly strike a stranger in Portugal, in the north especially, is

the almost universal employment of glazed tiles, _azulejos_, both inside

and outside buildings of all kinds, the majority of the better sort of

dwelling-houses being entirely covered outside by tile designs in

colours, sometimes very elaborate and beautiful. The custom exists to

some extent in Spain, but is not so common there as in Portugal. In each

case, however, the taste and original manufacture, like the name of

these tiles, are clearly Moorish, and in some of the older edifices, to

be mentioned later, the tiles themselves date from a period when Moors

or Mudejares produced them.

In the sacristy of Oporto Cathedral they will show you a painting on

terra-cotta of the Virgin and Child, backed by St. Joseph and angels

bearing a cross, which is asserted to be a Raphael. The composition and

drawing are clearly the work of a disciple of his school, but the

colouring is dull and grey, such as the great one of Urbino would never

have produced. Not this so-called Raphael, but another picture of the

highest interest and beauty, is the principal artistic treasure of the

city. In the board-room of Oporto’s most cherished and beneficent

institution, the vast charitable organisation called the Misericordia,

there hangs a painting that has few, if any, equals in Portugal. It is

claimed for Jan Van Eyck, who is known to have been in Portugal for two

years at about the period (1520) represented by the work, though

personally I could see but slight traces of the peculiar quality of

either of the brothers Van Eyck. Certainly it is broader in style than

anything I have seen from the brush of the younger brother Jan, and may

well be the work of Hubert Van der Goes or Hans Memling. But, whoever

may be the painter, the picture is a magnificent one. Against a

background representing a typical Flemish landscape and walled town,

such as Memling loved to paint, there is a highly ornamented font filled

with a pool of blood replenished from the stream that issues from the

Saviour’s side, as He hangs upon the cross rising from the centre of the

pool. Upon the edge of the font, on each side of the cross, in attitudes

of prayer, stand two lovely life-size figures of the Virgin and St.

John, whilst in the foreground there kneel, in regal robes of crimson,

ermine, and gold brocade, the figures of the founder of the Misericordia

in 1499, King Manuel the Fortunate and his wife. Kneeling behind them in

decreasing size are members of their family, and on the farther side

beyond the font are groups of ecclesiastics and laymen, all evidently

life-like portraits of prominent courtiers, or benefactors of the

institution. The colouring of the picture is glowing and gorgeous in the

extreme, and the loving care expended upon the details is such as only

the early Flemings had patience to exercise, accompanied by a breadth

and boldness unusual in most of them. Fons Vitæ, as the painting is

called, from an inscription on the edge of the font, is emblematical of

the foundation of the home of mercy it adorns. Nor is it the only art

treasure the Misericordia possesses, apart from the hundreds of awful

daubs representing dead and gone benefactors that crowd every inch of

wall-space. There is to be seen a beautiful Gothic gold chalice of

fifteenth-century Portuguese work, some fifteen inches high, a specimen

of the famous handicraft of the city, of great interest, the work being

of the most intricate and elaborate description, and the condition of

the jewel perfect.

Away from the river-side and the immediate surroundings of the

cathedral, Oporto has little to show in the form of architectural

quaintness. A busy, bustling place of modern-looking houses for the most

part, the streets dominated by the indispensable electric tramways,

casting scorn upon the lumbering ox wains that alone compete with them.

Yet the city has some striking points that should not be missed. The

view is very fine, for instance, from the top of the main modern

shopping thoroughfare, the Rua de S. Antonio, which swoops down suddenly

like a giant switchback to the Praça de Dom Pedro, the centre of the

city, and then as the Rua dos Clerigos soars aloft again as suddenly to

another eminence crowned by the extraordinary tower of the Church of the

Clerigos, one of the loftiest spires in Portugal. The effect, looking up

on either side from the Praça de Dom Pedro, is as curious as any

streetscape of its kind in Europe. The Praça de Dom Pedro itself,

crowded almost day and night with people, busy and idle, is a typical

Portuguese “place,” paved, as most of them are, by the strange wave

pattern in black and white stone mosaic that gives to the Praça de Dom

Pedro in Lisbon (the Rocio) the English name of “rolling motion square.”

From the Praça de Dom Pedro in Oporto, leading downward towards the

river-side, is the famous street of the old city called Rua das Flores,

where now, as for centuries past, the gold and silver filigree jewelry

for which Oporto is famous is made and sold in a score of dark

old-fashioned little shops; and still farther down is the Praça do

Comercio, with a striking statue amidst the flower-beds of Portugal’s

national hero, Prince Henry the Navigator. In this square stands, too,

the principal architectural boast of modern Oporto, the Exchange, of

which the interior is really grandiose in the florid style so beloved by

the Portuguese. The elaborate high-relief carvings prevalent in Portugal

are usually executed in soft marble-like limestone, which hardens with

exposure to the air; but here in the Bolsa of Oporto the intricate

festoons and ingenious caprices that stand out everywhere in relief on

walls, pillars, and staircases are carved out of the solid grey granite

of which the edifice is built, as if out of defiance the most difficult

material had been sought. Some of the fine apartments, especially the

Tribunal of commerce, are beautifully decorated in frescoes by Salgado,

in style much resembling those of Lord Leighton; and the great ballroom

is a gorgeous hall in the brilliant gold and coloured arabesques of the

Alhambra.

The Exchange is built upon the site of a disestablished Franciscan

monastery, and cowering under the shadow of its modern magnificence

there still stands the convent Church of St. Francis. The seventeenth

century has left little of the original fifteenth-century church

standing, and the interior is a mass of extravagantly rococo carved and

gilt wood and other monstrosities; but in an ancient south transept

chapel there is an altar-piece of interest in the style of Mantegna,

though the sacristan ascribes it to some impossible artist of another

school and century. Nothing, indeed, can equal the ignorance of, and

apparent indifference to, antique and artistic objects in Portugal by

the persons in charge of them. Even in national museums and historic

buildings belonging to the Government, the guardians appear to have been

chosen without the slightest regard to their fitness for understanding

or describing the objects in their care, and the demeanour of the

Portuguese people generally towards such objects is such as to force the

conviction that, however proud they may be that their country has

produced gems of art admired by strangers, they themselves have but a

vague appreciation of their beauties or their merit.

The precipitous street leading up from the Praça de Dom Pedro to the

conspicuous Church of the Clerigos is gay with a line of the drapers’

shops, with the gaudy wares aflaunt, which appeal specially to the

country folk who flock in with their produce to the picturesque market

of the Anjo behind the church. Red and yellow, blue and green, strive

for mastery from street kerb to parapet, for the stock is as much

outside the shops as in; and under the blazing sun, with the eternally

deep azure sky overhead, the feast of colour in the clear air is so

lavish as to dazzle eyes accustomed to the low tones and soft outlines

of England. But relief is near. Through the chaffering market, with its

piles of luscious fruit and all the bounteous gifts of earth and sea

spread temptingly before brightly clad country wenches with flashing

black eyes, the wayfarer may pass but need not tarry; nor is it worth

his while to penetrate into the over-florid eighteenth-century churches

of the Clerigos and the Carmo, which lie in his way—for just beyond them

is a beautiful sub-tropical garden where shady groves of palms invite to

repose, and towering planes temper the glare with a soft haze of

sea-green. Seated in a quiet nook, with leisure now to watch the

passers-by closely, one is struck by the prosperous busy look of the

working people. There is no undue noise, and a stranger is allowed to go

his way without unwelcome attention; above all, marvellous to relate,

beggars are rare, whilst the persistent, offensive, mendicancy,

amounting often to sheer blackmail, which is a perfect plague in Spain,

is here quite unknown.

[Illustration: A SHOP IN OLD OPORTO.]

The manners of these people of North Portugal, indeed, are

irreproachable. So courteous are they that it seems almost rude of the

stranger to note too closely the quaint garb of the working people

around him. The peasant women especially keep their ancient costume

unchanged. Barefoot they go, old and young, with their heavy burdens

piled in their boat-shaped baskets upon the black, pork-pie hats they

wear. Their skirts, usually black but often with a broad horizontal

stripe of colour round the bottom, are very short, and gathered with

great fulness at the waist and over the hips. Upon the shoulders there

is almost invariably a brilliantly coloured handkerchief, and sometimes

another upon the head beneath the hat; and long, pendant, gold earrings

shine against their coarse jet-black hair. It is evident that for the

most part they work quite as hard as the men, but they have no

appearance of privation or ill-treatment, except that their habit of

carrying heavy weights upon their heads has the effect of ruining their

figures in the manner already described. There are no indications

anywhere of excessive drinking, and even smoking is not conspicuous

amongst the working men and boys in the streets; they seem, indeed, too

seriously busy for that, except on some feast day, when, with their best

clothes on, they are gay enough, though not vociferous even then, as

most southern peoples are.

There is an ancient little church in the northern suburb of Oporto,

which will be of some interest to students of architecture. It is little

more than a fragment now, but represents the earliest orthodox Catholic

foundation in the city, and indeed in this part of the Peninsula. In the

clashing of creeds in the early centuries of Christianity, Visigothic

Spain had been officially Arian, whilst orthodox trinitarianism was the

creed of the great churchmen, and the majority of the Romanised people.

In 559 Mir, King of the Suevians, who ruled in the north-west corner of

the Peninsula, was distracted by the imminent danger of his son, who was

ill apparently to death. He was an Arian, but the priests of the

orthodox Church assured him that safety to his son might be gained by

the aid of certain relics of St. Martin of Tours, and Mir swore that if

the relics worked the miracle he and all his people would join the

Catholic communion, and he would build a church to St. Martin within a

year in his capital city. The prince recovered, and Mir was as good as

his word. To the dismay of the Gothic monarchs of Spain, Suevia joined

the orthodox fold, and in hot haste this Church of St. Martin was built;

“Cedofeita,” “soon done,” being its name to this day. The upper part of

the little cruciform church has been restored and the inner walls have

been lined with the universal blue and white picture tiles; but the

pillars and arches are pure romanesque, with capricious carvings on the

capitals, and the charming little cloister is entered by a romanesque

doorway of great beauty. The capitals, too, of the north doorway of the

church are very curious, though apparently later than the cloister door,

one of the carvings representing a man in a long gown being devoured by

an animal’s head, doubtless an allegory of which the significance is

lost to us.

Another church of some interest is that of Mattosinhos, a large and

prosperous village adjoining the harbour of Leixões, where those who

come by sea to Oporto land. The way thither from the city by the

electric tramway lies along the river-side, and past the charming

tropical-looking public gardens at the Foz de Douro, where in the summer

heat the citizens of Oporto idle, flirt, and disport themselves in the

surf that breaks upon the sandy beach. The Church of Mattosinhos is a

great place of pilgrimage, for it possesses amongst other attractions a

miraculous image of Christ, which is venerated throughout Portugal, and

the shrine is a famous one. The church lies on a gentle eminence, and is

approached by a beautiful, wide, mosaic pavement, bordered by avenues of

planes and cork trees, under the shadow of which are six chapels

containing life-sized groups representing scenes in the passion of Our

Lord. The soft warm air from the sea comes heavy-laden with the scent of

flowers, and on one side of the church a grove of orange trees shelters

a merry school of boys, who do not even pause in their games to glance

at the curious stranger peering about amongst them. The outside of the

church, somewhat squat and solid eighteenth-century work, presents a

fair specimen of a style of which we shall see much later; a style not

at all ineffective, although its description may not sound attractive.

Its peculiarity consists in the admixture of brownish-grey granite, of

which all the architectural lines and salient points consist, with

panels or spaces of snow-white plaster between. In this pure air, under

a brilliant sun, the subdued colour of the granite softens the outlines,

whilst the white spaces prevent an appearance of gloom or heaviness.

Inside, the Church of Mattosinhos is grave and simple in its

architectural features, but, as usual, the altars, and especially the

chancel, are a riotous mass of gilt wood carving, without repose or

restraint.

Down by the shore the great Atlantic rollers are thundering upon the

beach, as if hungering to devour the crescent-shaped sardine boats drawn

higher up for safety; and a long mail steamer, in the little harbour of

Leixões, has its blue peter flying and its funnel smoking ready to sail

for England. It is autumn there, no doubt, for the calendar tells us so

and cannot lie; but here it is glorious summer still, for the palms and

planes wave softly green in the languorous air, and the flowers, in

great white and purple masses, hang over every wall and wrestle with the

blue-black grapes that deck the trellises before the cottage doors.

Everywhere is vivid colour and sharp outline in an atmosphere of

marvellous clarity, and as we are carried rapidly through the balmy,

voluptuous breeze to the city, we feel that life under such conditions

is indeed worth living.

II

BRAGA AND BOM JESUS

The famous port-wine is grown upon a well-defined region nearly sixty

miles up the river from Oporto, and, interesting as the manufacture is,

the arid and inhospitable-looking land of terraced hillsides, where the

glorious grape grows upon the loose, stony soil, offers little

attraction to the seeker after the picturesque. To the north of Oporto,

and indeed in most of the province of Minho, the wine produced, though

varying in excellence, is generally of stout claret character, not

unlike the Rioja wine grown in the north of Spain. But North Portugal,

though cultivated like a garden wherever possible by a peasantry

probably unequalled in Europe for self-respecting independence and

laboriousness, thanks largely to causes that have made them practically

owners as well as tillers of the soil, does not strike a cursory

observer as being naturally fertile. For miles together, and as far as

the eye reaches, pine-clad hillsides stretch: beautiful straight pines,

rising in huge forests or isolated clumps, the light-green feathery

foliage shining against the clear indigo background of the sky, high

above the sandy soil carpeted with a thick soft cushion of pine-needles.

But closer view shows that down in the sheltered valleys between the

hills and on the lower slopes there nestle hundreds of little vineyards

and fields of maize and rye, the staple breadstuffs of the people.

The peasantry live well in their way, and are not content with inferior

food. Not for them is the poor makeshift of white bread and the fat cold

bacon of the English farm hand. The bread of rye with an admixture of

maize flour, the _broa_ or _brona_, as it is called in north-western

Spain, is dark in colour and coarse in texture; but it is a fine

sustaining food, upon which, in Galicia, I have often made a good meal.

The ever-present dried codfish, _bacalhau_, cooked with garlic and oil,

and sometimes with rice, flavoured with saffron, is also not by any

means a food to be contemned, unpalatable as it is to those who taste it

for the first time. But this, although forming the staple fare of the

Minho peasant and small farmer, does not exhaust his _menu_. There is

for high days and holidays the savoury _estofado_ of stewed meat and

vegetables, of which the Portuguese peasant housewife is pardonably

proud; there are olives, onions, and fruit _ad libitum_, and good,

sound, new wine, tart, but not unpleasant, at the price of the cheapest

small beer in England.

But the foreign visitor who comes simply for a short pleasure trip on

the more or less beaten tracks will not be expected to regale himself

upon this peasant fare, good as it is in its way. Of mutton he will find

little or none, but veal, especially in the national stew, he will see

at most meals, and ox-tongue, with a rich sauce, will appear on the

table more frequently than is usual elsewhere. A thin, and, it must be

confessed, usually tough steak, to which the adopted English name of

beef (spelt _bife_) is given, will be placed before him pretty often,

and he will find both the thing and the word omelette—which is never

used in Spanish—universal in Portuguese dining-rooms.

Through a glorious country of pine-clad uplands and sheltered vineyards

the railway runs from Oporto to the former great city of Braga, in Roman

times _Bracara Augusta_, and capital of the whole north-western part of

the Iberian Peninsula. Its position on a slight elevation in the midst

of a vast undulating plain or _cuenca_, surrounded by mountains, has

made of Braga the natural emporium of the province, and in each

succeeding racial dispensation a royal seat and capital; and it remains

to-day, though shorn of its splendour, the ecclesiastical capital of the

Spains, claiming precedence over imperial Toledo for its archbishopric

and primacy. It is a busy, prosperous place, humming with little

spinning and weaving factories, where woollen and cotton fabrics are

turned out in great quantities, and hold their own not only here in

Minho, but in the rest of Portugal and far Brazil and Portuguese Africa.

At the railway station at Braga, in the outskirts of the city, a noisy,

assertive little steam-train of several carriages is waiting in the

street, and with much puffing and whistling, it carries the travellers

up the slope into the narrow thoroughfares of the town. It is Sunday,

and the streets are thronged with gaily-dressed people, the women,

heavily decked with the ancient gold jewellery, long earrings, heavy

neck chains, and crosses upon the white shirt that covers the bosom.

Across the shoulders of most of them there is a brilliantly coloured

silk handkerchief, whilst their full-pleated short skirts are usually of

some thick dark-coloured cloth, and upon their heads here in Braga they

often wear, like their sisters in Oporto, the peculiar round cloth

pork-pie hat, with the curling silk fringe on the top of the rim. The

men are less picturesque in their Sunday trim, for many of them wear

felt wide-brimmed hats instead of the workaday bag cap; but even they

have usually added a bit of colour to their sombre masculine garb in the

form of a bright scarf encircling their waists to do the duty of braces.

Under the Porta Nova the fussy little train rushes, and up the narrow,

picturesque street, the top-heavy stone scutcheon upon the

eighteenth-century gate striking at the very entrance the dominant note

of the ancient city. Here and everywhere the archiepiscopal insignia,

the tasselled hat and mitre, and the Virgin and Child on the city arms,

tell that the place from the earliest Christian times has been an

ecclesiastical seignory. Churches, too, greet the eye at every turn;

most of them massive seventeenth and eighteenth century structures in

the peculiar style mentioned in the description of the Church of

Mattosinhos in the last chapter: brownish grey granite outlines and

salient points, with dazzling white plaster spaces between. Opposite one

such church, in a tiny praça leading off from the main square of the

city, the Largo da Lapa, I came across a picturesque scene worthy of the

brush of John Philip. In a corner of the little square of San Francisco

was an ancient recessed fountain in the wall, and around it, with water

jars high and graceful like Roman amphoræ, there fluttered a group of

women waiting their turn at the jet. Moving to and fro and clustering in

the deep shadow contrasting with the blinding sunlight, these

full-bosomed, black-haired women, with fine Roman heads and flashing

eyes, were so many points of glaring colour, forming a brilliant giant

kaleidoscope, whilst the chattering of many tongues, the jest and taunt

thrown over the shoulder to rival or to swain, the careless laughter,

seemed to blend and fill the languid air with a vague harmony to the

ear, such as the mixed discordant colours in their aggregation produced

to the eye. By the side of the gay fountain stood the contrast that

heightened its effect. A frowning monastery with heavily grated windows

high upon the wall, from which glowered evil faces and thrust thievish

hands. For here, again, on this happy holiday afternoon in Braga, the

gaol-birds held their levee. Beneath their bars stood their womenkind

and children, consoling or grieving; and little bags hung down at the

end of strings from the windows to receive the gifts it pleased their

friends to send up to the sinister rascals, whose hoarse ribaldry or

whining appeal broke in ever and anon upon the gay chatter of the

fountain. As if in irony, the church that faced the monastery prison

bore upon its front the name the “Temple of the Sacred Order of

Penitence.” Of contrition one saw little sign on the part of those who

from behind their bars looked for all their weary day upon the church

commemorating the unmerited self-reproach of the “Seraphic Father St.

Francis.”

[Illustration: THE AFTER-GLOW AT BRAGA.]

There is one thing throughout Portugal that may be unhesitatingly

condemned, and here in Braga the evil is as patent as elsewhere. The old

traditional and, in many cases, historical names of the praças and

streets have been changed wholesale and wantonly for those of passing

and second-rate celebrities, political and otherwise. In Braga the

ancient Largo da Lapa has been turned into Largo de Hintze Ribeiro,

after the leader of the Liberal party in the Cortes, and there is hardly

a town in Portugal in which the principal squares and thoroughfares do

not bear the name of Hintze Ribeiro, or of his rival politician,

Conselheiro João Franco. Serpa Pinto and Mouzinho de Albuquerque, two

fire-eating African explorers, who in the jingo colonial fever of a few

years ago, when the feeling against England ran high, were made heroes,

are commemorated in streets innumerable throughout Portugal, to the

exclusion of names which were often quaint and significant landmarks of

long ago.

The palace of the Archbishops of Braga hardly corresponds in appearance

with the high claims of the primate, for the church in Portugal is sadly

shorn of its splendour, and part of the rambling palace is a ruin; but

the cathedral offers many points of interest. Enthusiastic local

antiquarians are confident that the first edifice was raised by Saint

James himself in the lifetime of the Holy Virgin. But, however that may

be, the present church certainly dates from the twelfth century; and

though, as usual, the seventeenth century did its best to spoil and

smother its primitive simplicity; yet, as in the case of Oporto

Cathedral, which that of Braga much resembles, the stern solidity of the

original work stands out clear from the frippery by which it is

overlaid.

The narrow nave is divided from the aisles by massive low clustered

granite pillars supporting slightly pointed arches, above which spring

the simple groins that form the vaulted roof. At the west end the church

is darkened by the gilt wooden ceiling that supports the choir and the

great gilded organ with spread trumpet pipes that is the pride of the

cathedral. The choir itself, raised upon a loft and occupying the whole

west end of the church, is of surprising magnificence; carving and

gilding have run wild; cupids, cherubim, angels, musicians, and fabulous

monsters jostle each other exuberantly upon choir stalls, lecterns, and

panels: all the caprice, skill, and invention of sixteenth and

seventeenth century Portuguese art have been lavished upon the work. And

the effect is rich in the extreme, but utterly incongruous with the

sober early ogival of the church itself. Even in the nave the massive

granite pillars have been crowned by later vandals with florid capitals

of carved gilt wood. The walls, too, are much covered with pictorial

blue and white tiles, and the effect of this, though inartistic, is

quaint and not displeasing. From the tiny cloister of plain romanesque

there opens the chapel of St. Luke, where in two splendid sepulchres lie

the bodies of the Leonese princess, Teresa, and her Burgundian husband,

Count Henrique, to whom she brought the county of Portugal in the late

eleventh century. These are the progenitors of the Kings of Portugal,

the parents of Affonso Henriques, of whom we shall hear much later; and

to Donna Teresa is owing the re-foundation of the Cathedral of Braga. In

the side chapels, in the cloisters, and in the sumptuous chapel of St.

Gerald, the patron saint, there lie dead and mouldering archbishops not

a few; one of them, it is said, incorrupt after eight centuries, though

in consequence of the flesh having been varnished he has the appearance

of a mulatto, and shows to this day the honourable scar across his cheek

that the warrior archbishop gained whilst fighting valiantly by the side

of the Master of Avis at the ever-memorable battle of Aljubarrota, that

gave the regal crown of Portugal to the illegitimate scion of the House

of Burgundy. Another coffin there is, just inside the west door, that

has for most people a still more human interest. It is of gilt copper,

apparently French in design, bearing upon its lid an effigy of a pretty

boy of ten, the little Prince Affonso, whose bones lie within, and who

died at Braga in the year 1400.

The exterior of the cathedral has, like the interior, been much spoilt

by later builders, the little square towers having been crowned by a

mean-looking balustrade and crockets; but the exterior of the

sixteenth-century Lady Chapel is a favourable specimen of the peculiar

florid Portuguese renaissance style called Manueline, of which I shall

have more to say later. Here at the Lady Chapel at Braga it is more

restrained and presents fewer daring departures from the Gothic canons

than elsewhere, though the surprising intricacy of the parapet and

pinnacles show that the new spirit was strongly moving when it was

built. That the artists who executed the work were Spaniards from Biscay

is probably the reason why in this instance the peculiar and more

questionable features of the style are less conspicuous than in the

productions of native Portuguese craftsmen of the same period. The other

churches of Braga have little show. They are mostly rococo

seventeenth-century structures, granite and plaster outside, and

nightmares of carved gilt wood inside; but almost under the shadow of

the overloaded rococo façade of Santa Cruz there is a lovely little

early ogival votive chapel standing by itself, and containing a

characteristically Portuguese group of the dead Christ, infinitely

touching and beautiful.

And so through the quaint old streets the stranger finds his way,

passing by a house here and there whose balconies and windows are

covered with the intricate wooden jalousies that linger still as a

tradition of oriental civilisation. The whole place is bathed and

flooded with vivid sunlight, except where the lengthening shadows fall

almost purple in their depth; and wandering without special aim, past

the public garden called the Campo de Sant’ Anna, towards the outskirts

of the city, I found myself at the foot of a steep hill rising suddenly

on the left of the walk. Climbing it, I found a little plateau on the

top with a tiny quaint seventeenth-century hermitage chapel, the

Guadalupe I learned was its name, under a clump of shady planes and

chestnut trees. Around the plateau was a dwarf parapet upon which two

lovers were sitting, oblivious to all around save each other; but as I

reached the parapet, and my eyes took in the prospect spread before me,

a cry of wonderment at its marvellous beauty sprang involuntarily from

me, and aroused for a moment the attention of the youth and the girl,

who sat with their backs to the landscape, caring nothing for such

things. It was but a glance they gave me, and I could enjoy

thenceforward without interruption or notice the rapture I felt from the

scene, the first of many such peculiarly Portuguese prospects of rolling

valleys and soaring mountains to be gained from comparatively low

elevations; scenes such as in other countries can only be attained after

long and arduous climbs up high mountains. I soon found, it is true,

that this view from the Guadalupe in Braga was but a trifle in

comparison with many others to be encountered in the course of a few

weeks’ travel; but when it first burst unexpectedly upon me it filled me

with an ecstasy that no subsequent prospect, however fine, could

produce.

Just below me was a tangle of vines, and then a mass of oaks, planes,

cork-trees, and acacias, with their fluttering light foliage, descending

in a gracious ocean of greenery of every shade across a broad valley

till they climbed half up the glowing red mountains miles away. White

houses gleamed amidst the trees, and upon every hill-top a hermitage or

shrine stood out with its shining cross above it. But that which

attracted the eye most was what looked like a giant white marble

staircase of immense width, leading right up the side of a wooded

mountain spur opposite, upon the summit of which, at the head of the

stupendous stair, set deep in the verdure of woods, stood a huge white

temple. Seen from the Guadalupe, the architectural approach up the

mountain side to the place of pilgrimage above looked almost too vast to

be made by man. Beyond, on the right, rose a majestic range of granite

peaks, bare of vegetation, and scattered to the summit with tremendous

boulders; and over all the setting sun threw a glow of golden light that

tipped the grey granite with crimson, orange, and purple, and deepened

the shadows of the climbing woods to umber and to black. The light fell,

and by-and-by only the crests of the red and grey mountains glowed, for

the woods across the vast plain lay in the black shadow of the peaks.

But still, white and gleaming, like a stupendous staircase of shining

silver, there shone, clear from the surrounding gloom, the great

pilgrimage of Bom Jesus do Monte. And so in the gathering twilight,

sated with the beauty of the inanimate world, I slowly wandered down

into the pulsing city again, leaving the lad and his lass still

whispering on the parapet, alone in their happy blindness.

From the door of the hotel in the Campo Sant’ Anna the tyrannical little

street train that bullies Braga several times a day carries us to the

foot of the Bom Jesus on the spur of Mount Espinho. For nearly two miles

of continuous gentle ascent the road passes through a long stretching

suburb of humble houses; and then a quarter of a mile through a close

grove of shady trees brings us to the outer portico of the sanctuary, a

white gateway at the head of a flight of steps, backed apparently by a

dense luxuriant wood. Hard by the portico is the starting platform of an

elevator railway, by which pilgrims may, if they please, dodge the

rigours of the penance, and arrive at the summit without exertion. This

course, on my arrival, commended itself to me, and I left until the next

day a full exploration of the place. On the summit of the spur, by the

side and behind the great church, white outlined by brown granite as

usual, there lies a land of enchantment. Vegetation of surprising

luxuriance is everywhere, giant trees full of verdure nearly all the

year round, mosses, ferns, and flowers in every crevice. Gushing

fountains and cascades, rustic bridges, and sweet winding paths through

the woods, everything that can conduce to tranquil repose and comfort is

here, with air so pure and exhilarating at this great elevation as to

raise the most depressed to vivacity. On a picturesque little clearing

on the summit there are two or three hotels, the principal of which, the

Grand Hotel, a long one-storey wooden building overhung by great trees,

I can vouch for as excellent.

The sanctuary is naturally a great resort amongst the people of Braga in

the hot summers on the plain, and I cannot conceive a more agreeable

place to pass a few days for rest at any time of the year; but the

special religious element draws many devotees who conscientiously go

through the pilgrimage to the shrines, and on the 3rd of May and Whit

Sunday especially many hundreds of pilgrims flock to the sanctuary for

devotion as well as for pleasure. The astonishing feature of the place

is, of course, the devotional approach to the church up the side of the

mountain, and it is difficult in a few words to give an idea of the

eccentricity of the structure. It may be admitted at once that the taste

displayed is atrociously bad, for it belongs to that eighteenth century

which has loaded Portugal with rococo monstrosities; but the very

vastness of Bom Jesus, and its exquisite position, save it from

triviality; and looked at as a whole, either from above or below, the

effect is grandiose in the extreme.

[Illustration: ON THE TERRACE, BOM JESUS.]

Some sort of sanctuary had existed here from the fifteenth century, but

it was not until the middle of the seventeenth that a miraculous figure

of Christ drew to the hermitage large numbers of pilgrims, and gradually

in the later eighteenth century the present structures grew under the

care of successive archbishops of Braga. Standing upon the spacious open

terrace before the church on the summit I looked down soon after sunrise

upon the scene spread before me. If the view hitherward from the

Guadalupe was fine this was more striking still. Wreaths of grey mist

still floated in the valley far below, and the vast plain with Braga in

its centre embosomed amongst trees, and surrounded as far as the eye

reached with red-roofed hamlets, still lay in grey shadow. But ridge

over ridge, crag beyond crag, in the background rose the mountains all

tipped with shining gold with chasms of tender heliotrope; and then,

before the mind had well realised the beauty of the contrast, the whole

plain woke and smiled with sunshine.

The platform or terrace upon which I stood with my back to the church

was flanked with granite obelisks and statues, and fronted by a wide

stone parapet with a beautiful stone fountain above it. By two broad

flights of steps at the sides a lower landing, or platform, was reached

with an arched fountain set in the face of the wall, then by steps down

to a similar platform, whence a pair of flights led to yet another, and

so on, the parapets and balustrades in each case being surmounted by

obelisks and statues, the fountains on the wall-faces being, like the

figures, an extraordinary mixture of sacred and mythological art. Each

alternate pair of platforms, after the first six, extending right across

the structure and paved with the favourite black and white stone mosaic,

was flanked by two shrines or little open chapels, each with a beautiful

life-sized coloured group of figures representing scenes in the passion

of our Lord. Half-way down there was an entrance from one of the

platforms into a lovely old-world terraced garden, overflowing with

flowers, palms, and sweet-scented verdure, and overhung by the dark yews

and pines that bordered the graded descent from top to bottom. At length

after descending many flights of steps and passing many terraced

platforms with fountains, figures, and obelisks, a large mosaic-paved

semicircular space was reached, ending in a stone parapet. Turning and

looking upwards from here an extraordinary effect was presented. The

alternate zigzags of the stairs and the faces of the walls, indeed all

the architectural features, were outlined, like the great church

towering far overhead, with brown grey granite, and faced with perfectly

white plaster. Stage upon stage the great staircase rose, its parapets

at the side and the centre line being marked by statues rising

alternately one over the other at each successive stage of the ascent.

Dark greenery, palms, yews, acacias, orange trees, and trailing flowers

overhung the ascent on each side, and it was not difficult to understand

the devotional fervour of pilgrims, who with tears and contrition toil

up this vast _viâ dolorosa_ by the hundred on the special anniversary,

worshipping at the affecting shrines on the landings, and ending in an

agony of remorse at the foot of the miraculous Christ which is the main

attraction of the Sanctuary. Nor is the scene looking down over the

parapet at the bottom of the main flight less striking. Sheer over the

precipice you see the billowy masses of dark thick woods far below. On

one side of the wide mosaic landing is a stair leading to another

chapel, and so down by a succession of zigzag flights, bordered by thick

greenery, to the porch, set in its grove of yews, and leading to the

outer world. But mere words are weak to describe the charm and beauty of

the Bom Jesus. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in Europe,

and as sanctuary, health resort, and architectural curiosity it deserves

to be better known than it is.

[Illustration: ON THE HOLY STAIR, BOM JESUS.]

III

CITANIA AND GUIMARÃES

I drove out of Braga in the early morning. Passing over the ancient

bridge spanning the little stream, at which lines of women knelt and

washed their household linen, we left the city behind us and faced the

mountain range beyond which lay my goal. Far above reared the grey crest

of Mount Picoto, with a gilt cross dominating its highest point; and as

the road wound upwards and ever upward in zigzags, at each turn of the

path Braga, white and shining, set in its bed of verdure, receded far

below. All around were glorious sun-kissed peaks scattered to the summit

with huge granite boulders, as if the youthful Titans had there indulged

in the sport of stone-throwing. Then over a hill pass, we dipped into a

valley with the Falperra range clear before us, and beautiful St. Marta,

with its crown of woods and its gleaming hermitage in the foreground,

almost, as it seemed, over our heads. Maize fields spread across the

valley and on the hill slopes all around us; and on the wayside, and

dividing the fields, rows of oaks, chestnuts, planes, and, above all,

white poplars, ran, every tree covered to the top by a trailing vine,

loaded with purple grapes. The effect produced is most extraordinary,

and the practice of thus utilising timber trees is peculiar to this part

of the country.

For many miles, as we drove over valley and hill, tall poplars by the

thousand, their light green leaves blending with the bronze, served as

vine poles; and every white cottage had its shady trellis pergola before

its open doorway, the great luscious bunches of fruit hanging temptingly

over the heads of the women busy spinning, surrounded by quiet, brown,

barefooted children.

The prevalence of granite is noticeable everywhere. The fields are

divided from the path by granite walls, gate-posts, trellis standards,

and even telegraph poles are slender granite monoliths, and the cottages

themselves are granite built, solid and weather-proof. Many people meet

us on their way to Braga: men in velvet jackets, wide, brown, homespun

trousers, often with inserted patterns of other coloured cloth, and

broad brimmed hats; the women, gay with bright kerchiefs over head and

shoulders, but all barefooted, and many carrying poised upon their heads

the slender red water jars, the fashion of which has known no change

since the time when the legions of Augustus ruled the Celts and Suevians

with iron hand from Bracara Augusta. Ox-carts slowly toil along, the

bowed necks of the bullocks bearing above them the elaborately carved

_canga_, here seen at its best. And still the road lies mainly upward

through the keen pure air, the mountain slopes below and around us green

with pine forests, and above us the eternal grey granite boulders. The

land is bathed in a flood of sunlight, with here and there upon the

widespread slopes and valleys the dark shadow of a passing cloud. Even

up here amidst the masses of granite the fruit-laden vine persists,

covering and embracing with its reaching tendrils poplars, oaks, and

olives on the sheltered slopes, whilst the proud pines alone, towering

on the exposed surfaces, defy the creeper’s insidious caress.

At length the high pass of the Falperra range is crossed, and before us

spreads a vast fertile plain, with villages and homesteads scattered

across its bosom. Soon the grey boulders disappear from around us, and

the air grows softer, though granite still supplies the place of wood by

the roadside. The fields of maize are usually not above an acre in

extent, and are bordered everywhere by vine-clad poplars. It is clear to

see that the little farms are for the most part cultivated by the owners

and by hand labour, for no yard of tillable soil is left to waste. It is

market day at Taipas, and flocks of picturesque husbandmen and their

womenkind are wending their way into the village from distant hillside

hamlets and lonely granite granges. It is a gaily clad and

prosperous-looking crowd that chaffer and bargain for their herds of

thin porkers, their vegetables, fruit, red clay pottery, and flaring

textiles; all spread out to the best advantage beneath the trees of the

market-place and by the shady wayside. The women almost invariably carry

upon their heads in long spacious baskets the merchandise they buy or

sell, be it live-stock, produce, yarn for weaving, or household stuff;

and as invariably is the burden covered with a snowy cloth, and the

woman herself is clean, well-fed, and upstanding.

Taipas, the famous thermal mineral baths of the Romans, did not detain

me except to order lunch to be ready when I should return a few hours

later to the primitive inn attached to the ancient baths, for I was

bound for a place still more ancient than Roman Taipas, the mysterious

buried city of Citania, the Portuguese Pompeii.

A few miles’ drive upon an excellent road and through a prosperous

smiling country of maize, vines, and olives, brought me to the tiny

hamlet of São Estevão de Briteiros, just a humble little grey church, a

large farmhouse, an inn, a few cottages and a school. The road had led

almost at right angles to that by which we had reached Taipas, and the

Falperra range, which we had crossed earlier in the day, again loomed

nearer; the nearest spur, a bold hill of nine hundred or a thousand feet

high at some distance from the range, projecting far out into the plain,

and rising precipitously from the little village of Briteiros, which was

the present limit of my drive. Long before we reached it the abrupt hill

with its tiny white hermitage chapel of São Romão on the highest point

had stood out conspicuously, and seen from below looked impossible of

ascent. From Briteiros, however, the climb was seen to be not so

formidable; for a rough path started from behind the humble schoolhouse,

through little farmsteads, gradually winding and zigzagging up the

precipitous slope through the trees and brushwood that clothed the lower

portion of the hill. The population of Briteiros were mostly at Taipas

for the market, and a demand for the services of _um rapaz_, a boy, to

guide the stranger to the lost city of long ago met with the reply that

no man nor boy was readily available.

[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO MARKET, TAIPAS.]

After some short delay an aged woman produced a substitute in the form

of an elfin little maiden of ten or eleven, with great black eyes,

half-bashful, half-bold, and jet black hair floating unrestrained over

her shoulders. With her bare feet and scanty floating raiment she

skipped like a dryad from stone to stone over the rugged pathway,

looking back now and again as if in wondering contempt at the lumbering

stranger slipping and floundering after her upon the thick carpet of

pine needles that clothed the spaces between the boulders forming the

track. Track it was and no more, scarped on the hillside, and evidently

had been made by hands; for the stones still showed some signs of

regularity and the larger masses had been removed to the side, whilst

those which stood upon the causeway itself proved by their flat and

polished surfaces that ages of human feet had passed over them up and

down the hill. As the weird little damsel sprang with the free action of

a wild thing from stone to stone, her black hair floating in the

pine-scented breeze, it was easy for me to imagine how the people who

long, long ago, before history records, had dwelt upon this hill and

made this causeway had looked and moved. Racial inundations had passed

over the land since then, leaving traces perhaps in this or the other

type of the countryside, but the girl’s far-off ancestors, dwelling

always upon the same spot, had struck deeper and more lasting root than

their stone walls and causeways, and as the little guide flittered up

the rough climb before me, the ages seemed to fall away and the dim past

to grow in clearness.

Half up the hill the trees cease, and the stony causeway rises

precipitously through a region of purple heather, broom and yellow

gorse, thickly strewn with giant granite boulders. Presently the ruins

of a wall of rough stones cemented together stretch across right and

left; and running parallel, and just inside of it, a dry water channel

well made of hewn stones. The ground-plans and walls a yard or two high,

of houses are on all sides of us; and climbing a little higher and

turning the shoulder of the hill we see spread before us, covering the

whole of the south upper slopes of the declivity, a vast stretch of

uncovered ruins—a once-populous town of the unrecorded past.

Before describing in detail these, by far the most complete and

interesting Celtiberian remains in the Peninsula, a few words may be

said with regard to the discovery and exploration of them, as well as to

the theories as to their origin. For reasons which need not be re-stated

here the Celtic element was less intimately mixed with the Iberian in

the north-western part of the Peninsula than elsewhere, and the tribes

in this part of the country were those which withstood longest the

imposition of the Roman bureaucratic system after the assassination of

the patriot Viriatus, and the fall of Numancia in the second century

B.C. Not till the time of the great Julius did the legionaries,

stationed then permanently at Braga, sweep all this province clean of

revolt, and bring the tribesmen to their knees after dire slaughter and

destruction. The Celtiberian tribes in this remote corner had lived

their simple pastoral lives from time unrecorded in small family clans,

each independent, with its own law and its own gods; but for purposes of

mutual defence in later times confederations of many clans were formed,

_mòr thuatha_, as in Ireland. Each of these confederations possessed a

fortified centre or stronghold as a place of assembly and refuge,

usually upon an eminence, wherein the scattered clans might meet for

defence or in council to treat of common interests. The Roman historian,

Valerius Maximus speaks especially of some such fortress upon a mountain

in Lusitania, and praises its inhabitants for their stubborn bravery. He

calls it by the name of Citania, and antiquaries have given to the

extensive ruins now before us that name during the last few years, on

the assumption that this may be the place referred to by the Roman

chronicler.

Vague stories had always pervaded the countryside of buried ruins, with

the accompanying legends of witches, warlocks, and enchanted Moors

existing upon the hill of São Romão; and in the eighteenth century the

curate of São Estevão de Briteiros at the foot of the hill had brought

down from the hill-top and placed in his church porch a great mysterious

slab of stone covered with mystic devices and of strange fashioning. But

not until our own times did a man come with public spirit enough to

devote his life and small fortune to the exploration of this city of the

past, for in Portugal public encouragement of any such objects is rare

indeed. This man was Dr. Sarmento, who for many years until his death

recently, made a labour of love in uncovering systematically the

vestiges of the prehistoric city.

All over the plain, for many miles around, the ruins of Celto-Roman

villages have been found, and in many cases partially explored by Dr.

Sarmento and others; the objects discovered, like those found in

Citania, having been deposited in the museum at Guimarães belonging to

the explorer, but in consequence of his death henceforward to be a

public institution subsidised by the State. As I shall point out when I

describe my visit to the museum, the objects unearthed at Sabroso, St.

Iria, and other neighbouring places are immensely more numerous than

those from Citania itself; great masses of coins, personal ornaments,

arms, inscriptions, and utensils in the museum proving that these places

existed far into Roman times, and perhaps much later. The chaotic

condition of the Sarmento collection at present, and the apparent

absence of any skilled and enthusiastic guardianship, have probably been

a reason why certain investigators have attributed to Citania many

objects discovered elsewhere, and have founded upon them theories which

must necessarily be misleading. Dr. Hübner, who did not see the place

personally, aroused the wrath of Dr. Sarmento in this way, and other

archæologists have spoken somewhat loosely as to the nature of the finds

in the Citania excavations. The great interest of the hill stronghold,

indeed, consists in the fact that we have here practically an unspoilt

Celtic or Celtiberian town, in which Roman civilisation had but little

part. It will be seen by the objects actually unearthed that the place

was inhabited after the Roman influence and language had dominated the

district, as late, indeed, as the time of Hadrian; but of purely Roman

remains, so plentiful elsewhere in the district there are in Citania

hardly any; the construction and plan of the houses having much in

common with the Irish and Scotch Celtic _cashels_, and the absence of

all indications of Christianity being complete.

Following a well-paved causeway of some seven or eight feet wide, the

flat stones of which have been worn smooth by countless generations of

forgotten footsteps, we can perceive perfectly the ground plan of the

houses on each side. In most cases Dr. Sarmento has excavated down to

the stone-laid flooring of the houses inside, and to the base of the

masonry outside; and it is possible to wander through the main lanes or

streets of the town, crossing each other at right angles here and there,

and interspersed by little circular paved open spaces, and to

reconstruct in the mind’s eye the primitive life of this city of long

ago. Here, for instance, just inside the wall by which we entered is a

little square house, some twelve feet wide, containing two rough

millstones, of which many have been found. The walls are of huge, rough

stones, evidently taken as they came and fitted together with small

stones where necessary to fill in interstices, the whole cemented

together by some hard rubbly compost. Running past this building and

through the town (in one or two cases, indeed, through the houses

themselves) is one of the several stone water channels protected by low

walls on each side, and supplied in ancient times by the springs that

still gush out plentifully on the hillside.

Some of the houses are much larger, and must have contained two or more

apartments. But what strikes the eye of the observer most is the

relatively large number of purely circular edifices, and this it is that

has mainly attracted the speculations of archæologists. Mr. Oswald

Crawford, who went over the place whilst the excavations were in their

earlier stages many years ago, was mistaken in his estimate that the

round buildings were eight or nine times more numerous than the square,

and he founded upon this and other data the opinion that the whole place

was a great granary, where the food of the tribes might be stored in

safety. So far from the round houses being eight times as numerous as

the square, found at least four square houses to every one round; but

that which struck me as most curious, and so far as I could learn, it

had not specially attracted the attention of previous visitors, was that

in a large number of cases the round houses were enclosed in a square or

angular walled space, not very much larger than the circle, but leaving

a passage of some two feet wide, in most cases on the right-hand side,

between the two walls, leading to a space at the back between the

circular wall and the wall of the square enclosure, the left-hand side

of the circular wall being mostly built to touch the square wall on that

side. Dr. Sarmento was of opinion that the space thus formed was for the

purpose of sheltering cattle and domestic animals, and says that he had

found some rough stone excavations like troughs in them, with, in one or

two cases, a ring in the wall as if to tether beasts. The width of the

entrance passage and the extent of the enclosed space in the rear of the

circle would be too small to admit any large animal; but probably goats

would be housed in them easily. In one or two cases I noted that the

stone post forming a jamb to the entrance to the passage between the

round house and the square enclosure was grooved on the inner surface.

This in Dr. Sarmento’s opinion proved that the entrance to the passage

was closed by a lifting hatch of wood, which to some extent confirms the

idea that the back space was intended to shelter animals such as goats,

as a lifting door set in a groove would be much less likely to be forced

by them than a swing door turning, as the house door did, on wooden

pegs.

There are very few instances of party walls being utilised for two

adjoining houses, though the buildings are often only a few inches

apart. Even in the case of the round houses enclosed in square spaces

and touching the square wall, the circular structure is quite complete

at the point of contact. In one instance I measured a large walled

parallelogram fronting on the principal causeway, seventeen yards in

length, enclosing within it one square house of nine yards wide, and two

circular houses, one on each side, the structures in each case being

complete, but the circular walls in this instance merged for a few

inches only at the point of contact with the square outer wall at the

side. Whether these square or outer enclosures were tiled or were merely

enclosed yards it is difficult to say, but that the houses themselves

were so covered is evident from the immense number of well-made red

shards scattered everywhere, and particularly inside the houses, the

tiles being turned up at each end, so that a concave tile to cover over

the joint between them would make a roof covered with them quite

watertight. A door jamb and lintel in one house showed a well-carved

rope moulding, but in most cases they were plain, the lintels and

doorsteps containing, however, at the side a square-cut hollow, in which

a block of wood was apparently inserted to receive the wooden peg or

pivot which formed a sort of hinge for the door, an arrangement still

adopted for the doors of barns, &c., in the neighbourhood; though Dr.

Sarmento was of opinion that no wood was employed in the construction of

the houses themselves, the polished rounded stones fixed to the walls in

some of the houses, which Dr. Hübner considered to be bases of pillars,

being in the opinion of the Portuguese archæologist seats for the

inhabitants.

The round houses are usually about fourteen feet in diameter, and the

walls remaining rarely rise above four or five feet from the surface.

The doorstep is usually raised a foot or so above the level of the

ground. One round house has been tentatively rebuilt by Dr. Sarmento on

the level space on the top of the hill, an unattractive beehive-looking

structure without windows, but later investigation convinced him that he

had built it too high; and that it should not be of so great an

elevation as the measure of its diameter. The principal thoroughfares

running transversely on the slope of the hill are carefully walled upon

the scarped inner side, and in some cases the stone water channel runs

alongside of it.

On reaching the bare space at the very summit of the hill, upon which

the little modern Christian chapel stands, a good idea may be formed of

the whole plan of the place. The town, covering perhaps five or six

acres, all lies over the crest and down the south and south-west slopes.

The wall by which we entered from the south is apparently the inner wall

of three, and practically encloses the top of the hill and the centre of

the town on the slope. The second wall, which shows signs of a moat, is

of greater extent, following the irregular contour of the hill, whilst

the third or outer defence extends far down almost to the plain on the

west and south-west side; traces of buildings, although but little

explored, being very abundant between the two inner walls on the south

and south-west, and clearly defined paths leading down from the main

city to the outer defences and the suburbs. In consequence of the

formation of the ground, attack was to be looked for mainly from the

most accessible point, namely, the north-east; for here the three lines

of defences are almost close together, and each of the walls is here

brought to a rough angle. From the apex of the outer wall on this side

there are indications of another defence running straight out at right

angles along the saddle which connects the hill with an outlying spur

easy of approach, and at the end of this long projection there appears

to have been two parallel horizontal outworks running across the end of

the saddle, this being the vulnerable point of the fortress.

It is easy to imagine how almost impregnable such a place could be made.

The hill at any other point than this could only be scaled, if at all,

with the greatest difficulty, and the huge boulders on its side would

enable even weak defenders under their cover to hurl down stones or

spears upon an advancing foe. The south side of the hill is the least

accessible of all for any considerable body, and there the defences are

the most distant and the weakest.

In the midst of the ruined town I found a bright intelligent peasant

lad, busy arranging fragments of pottery upon a stone for the later

inspection of some one in authority; and from him I heard much quaint

and simple local folklore. His own interest was greatest in what he

called the cemetery, four or five small grave-like troughs, about three

or four feet long and a foot deep, neatly made and lined with dressed

stone slabs. The so-called graves lie close to the causeway and amongst

the houses, in an irregular group, and can hardly have been sepulchral,

considering their size and position; Dr. Sarmento inclining to the

belief that they were troughs for feeding cattle. The cemetery, if there

be any, would probably lie far down the slope outside the second,

perhaps outside the outer, wall, but here no excavation of any

importance has been executed. At some little distance down have been

found three perfectly plain dolmens of the usual shape, which are

usually sepulchral; and doubtless extensive exploration around them

would reveal human remains. My peasant friend was also much concerned in

a mysterious “mine,” as it is called, from which he assured me, in

awe-stricken tones, that enchanted Moors came at night and carried evil

over the plain. It is supposed that this cave, which is of no great

extent, some two yards in diameter at the mouth, and a few yards deep,

was adjoining or under the place where the great slab which the

country-people call _Pedra Formosa_, the handsome-stone, to which I

shall revert presently, was found.

I have mentioned that Mr. Crawford was of opinion that the round houses

were granaries, but seeing that the Celts of Ireland and Scotland

frequently built and lived in round houses within their _cashels_, and

bearing in mind the existence of the spaces for animals, which I have

described as attached to those of Citania, I am strongly of opinion

that, comfortless as they appear, these were the veritable dwellings of

many of the neolithic folk who for centuries held their foes at bay upon

this headland jutting out upon the rich plain of Guimarães. Still

another solution of the round-house problem is, as I understand his

words, suggested by my friend Professor Altamira in his _Historia de

Espana y de la Civilization espanõla_. The earlier generations of this

people, he says, buried their dead under dolmens which when covered were

circular; and later generations retained the tradition of circular

sepulchres. “They were built round,” he says, “with a sort of domed

roof, the middle of which was supported by a pillar of wood or stone.

Some of such tombs had passages (or galleries) to enter by—which was

frequently the case also with the dolmens—and some had lateral

chambers.... Of this class are those discovered at Citania, on the hill

of San Roman in Portugal.” Apart from the fact that no human remains

have been found in these round houses at Citania, there is no sepulchral

suggestion about them. They are, it is true, if Dr. Sarmento be right,

windowless and rough, but the comparison must not be made with the

dwellings of to-day, but with the haunts of cave men, who had been the

progenitors of the early settlers of Citania; and judged by that

standard, these stout, weather-proof, stone houses, with doors and an

enclosed separate space behind for cattle, were almost luxurious. In any

case, a close examination of them left in my mind no doubt at all that

they had been the dwellings of human creatures in the earlier stages of

civilisation.

It required no great effort of the imagination to people the narrow

paved paths on the hillside and the little round central spaces with the

dwellers in these rough abodes: wild-looking, shaggy men, with long

hair, and clad in skin or rough woollen garments, going about their

daily toil as hunters, husbandmen, potters, or smiths, to paint to

oneself the alarm of an approaching foe, the savage warfare to repel

attack, and finally the victorious host of Roman legionaries of Augustus

levelling the poor homes, slaughtering, ravishing, destroying, until the

poor remnant of the vanquished knelt in the dust and bowed their necks

evermore to the yoke of discipline and civilisation.

The place continued to be the abode of men long afterwards, for Latin

became the speech of some people who lived there, and coins as late as

Tiberius and one of Hadrian (117 A.D.) have been unearthed at Citania;

but with the Roman officers supreme at Braga, and the whole plain

prospering and smiling under the arts of peace and Roman luxury, poor

Citania on its bold hill-top lost its reason for existence, and must

have dwindled, until long before the time of the Goths and Suevians all

men forgot it, and the ages covered it with the mantle of earth,

undisturbed till now.