A long line of church and monastery adjoining runs parallel with the

sea, the conventual portion partly in ruins but now in course of

reconstruction, and the eye is at first perfectly bewildered by the

richness of the details of the doors and windows of the edifice. Here

Manueline architecture is at its earliest and best, before extravagance

like that of the unfinished chapels at Batalha overwhelmed it. Here the

orthodox florid Gothic and Renaissance styles are leavened, but not

obliterated, by the new spirit of expansion and aspiration that found

its national expression in what is called Manueline. The west door of

the church, where the monastic buildings join it, is extremely

beautiful. On each side are rich canopies under which kneel the king and

queen with their patron saints, and smaller figures exquisitely carved

surround the rest of the door, which is surmounted by flamboyant

pinnacles in the Manueline taste. The general idea of the windows, which

are very large and high, is of a round-topped arch three or four courses

or orders deep, each course being set with bosses of a different, but

always elaborate, pattern, an outer moulding representing a twisted

cable or twined branches in infinite variety, ending in a series of

pinnacles, surrounding the window on the surface of the wall.

The great south doorway facing the road and the Tagus, the principal

door of entrance, almost defies description by its richness and

complexity of ornament, this and the cloisters of the church being

perhaps the best specimen of Gothic Manueline in Portugal. Between the

two doorways into which the entrance is divided there is a pillar or

column, upon which, under a rich Gothic canopy, stands a large figure of

a man wearing a tabard. The scheme of decoration is carried up by a

series of flamboyant pinnacles and canopied figures beautifully

interlaced to the top of the aisle wall. The two great windows flanking

this gorgeous doorway match it in magnificence, and one feels on turning

away from this monument of human skill and ingenuity that here the

short-lived art of the Portuguese Renaissance has reached its highest

flight.

[Illustration: THE SOUTH DOOR AT BELEM]

The impression, however, hardly survives the moment when you cross the

threshold and enter the church itself; for here you see an interior

unlike any other great temple. The first impression is one of immense

unencumbered spaciousness. The ordinary arrangement of nave and aisles

does not exist, but from the floor there spring straight up to a height

that seems prodigious six slender isolated marble pillars, three on each

side. They form no continued arcade, although, of course, they are

aligned, and each pillar is decorated lavishly in high relief with

Renaissance ornamentation in panels, with canopied niches half-way up

their height. From the top of each column spring a series of branches

like the fronds of a palm-leaf, which, meeting in beautiful graceful

curves, form the intricate series of bossed groins which compose the

vaulted marble roof. At the west end of the church three low-pointed

Manueline arches support the choir-loft, and along the north wall twelve

Manueline doorways are ranged, with rich canopied niches above them,

whilst the magnificent transept, with its gorgeous ceiling and royal

chapels and tombs, and its vast Manueline chancel arch of twisted cables

and cordage supporting rich canopied pulpits, altogether produce an

effect of overpowering majesty.

Here in the chancel repose, in splendid tombs, the ashes of the king,

Manuel the Fortunate, and his son, John III., the two great builders of

the fane; and here too lie, in a transept chapel, Vasco da Gama himself,

and Camões, who enshrined in deathless epic the spirit of exalted

enterprise of which the great explorer was the personification, and the

Infante, Prince Henry, the prophetic inspirer. Kings, queens, princes,

and princesses lie around in fretted sepulchres—that ill-used Catharine

of Braganza, Queen-Consort of England, amongst them, here where she

passed the long years of her widowhood—but their very names are for the

most part forgotten now; and this memorable church of Belem, whilst its

daring beauty stands, will remain the shrine of the two greatest figures

of Portugal’s golden age, and of the “Fortunate Monarch,” Manuel, in

whose reign the vision of the Infante was realised.

The cloisters of the monastery vie with those of Batalha in beauty,

which is saying much. Each of the twenty arches, four on each face and

one at each corner, is filled with Manueline tracery, exhibiting

inexhaustible caprice and invention, no two being alike in pattern;

whilst highly decorated Manueline doorways line the inner walls. The

upper ambulatory is wider and, if possible, more elaborate than the

lower, an unusual arrangement, each upper arch buttress being capped by

a beautifully decorated finial. The chapter-house, as usual, leads out

of the cloister, an exquisitely rich specimen of Manueline, and is now

devoted to the stately tomb of Alexandre Herculano, the

nineteenth-century Portuguese historian. Pompous as are the sepulchres

of kings and heroes in the adjoining church, this monument to the

historian—a respectable figure in literature, it is true, but by no

means a genius of universal fame—surpasses them all. Here, alone in the

midst of this grandiose chapter-house of the monks, the dead

man-of-letters rests more splendidly than monarch or millionaire. Modern

Portugal, at least, can honour the gifted pen; for the names of Camões,

of Almeida-Garrett, the nineteenth-century poet, and Herculano, the

historian, are all through the country commemorated by street names. How

long shall we have to wait before Englishmen, so ready to bow the knee

before successful finance, will thus do homage to an historian? Verily,

little as we may relish the truth, we have much to learn from Portugal,

and not in this alone.

The monastery buildings of Belem shelter twelve hundred orphan boys, who

are there clothed, fed, and educated by the State, and it was a fine

sight to witness them all at table in the great Manueline refectory of

the vanished monks, and pleasant to hear the ringing of their youthful

laughter as they played joyously in the stately cloisters. In the museum

adjoining there is a collection of ancient royal coaches, some of them

very imposing and curious, but generally speaking not so interesting a

collection as that in the royal _caballerizas_ at Madrid.

Sated almost with sculptural richness, I left the monastery, and rested

beneath the grateful shade of palms in the public garden opposite, with

the broad Tagus before me and the glowing blue sky overhead until the

perfect day began to wane. Then through the fine Praça de Dom Fernando,

with its handsome Manueline pillar and statue of Albuquerque, the great

viceroy of the Indies, I slowly wended my way back by the chaotic

river-bank to Lisbon. Belem is beautiful and suggestive enough to

provide reflection for one day without allowing other impressions to

disturb it, and the sordid sights and sounds of the water-side were

nothing to me, for the airy fancies of the artist in stone and the

romantic memories of the heroic days surrounded me as with a mantle.

Lisbon is a city of prospects, and, uninteresting as are its main

streets, it is only necessary to stand upon one of its many eminences to

see spread before you a wide and varied panorama. The end windows of the

upper corridors in the Hotel de Bragança afford a splendid view of the

port and the mouth of the Tagus, whilst from the ancient citadel of St.

Jorge, and from the dome of the big classical church of Estrella, the

city and the rolling hills for miles around are spread out at the foot

like a map in relief. Speaking for myself, I have always considered one

of the most attractive coigns of vantage in Lisbon to be the Largo da

Gloria just over the entrance of the Avenida. This can be reached either

up the Rua de São Roque or by the funicular lift from the Avenida

itself. The view from this pretty public garden on the top of a

precipitous bluff is charming. The whole of the central valley lies

under you with its straight lines of streets, starting from the great

parallelogram of the Rocio just below and reaching the Tagus. Just in

front of you across the valley rise the hills covered with houses of all

colours amidst greenery, with the great old citadel of the Moors and

their conquerors crowning the highest point towards the river; the

square battlemented towers of the old cathedral being seated upon a

lower hill at its foot. To the left an ocean of mountainous hills

covered with verdure and buildings stretch as far as the eye reaches;

whilst on the right beyond the extensive Black Horse Square shines the

wide estuary of the river, and miles away across the water the mountains

that bound the prospect towards the south.

As you stand and look down from the garden of Gloria to the big busy

square, with its wavy black and white pavement, and tall column just

underneath you, you may notice that at the north-east corner of the

square the valley broadens somewhat, and a maze of narrow streets starts

from that corner. If when you descend from your eminence you penetrate

and explore this corner you will find in it all that is left of the

quaint Lisbon of before the great earthquake. For here, in a district

still called the Mouraria, and in what once was the Villa Nova de

Gibraltar adjoining it, dwelt outside the ancient walls the Moors and

Jews, who for centuries almost monopolised the wealth of Portugal, until

at the bidding of his Spanish father-in-law and mother-in-law, Ferdinand

and Isabel, the “Fortunate” King Manuel made short work of the children

of Israel. Here in the ghetto, of which the ancient gateway still

stands, the streets are narrow and tortuous. Crumbling gables and quaint

corner turrets overhang the pathway, and dark mysterious entries, lined

with oriental _azulejos_, tell of the time when men lived in daily fear

of rapine and violence.

Almost sheer over the district of the Mouraria towers the hill upon

which the fortress of St. Jorge stands, and if you care to climb it you

may see Lisbon, and beyond from the point opposite to that from which

you have just descended. The cathedral stands upon a hill nearer the

river, and may best be reached by following the tram-lines up the Rua da

Conceição. The sturdy old church fronts a triangular space, from which

picturesque glimpses of the roofs of the old town and river-bank may be

caught. Two square Romanesque towers, which, like the rest of the

cathedral, are now in course of restoration from the vandalism of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, stand on each side of and connect

with a large square porch before the west door. Cupolas and a railed

parapet formerly surmounted these towers, but battlements in accordance

with the original design are in future to replace them, and the lavish

additions of carved wood capitals to the pillars and coats of stucco

over ancient decorations are being cleared away, thanks largely to the

encouragement of the present Queen of Portugal, who is interested in the

work.

Here on this hill stood the mosque of the Moslem kings, and here, when

in 1147 Affonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal, captured the

city, the first Christian church was built by the conqueror, who

nominated an English warrior-monk, Gilbert, to be the first bishop of

the new See. Upon a stone within the porch of the west door, the carved

legend tells how the Moors were vanquished by the Christian king, and

the cross set up in this place, and the twelfth-century round-arched

doorway with the grotesque capitals of its pillars demonstrate that this

part of the edifice at least dates from the earliest years of the

Portuguese monarchy.

The interior presents six round arches on clustered marble columns, now

stripped of the stucco that disfigured them for centuries, though the

Corinthian capitals which were added in the eighteenth century still

remain. When Lord Strathmore saw the church in 1760, five years after

the earthquake, he referred to these Corinthian capitals in a sketch he

drew of the church: “I have left out,” he says, “the large Corinthian

capitals and marble pedestals which have been added to the pillars

within memory. The fire has burnt most of the capitals off, both of the

ambulatory and the nave arches, and the other capitals have been so much

impaired that you can only see remains of basket-work, foliage, and

flowers.” The intention referred to by Lord Strathmore to restore the

church to its original simplicity was so far from being carried out that

new gilt wood acanthus leaf capitals were added to these fine old

Romanesque pillars. At last, however, the church is really being

judiciously treated, and is rapidly assuming the grave, devotional

appearance of the early Christian temples raised after the victories of

Affonso Henriques.

The roof is particularly striking in its solid majesty, the middle flute

of each cluster of columns springing to the ceiling and supporting a

round arch carried over the nave to the opposite column, something like

the roof plan at Alcobaça. The transepts have majestic rose windows at

each end, and the central lantern tower or cimborio stands on pillars of

lofty clustered columns, forming round arches rising as high as the roof

of the nave; all this being as early as the first foundation of the

church. The chancel is very beautiful early Gothic, with pointed arches,

and a gorgeous ceiling, and the little Gothic chapels round the

ambulatory are many of them interesting. Tombs and sarcophagi of

archbishops, most of ages long past, crumble in dark corners and dim,

grated chapels, and two splendid royal tombs of Affonso IV. and his wife

are on the left of the high altar. Here, to be seen only on great

occasions, rest the bones of the patron saint, Vincent, opportunely

discovered by the king, Affonso Henriques, in their hiding-place far

away, where, guarded by ravens, they had been saved from the desecration

of the unbelieving Moors. The ship that brought the holy relics from the

southernmost point of Portugal, for reverent preservation, to Lisbon was

always escorted by the faithful ravens, thenceforward sacred birds for

the cathedral church of Lisbon, where some of them are kept to this day

in memory of their piety.

Along the walls of the aisles run large pictorial tableaux of scenes in

the life of St. Vincent and incidents in the miracles of the ravens, the

ancient blue and white tiles of which the pictures are composed showing

clear indications of the still lingering Moorish traditions in early

Christian ceramics. It was Saturday afternoon as I mused in the old

church, which was blocked and encumbered in many places by the materials

of the restoring workmen; and, wandering past an open doorway in the end

of the south aisle, I heard the hum of voices. It came from the ruined

cloister, where a sad-looking young priest and a sister of charity were

teaching classes of little children. It was a charming picture. The

bright sun filtered through the half-ruined twin lancet lights of the

ogival arches and fell in dappled patches of gold upon the ancient

sarcophagi and dismantled altars that lined the humble arcade: a wild,

neglected little garden, all abloom with untended masses of autumn

flowers and trails of crimson creepers, and the droning hum of the

children reciting in turn the sacred lesson they were conning. Peace and

remoteness from the world seemed to reign in this quiet nook of the busy

capital. Here was none of the sculptured glories such as dazzled the

beholder at Belem or Batalha; only two plain pointed narrow arches in

each bay of the arcade, with a round light above, bordered by a simple

nailhead or rouleau moulding. Everything is ruinous and in course of

restoration, but devout humility is the note struck throughout the

cathedral, from the solemn, restrained Romanesque of the nave to the

plain sepulchral little Gothic cloister, where, in the dim sea-green

light filtering through leaves and crumbling arches young children learn

the letter of their faith.

There is in these Portuguese churches no affectation of the gloomy

splendour and mystery which is the characteristic of the Spanish

cathedrals. At mass on Sundays the faithful gather, and on other days a

certain number attend; but the constant coming and going of worshippers

at all hours of the day, and the celebration of mass at one altar or

another continuously from dawn to midday that in Spain is universal,

find no counterpart in the Portuguese portion of the Peninsula. Here,

and above all in the north, the priest is not constantly in evidence, as

he is in Spain, and his garb is, as a rule, as unobtrusive as that of an

English clergyman; for the shovel-hat and flowing cassock and cloak have

in Portugal almost disappeared. However religious the Portuguese may be

the apparatus and panoply of religion are not conspicuous, and when once

mass is over in the Portuguese church, the place is usually deserted.

Although with justice, Lisbon is usually considered an extremely

unæsthetic capital, and has not much to show worth seeing in pictorial

art, there is one feature, in which, little known or noticed as it is by

visitors, Lisbon can boast of unrivalled artistic possessions. I mean in

that of ecclesiastical _orfèvrerie_. When the religious houses were

suppressed, and the State appropriated church property, the priceless

productions of the old goldsmiths, gifts of devout sovereigns and

grandees for centuries to sacred shrines, were not plundered or

frittered away in private hands, as happened in England and France, but

carefully preserved by the State for public enjoyment. Truth to say, no

one seems to enjoy these exquisite objects very much now, for of the

many times I have spent hours in admiring the collections in the

National Museum, and in that of São Roque, I have rarely seen any but an

occasional stranger in either place.

The Museum of Fine Arts at Lisbon possesses, it is true, few objects of

importance, apart from the goldsmith’s work and ecclesiastical

embroidery, and the lack of a catalogue of the paintings—except for the

collection given to the nation by Count de Carvalhido—stands in the way

of their enjoyment. Most that is worth seeing here in pictorial art

comes from the suppressed religious houses and churches, especially the

early Flemish and German paintings, of which several are really fine.

But the collection of ancient pictures is so lamentable in condition as

a whole, and so badly lit, as to make the study of them difficult. Count

de Carvalhido’s large collection, which is separately housed in two

rooms in the Museum, contains a few good pictures and many by obscure

artists quite the reverse, the specimens of the Flemish and Germanic

schools predominating. The attribution of the works to named painters is

often quite wide of the mark, many pictures bearing no resemblance

whatever to the style of their alleged authors. There is, for instance,

a little panel attributed to Sir Thomas Lawrence. It is called

“Seduction,” and represents, in the usual eighteenth-century French

genre style, an interior with a young man seated at an open escritoire

offering jewels and money to a girl, whilst an old woman watches through

a half-closed door. Anything more unlike Lawrence, either in technique

or subject, it would be difficult to conceive. Another picture, a large

canvas attributed to Zaniberti, an Italian painter, who died in 1636,

represents a Carnival in Rome with a large number of maskers and

spectators, all of whom are dressed in the fashion of the late

eighteenth century, a hundred and fifty years after Zaniberti’s death.

But the wealth of church and altar plate more than makes up for the

shortcomings of the picture galleries. Monstrances in gold of great

antiquity and beauty, covered with precious stones, are to be seen

literally by the dozen. Silver gilt processional crosses of the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some almost Byzantine, some nearly

Mudejar in design, abound; chalices of unimaginable richness in pure

Gothic and Manueline styles, reliquaries in gold and gems beyond price,

and gold and enamelled crowns and girdles, altar crosses, and

candlesticks without number, are displayed in cases in a suite of rooms

commanding a fine view over the Tagus. Alcobaça has contributed the

lion’s share of these treasures, but Batalha and many other religious

houses have been placed under involuntary contribution; and the result

is a collection of early ecclesiastical art in gold and silver that I

have never seen approached elsewhere. The church vestments, too, are

rich and numerous beyond description; and a large series of beautifully

embroidered court dresses of the eighteenth century displays the

influence exerted by the Portuguese connection with the far East upon

artistic embroidery of the period.

The collection of church property contained in the small museum attached

to the Jesuit church of São Roque is circumscribed in period to the late

seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; but as the whole collection

is derived from the possessions of a single chapel—that of St. John—in

the adjoining church, a vivid idea is gained of the lavishness with

which the church in Portugal was endowed in the days of the national

prosperity.

The church and district of São Roque have always possessed special

interest for me. The monastery, standing upon a bluff overlooking the

valley, was the point of attack when the English under Norris and the

Earl of Essex tried to capture Lisbon for the Pretender, Dom Antonio, in

1589;[6] and, though the monks were in favour of the English _protégé_,

the Spanish musketeers filled the long line of windows commanding the

approach from the English camp, on the opposite hill outside the gate of

São Antão, and frustrated all attempts to force the position.

Inside the great square church there is an object of interest that first

attracted my attention many years ago, and always demands from me a

pilgrimage to São Roque, up the hill of the Carmo, as soon as I arrive

in Lisbon. Sir Francis Tregian was one of those stout Cornish Catholic

recusant gentlemen whose career in the days of Elizabeth I had had

occasion to follow in detail; and his persecution and escape were

familiar to me, as they are to many students of the religious troubles

of the last years of the Tudor queen; but I had never known where he had

found a last resting-place. Here in São Roque a large upright slab

stands beneath the pulpit on the north side of the church which quaintly

tells the story: “_Aqui esta, em pé, o corpo de Dom Francisco Tregian,

fidalgo inglés mui illustre, o qual depois de confiscados os seus

estados, e grandes trabalhos padecidos em 28 annos de prisam, polla

defensa da fe catholica em Inglaterra, na persecuçam da Rainha Isabel,

no anno 1608 ao 25 Dezembro morreó nesta cidade de Lisboa, com fama de

santidade. Avendo 17 annos que estava sepultado nesta igrega de S. Roque

da Companhia de Jesus, no anno de 1625 ao 25 Abril, se achouo seu corpo

inteiro e incorrupto, e foe collocado neste lugar pelos ingleses

catholicos residentes en esta cidade, ao 25 Abril 1626._” “Here upright

stands the body of Sir Francis Tregian, a very illustrious English

gentleman, who, after his estates were confiscated and he had suffered

great tribulation during twenty-eight years of imprisonment for the

defence of the Catholic faith in England, in the persecution of Queen

Elizabeth, died on the 25th December 1608 in this city of Lisbon, famed

for his saintliness. After he had been entombed for seventeen years in

this church of São Roque of the Company of Jesus, in the year 1625, on

the 25th April, his body was found intact and uncorrupted, and was

placed in this position by the English Catholics resident in this city

on the 25th April 1626.”

The chapel on the north side of São Roque nearest the altar is the

beautifully decorated chapel of St. John. It had been for centuries the

poorest chapel in the sanctuary; but with the advent of King John V., at

the dawn of the eighteenth century, the new monarch declared his

intention of making the shrine of his patron saint the richest altar in

Portugal. And he did so, with gifts both lavish and beautiful, an

example naturally followed by his courtiers; so that when the Jesuits

were expelled, the treasures of St. John, the property thenceforward of

the State, formed a museum of their own. The objects exhibited,

monstrances, reliquaries, crosses, altar furniture, banners, frontals,

and vestments, are of surpassing magnificence; although they often

attract more by their intrinsic worth than by the purity of their taste,

as, for instance, the silver-gilt altar candlesticks ten feet high, and

the great silver _repousé_ altar front: but as specimens of the

decorative art—Italian, French, and Portuguese—of their period, they are

well worth study.

Lower down the hill stands the beautiful ruined Gothic-Manueline church

of the Carmo, now an archæological museum, filled with many fragments of

the older buildings of Lisbon saved from the ruin of the earthquake that

wrecked the Carmo itself.

Lisbon abounds in public gardens of almost tropical luxuriance. The fine

plantations before the big classical church of the Estrella, the park of

the Necessidades palace, the square of the Principe Real, the Avenida

itself, and the pretty garden of the Gloria already referred to, might

for the vegetation in them almost be in the West Indies; whilst the

Botanic Gardens, especially, can show palm groves to be matched nowhere

in Europe, except at Elche in the east of Spain. And not palms alone

grow here in a way wonderful in the midst of a populous city, but cacti,

aloes, daturas, and magnolias bloom with great luxuriance, and huge

tropical forest trees from South America thrive in the open as if on

their native soil.

The climate of Lisbon, indeed, is extraordinarily soft and mild

relatively to its latitude, owing to its sheltered position and to the

prevalence of westerly sea breezes. As a winter resort it has

unaccountably fallen somewhat out of fashion of late years in favour of

the Mediterranean Riviera, where the climate is much less equable and

more trying to those in delicate health. The latitude of Lisbon is about

the same as that of Palermo, three hundred miles south of that of the

Mediterranean Riviera, and the mean winter temperature (December,

January, and February) in Lisbon is 10.63° Centigrade (51° Fahrenheit),

against 7.79° at Biarritz, and 7.91° at Nice. Not only is Lisbon thus

much warmer on an average than the winter resorts now most affected by

English visitors, but the climate is more uniform, the diurnal

fluctuation in winter being considerably less at Lisbon than at

Biarritz, Nice, or even at Palermo in the same latitude. The winter

atmospheric humidity of Lisbon slightly exceeds that of Biarritz and

Nice, though in summer Lisbon is atmospherically much drier than either:

but in the matter of the entire winter rainfall the average of Lisbon is

considerably higher, and this it is that to some extent has set English

physicians against the place as a winter health resort, although the

average rainfall for the whole year is much less at Lisbon[7] than

either at Biarritz or Nice. The rains in Lisbon, however, which fall

heavily in the months of November, December, and January (a mean of 277

milimetres, as against 254 milimetres at Biarritz and 167 milimetres at

Nice), are usually rapid and torrential, and pass away at once.

Snow is practically unknown at Lisbon, and frost is extremely rare. But,

withal, equable and mild as the average hibernal climate of Lisbon is, I

do not personally recommend it as a residence for those who are forced

in the winter to seek a warm, dry, and bracing atmosphere. The smoke of

the numerous factories, and the mist that clings about the river and in

the narrow gullies that contain much of the town, make the place

somewhat depressing. But within fifteen miles of the city, and free from

the objections natural to the valley of the Tagus, there are two resorts

which are, in my opinion, and I speak from experience of both of them,

ideal places in which the unpleasantness and danger of winter in a

northern climate may be escaped. It is, indeed, difficult to overrate

the attractions in this respect of Cascaes and Mont’ Estoril, especially

the latter. Cascaes stands in a lovely bay surrounded by bold, rocky

scenery, and backed by hills which protect it from the north. A fine

sheltered promenade facing the sea possesses a grove of palms more

luxuriant than any that Nice or Cannes can show, and the walks along the

coast are beautiful. Mont’ Estoril, which is within a mile or so of

Cascaes, on the point of the Bay, is of more modern reputation, but is

in some respects to be preferred to Cascaes as a winter resort. The

train from Lisbon, running along the coast for fourteen miles, lands the

visitor to Mont’ Estoril in the midst of a beautifully picturesque

village of hotels and villas, grouped upon the slope of a hill

descending in a semicircle to the sea, with pines and eucalyptus woods

above, and palms everywhere below. The high range of Cintra, and the

lower hills on the north and east, completely protect the place from

inclement winds, whilst the open sea-front on west and south prevents

the sweltering stuffiness and relaxing effect of so many shut-in places.

There are several excellent hotels specially intended for winter

visitors; and for any one to whom a three-days’ voyage at sea in a

commodious, well-found steamer has no terrors, this Portuguese Riviera

just outside the Tagus forms a winter refuge which it will be difficult

to beat in Europe. The climate of Mont’ Estoril is noticeably warmer

than Lisbon in the winter, and the diurnal variations of temperature are

smaller; whilst the humidity and rainfall, which in Lisbon during the

three winter months form its only natural drawback, are very much

smaller at Mont’ Estoril. It is, indeed, very rare that mist is seen at

the latter place, even when the Tagus valley is full of haze. From

personal knowledge of both places I should say that the mean winter

rainfall of Mont’ Estoril is much less than that of Biarritz, whilst

certainly its temperature is higher and its uniformity greater.

I have dwelt only upon the winter climatic conditions, because it is in

this respect that misapprehension usually exists. The spring and autumn

climate generally is simply perfect, and from the middle of March onward

fine warm weather, with only an occasional heavy shower in April, May,

and October, may be counted upon almost with certainty. During the

particular tour of which this book is a record, I passed thirty days in

Portugal in the month of October. Out of this period I saw rain on four

days only—namely, three hours of deluge at Oporto, a portion of the day

at Bussaco, and two days at Lisbon; whilst in previous journeys in

Portugal I have on more than one occasion seen an even smaller quantity

of rain in October, April, and May. November is usually wet, though not

so wet as at Biarritz or Nice for the same month (Lisbon, 106

milimetres; Biarritz, 122 milimetres; Nice, 114 milimetres), whilst in

December and January Lisbon and Biarritz have about an equal rainfall,

Nice being in those months drier than either. From March onward Lisbon

has a decided advantage over both places.

-----

Footnote 5:

Byron, who, much as he loved Cintra, hated Lisbon and the Portuguese

generally, which perhaps is not very surprising when it is considered

that he visited it in 1809, after the first French invasion and before

the Peninsular War, thus wrote of Lisbon:—

“What beauties does Lisboa first unfold;

Her image floating on that noble tide,

Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,

And now whereon a thousand keels do ride.

But whoso entereth within this town,

That sheening far celestial seems to be,

Disconsolate will wander up and down,

Mid many things unsightly to strange ee.”

Footnote 6:

The story of the expedition is told in full in “The Year after the

Armada,” by the present writer.

Footnote 7:

Lisbon, 738 milimetres; Biarritz, 1067 milimetres; Nice, 766

milimetres.

IX

SETUBAL, TROYA, AND EVORA

Tyneside itself cannot be more disagreeable than Lisbon on the rare

occasions when really bad weather comes up the Tagus from the west.

Smoke of unusual blackness and abundance is poured without let or

hindrance from innumerable industrial chimneys by the water-side, and

the heavy sea-mist, clinging and wet, holds the carbon in its embrace

until the atmosphere would hardly disgrace a London particular at

Blackwall. I had stood it for a day, but as I knew I could get away from

it by a short railway journey out of the valley of the Tagus I

determined to endure it no longer, but to fly to the other side of the

hills. The weather was as bad as ever when I started the next morning by

the ferry-boat to cross the four miles or so of river to Barreiro, which

is the terminus of the southern system of railways for Lisbon. Through

an arid-looking country of vines producing the famous Lavradio wine, but

ugly and poor, on the slopes of the Tagus watershed, we gradually rose

to the region of pines and eucalyptus. Leaving all the mist and rain

behind us we topped the sandy hills and descended towards the south in

an atmosphere brilliantly clear and as exhilarating as nitrous oxide

gas.

Portuguese railways are slow, and it took an hour and a half to cover

the eighteen miles between Barreiro and Setubal—the Saint Ubes of the

English geographies. A clean spacious little town, beautifully situated,

is this metropolis of sardines and salt. The days of its saline

preeminence, it is true, have passed away—the times of humming

prosperity at the salt-pans, when the harbours was wont to be crowded by

ships loading salt for England and elsewhere; but still the local trade

is considerable, and the great extension of the tinned sardine trade in

Portugal has made up for everything, there being as many as thirty-four

sardine-packing factories at present in full work at Setubal. Five

minutes after we had got clear out of the Tagus valley and over the last

ridge, the aspect of the land had changed as if by magic. Oranges,

lemons, and almond-trees stretch in groves and orchards on all sides;

broad tracts of cereal land and dark olive plantations mix with the

vineyards, telling of a country of overflowing fertility; whilst long

lines of tall eucalyptus trees, with hanging strips of bark, add a

strange and exotic note to the scene. This fertile plain descending to

the sea on the south is enclosed by high mountain ranges, especially

towards the west, upon an outlying spur of which, a great isolated hill,

stands aloft Palmella, another of those stupendous fortresses for which

Portugal bears the palm. At the foot of the plain, on the edge of the

sea, sits the sparkling little town of Setubal, with Palmella, six miles

away, looming behind it, but in the marvellous clear air looking as if

within reach of one’s hand.

Before the town of Setubal, and three miles away across the estuary,

there extends a long sandy spit or island completely enclosing the

harbour and river mouth on the south, the only entrance being from the

west where a rocky point, an extreme spur of the great Arrabida range,

runs out into the Atlantic facing the sandy point. This land-locked

haven of clear blue water is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen,

especially when entering it from the sea. The climate of Setubal is

perhaps the warmest of any in Portugal, and the fertility of the country

at the back is remarkable, the hills behind it completely shutting off

the winds from the north.

And yet the people in this part of the country present an undefinable

trace of poverty and hardship, such as is never seen in North Portugal.

They are hard-working and frugal, but they are somehow less upstanding

and independent in their bearing, and their conditions of life are

evidently inferior. The difference is no doubt to some extent racial;

for here the sturdy Teutonic and Celtic stocks left fewer traces than in

the north: but the land in the south is mostly owned in large estates,

and not by the small cultivators themselves, as it is in North Portugal,

and this has probably more to do with it. A population of wage-earners

is never so well conditioned as one of independent workers, and in some

such direction as this, surely, must be sought the explanation for the

marked difference between the people of the north and south of a country

so small and so homogeneous as Portugal.

The long sandy island across the bay was my objective, and I lost no

time in bargaining with the owner of a sardine-boat to carry me across.

The boat was a heavy, clumsy craft, as it needs to be for the sardine

fisheries, the shape of a crescent-moon with pointed prow and stern, a

high-peaked lateen sail of red canvas stretched on canes, and long

sweeps which worked over a pin in the thwarts, fitting into a hole in a

mighty block of wood in the centre of the oars instead of between

rollocks. If the craft was picturesque the crew was still more so: the

owner, a sturdy old seaman, and his son, a bright lad of twenty, wore

the universal bag-cap, when they wore any head-covering at all, which

was seldom. The old man had boots as well, evidently more for appearance

than use, for he took them off for good as soon as the bargain with me

was concluded. A flannel shirt and trousers tucked up to the knees, and

girded at the waist by a red sash, completed the costume. The other

member of the crew, presumably a hired hand, was a striking Levantine or

Greek-looking fellow of about seven-and-twenty, far more intelligent

than the _patrão_ or his son, brimming over with eager interest in the

expedition, an incessant talker, with all sorts of queer lore and

information about the strange place we were going to see. He, for all

his intelligence and readiness, had but two ragged and scanty cotton

garments to cover him, and made no pretence of head or foot covering.

Whilst the boat was being brought round to the stair, I explored the

town and found a fine old Manueline door in the church São Julião at the

corner of the spacious praça called after the eighteenth-century poet

Bocage, who having been born at Setubal is the principal literary glory

of the town.

Not a breath of wind was stirring, and the lumbering sardine-boat, with

its big sweeps weighing nearly half a hundredweight each, was a heavy

pull for two men. But the _patrão_ and his son put their backs into the

work cheerfully and with good will, the vivacious, black-eyed

tatterdemalion of a crew chattering incessantly whilst he held the

tiller; his being by far the easiest job, apparently as a concession to

the superiority of mind over matter. No ripple stirred the blue, clear

water as we slowly pushed out into the bay and got clear of the town.

The air was of exquisite clarity and fineness, with some sort of subtle

pungency in it that seemed to blend the freshness of the salt sea with

the languor of the lotus land; and as we receded from the shore there

gradually opened out behind us, in clear, sharp outline sparkling with

colour and brilliancy, one of the most striking coast panoramas I have

ever beheld. The bay was almost land-locked, and at the brink of the

blue water shone the town as white as snow in the sunlight. Behind, in a

great amphitheatre, rose the hills from the deep green masses of the

orange groves upon the broad plain at their feet. Bright red earth

glowed in big gashes upon the slopes, amidst the varying verdure of

olives, cork, and pines; and then above the trees and hills towards the

west soared the peaks and crags of the great Arrabida range, tinted in

this golden morning from orange to ochre and from ochre to violet, with

shadows here and there of deepest indigo. Right behind the town the

great stronghold of Palmella, upon its sudden hill six miles away,

seemed to stand sentinel over the verdant plain and white houses: and

there, in the near distance, on the west, upon a promontory of rock

forming the point of the inner bay, was another ancient fortress, that

of St. Philip, looking sheer down into the sea. Beyond that as we

advanced we saw still another castle on a point; and, farther off, the

end of the Arrabida range, whose towering peaks dwarfed all the lower

hills, pushes far into the sea its precipitous bluff, bounding the

landscape on that side.

An hour’s hard pull brought us close to the long island. A wild,

uninhabited place it looked as we approached it, all blown sand in dunes

and hillocks overgrown with coarse rank tussock and esparto. Even before

we reached the sandy shore, fragments of walls and broken tiles in

abundance could be seen through the pellucid water, half-buried in the

soft, sandy bottom; and when I landed upon the beach of pure sand some

twenty feet or more wide, a glance sufficed to show that this was the

site of a place where many people had dwelt in the long ago. A long sand

dune, some fifteen feet high, runs parallel with the sea, and in the

face of this dune strong walls, doorways, and ruins of all sorts are

embedded. The sand in many places has been removed sufficiently to

uncover entire rooms and passages, and the whole beach below is

literally covered with broken tiles, apparently Roman, which presumably

formed the roofs of the ruined dwellings. The walls are usually formed

of undressed stones, with some rubble cement almost as hard, the

courses, and sometimes corners, being composed of coarse red bricks or

tiles eighteen inches long by twelve broad and two thick.

Mounting the top of the dune I saw beneath me the houses that at various

times had been excavated, and partially cleared of sand by the

successive adventurers, who, for the sake of profit or curiosity, have

undertaken the work. It has been done unsystematically and

unscientifically; but in the three-quarters of a century or so that have

elapsed since renewed interest has been displayed in the place, an

immense number of Roman coins, some of the latest period of the

domination, have been found; and numerous relics of Roman, and, as I

believe, of a much earlier civilisation have also been discovered, many

of the objects being now in the Belem museum. Mr. Oswald Crawford wrote

an amusing account of a visit he paid to the place about thirty years

ago, and advanced some attractive theories with regard to it; but

apparently the excavations that have taken place since his time must

have been considerable, as some of the most significant features noticed

by me were presumably not uncovered when he was there, as he does not

mention them.

The place has been called Troia by the Portuguese from time immemorial;

but it agrees in position with, and probably is, the important Roman

town of Cetobriga. The name of Cetobriga can hardly be of pure Latin

origin, nor is the situation of the place, at the end of a barren,

low-lying sandbank, such as Romans usually chose for a settlement. It is

known, however, that a people called Bastuli, some of whom Strabo says

lived upon a narrow strip of land by the sea in this part of Portugal

were of Phœnician origin, and inhabited this coast[8]; and this at once

provides a clue to the original founders of the city. The Phœnicians and

their successors in the Peninsula, the Carthaginians, were a Semitic

people whose trading depôts were carried to the extreme of the then

known world. At first, and for many centuries, purely traders and men of

peace, they made no attempt to dominate, but established their

factories, with defensive stockades and walls around them in places,

which, though unadapted for aggression, were capable of easy defence. It

is difficult to imagine an easily accessible place, well situated for

maritime traffic, better calculated than Troia upon its sandy island

opposite a fertile plain for the purposes of such a people as this; and

the opinion of antiquarians since the re-discovery of Troia has been in

favour of its Phœnician origin.

The later Roman period, it is true, has provided most of the remains

unearthed. I saw and measured myself, amongst many other houses, two of

undoubted Roman construction, one apparently a temple, to judge by the

now empty niches which are constructed round three sides of the inner

wall, and the doorway of well-dressed stone in the fourth side. Another

house near it, of which the chief apartment was twenty-two feet in

diameter, possessed a dressed stone piscina or font in the wall, and

what appeared to be a bath of five feet in diameter and nearly six feet

deep of rubble and tiles. These houses and practically all the others

stood some fifteen feet below the present top of the dune, but in no

case has the excavation been completed, sand silting up almost to the

door lintels in most cases. On the beach itself near the point, I

noticed what appeared to be the base of a hollow tower ten feet in

diameter, which may well have been a pharos; and in many places not much

above sea-level are square cemented tanks, which some authorities assert

were used for fish salting, although its suggestion is not a very

convincing one considering the position of the tanks.

The largest house that has been excavated is of undressed rubble for the

walls, the angles and doors and window frames being squared with tiles,

and the principal doorway topped by a flat arch of brick, the pitch of

the roof being evidently angular. On the other side of a sandy peninsula

facing the south, and farthest from Setubal, a very large villa has been

partially uncovered, presenting the same construction as the rest, but

with the base of a round tower at one corner; whilst on the point of the

beach there is a house containing four uncovered very large square

concreted tanks, sunk in the ground some twenty-five feet deep,

apparently reservoirs—perhaps vivaria for edible fish. There is no

indication—at least to a layman in the matter like myself—that these

buildings are earlier than the Roman occupation, though, of course, some

of them may have been, whilst a large building standing high at the very

end of the point, which the energetic boatman who constituted himself my

companion insisted was “the chapel,” is evidently much later than Roman

times, and may probably have been a Christian church.

Mr. Crawford advances a theory to account for the foundation of a

populous settlement upon a mere sandbank. He is of opinion that when the

town was originated the sand did not exist there, but has been blown or

cast up since. Although the dune facing the beach has doubtless

accumulated greatly since the city was finally abandoned, I cannot

believe, after looking well at the buildings, that the level has changed

more than perhaps a dozen or fifteen feet since the town was inhabited;

and there must, I think, have been hills of sand here from Roman times

at least. Still it is possible that a thorough excavation would

establish that the remains of the Phœnician town on solid earth underlie

the Roman buildings now existing amidst the sand. The most interesting

object that I saw at Troia is not mentioned by Mr. Crawford, though as

it stands at the highest point of the sand dune (though perhaps with a

base of solid earth beneath the sand) it is curious if it was not

uncovered when he visited the place. In any case, there it is now, the

most convincing proof possible that the city was Phœnician,

notwithstanding the extensive Roman remains of a later time. Upon a

square base or plinth there rises a smooth conical column, some ten feet

high, four feet in diameter at base and tapering conically to a diameter

of less than two at its apex. There is no mistaking the shape of this

column or its significance by any one who has studied the beliefs of the

ancient peoples and the symbols of their worship. The column is

apparently composed of red tiles smoothly covered with fine white

cement; and standing, as it does, in the most conspicuous position over

the settlement, it seems to prove that the Nature-worshippers,

Phœnicians, Carthaginians, or those who inherited their traditions, must

have been the constructors of this column supporting nothing. It may be

advanced that this sign of ancient paganism would not have been allowed

to remain by the Romans for four hundred years after the Christian era;

but it is possible that even then the ritual symbolism of the column had

been lost sight of or forgotten, and that it remained as a landmark.

I was glad to embark in my sardine boat again, for the glare and heat of

the sun beating down upon the shadeless sand was almost intolerable, and

the treacherous black sandflies, so harmless looking and so venomous, in

the three hours I had been at Troia had rendered my face unrecognisable

by my nearest friends, and turned my hands to agonised dumplings. So,

with a slight puff of breeze now and again to help us, we slowly crossed

the blue bay to Setubal where much needed refreshment awaited me.

I was bound for the ancient city of Evora, and I could have gone by

train to Pinhal Novo junction, where the train to the south was to

receive me. But the plain over which Palmella lords it had captivated

me, and I decided to traverse by road the ten miles to the junction. As

I drove out of Setubal, with its clean white houses, and gaily decked

women in a long kneeling row washing their linen in the river, the

glamour of the south was over all. Cactus hedges lined the way, the

glistening green of the orange trees with the abundant fruit already

showing, the bronzed vines and the grey olive orchards chequered the

light red earth; the rolling slopes were thickly wooded to the summits,

and nestling amidst the verdure on many hill-tops were glistening white

houses, abandoned cloisters, or shrines of pilgrimage. The aspect was

Andalusian, as were the traits of the people, and North Portugal seemed

very far away. Before us always towered the huge castle of Palmella,

with its tremendous stretches of battlements and square towers, seen

first from one side and then from another, as we gradually wound round

and round the base of the eminence upon which it stands. The way is

always upward, and on all sides spread below us, growing more extensive

as we round each successive rising turn of the hill, is the fertile

plain and the sea beyond. Wheat, maize, olives, and oranges grow here

luxuriantly, the lower folds of the sandy hillsides are covered with

vines, and the rich brown velvet trunks of the stripped cork-trees are

all along the way.

My coachman is one of the talkative type of south Portuguese, almost

oriental in the voluble vehemence of his manner, and his eagerness to

impart information. Ah! yes Troia, Setubal, and Palmella were all very

well in their way: but Evora! That indeed is a place. What a pity his

Excellency was not going to see Evora. His Excellency replied that Evora

was his present destination, and the patriotic Eborense, for, of course,

the voluble coachman came from Evora, broke out into unrestrained

panegyric of his native city. Lisbon was nothing, Oporto was nothing, to

Evora; why, Evora was a great city and a capital when they were

villages: Evora made Portugal what it is—and much more to the same

effect the wild-eyed coachman rattled off with much gesticulation,

whilst the patient horses, left to themselves, slowly toiled up the

winding road to the town of Palmella, now to the right now to the left,

and anon straight overhead, apparently inaccessible.

At length we entered the town, a poor squalid looking place upon the

steep slope; and whilst the tired horses rested I climbed the top of the

hill to the castle. The tremendous outer defences covered with yellow

lichen, and the round bastions of the inner circumvallation, are

evidently of Moorish origin, whilst the great square battlemented towers

inside appear to be mediæval. The whole of the top of the hill is

occupied by the fortress; the outer walls following the contour, with

corner bastions on the spurs of the summit. The views obtained from the

battlements of the salient bastions are tremendous. The central keep,

standing high above the rest, is veiled with mist, though where I stand

upon the battlements is clear and bright. Over the vast plain spread

below me bathed in sunlight dark patches of cloud wander, and, on the

south side beyond it, is Setubal and the sea; whilst on the other,

towards the north, far away stretches the broad estuary of the Tagus,

and the distant mountains loom upon the west. Ancient as the castle is,

it shows signs of more recent habitation than is usual, indeed a row of

humble dependencies within the walls are still occupied by poor people.

The roofs of the principal buildings are everywhere destroyed; and upon

the very ancient walls of one portion there rises the ruin of a

sixteenth-century palace; whilst by the side of the great mediæval keep

is the shell of a beautiful chapel of Romanesque Gothic. The inner

gateway of the fortress bears upon it a tablet with the arms of Portugal

and the date of 1689; and I was informed by one of the residents in the

row of dwellings that the place had only been entirely dismantled in

living memory. All is silent and abandoned now; and the great Moorish

stronghold which Affonso Henriques captured from the Moors in 1147, the

royal fortress of the Commandery of the Order of Santiago, and the seat

of the powerful Dukes of Palmella, as the place successively has been,

has now become what for all future time it will remain, a worthy compeer

with the rest of the proud old Portuguese hill-top fortresses, whose

sturdy walls dismantled though they be, refuse to crumble into dust.

Long may they rear their noble towers intact from man’s destroying hand,

and tell their silent lesson of heroic times to a generation that sorely

needs it.

As we wind down the hill again from the poverty-stricken town beneath

the castle walls, carts of little black grapes meet us winding up the

hill for the belated vintage, and through the open doors of granges we

see the wide shallow tubs being filled with grapes trodden under the

feet of swarthy lads. The air is soft and close as the sun sets red and

orange behind the tree-clad hills, and I pass the hour waiting for the

train at Pinhal Novo under a grove of lofty eucalyptus trees, whilst the

shrill twittering of millions of cicadas, and the languorous perfume in

the air tell me that I have left the strenuous land behind, and am in a

clime where to strive is folly.

The next morning Evora revealed its quaint charms to me, for in the

night when I arrived all seemed gloomy and threatening in its narrow

tortuous ways. Under a glowing blue sky and the fierce sun the place was

charming, and few cities in Portugal, if any, present so many

attractions to the archæologist, the antiquarian, or the simple seeker

after the picturesque. The long irregular space of the principal praça

is lined by ancient arcades like the plazas in Spanish towns, and the

people who flock hither and thither under the covered ways are purely

Andalusian in appearance, the men wearing sheepskin _zamarras_ over

gaudy waistcoats, and upon their heads wide-brimmed velvet _calañeses_

surmount bright-coloured kerchiefs. We have almost lost sight now of the

ox as a draught animal, and big mules, drawing a somewhat light waggon,

are universal.

At unexpected corners and unlikely angles relics of unfathomed antiquity

meet you: a Roman tower built into a sixteenth-century wall, a Moorish

arch, a low-browed doorway that may go back to the time of the Goths,

though the house to which it gives entrance may be comparatively modern,

fragments of palaces and beautiful bits of Manueline are everywhere. For

this city of Evora is an epitome of the historical vicissitudes of

Portugal, and under each successive régime has played a principal part.

Ebora of the Phœnicians and Iberians, Liberalitas Julia of the Romans,

seat of government of the patriot rebel Sertorius, who here defied the

legions of the Cæsars (80 B.C.), Gothic capital of Lusitania, Yebora of

the Moslems for four hundred years, and now chief city of Alemtejo and

the south—the walls and towers of its Latin and Gothic masters are still

clearly traceable, and the mediæval defences still surround the ancient

city.

Its modern Portuguese history dates from its capture from the Moors in

1165 by the freebooter Gerald and his band of desperadoes, who

surrendered the place to King Affonso Henriques in exchange for pardon

and reward; and from that time its archbishops have vied with those of

Braga in the north in wealth and dignity. Infantes of Portugal have

often worn its mitre, and one of them, Cardinal Henry, the last of his

race, became king. It is difficult to realise, looking at this crumbling

old city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, the magnificence of which it

was the scene in times when the population must have been much smaller

than at present. I have before me as I write an account written at the

time by an Italian ecclesiastic in the train of the papal Legate, who

came to Portugal in 1571, of the reception of the embassy by the

Archbishop of Evora (João de Mello), on which occasion lavishness seems

to have outdone itself. The king’s lieutenant, with five hundred

followers and ten thousand armed militia of the province, had met the

Legate some miles outside the city, and at the gates the governor and

magistracy awaited the visitors in full panoply, with several bands of

trumpeters dressed in cloth of gold and scarlet caps, many companies of

halberdiers smartly garbed in various uniforms, black drummers and

cymbal players on velvet-draped mules, the mayor and aldermen and civic

officers with their respective armed escorts, followed by—

“Ten boys dressed in green, dancing a Morris-dance to the sound of

tambourines, and then ten more dressed in yellow with fife and drum,

also dancing, each one carrying an arch which they intertwined and

disentangled with great rapidity and dexterity. Then came ten boys

dressed as pilgrims dancing round a drum, and singing the praises of

the Legate. Then came ten women gipsies dancing their usual dance to

the sound of the drum, and performing dexterous tricks with wands

and scarfs. Following them came ten gipsy men with a drum, and

placing themselves alternately with the women, they made a very

pretty chain. Finally at the gate of the city there were ten boys

dressed in white with branches in their hands, dancing round a

carrying chair of red velvet striped with gold, which was carried by

eight little boys with white kilts, and golden haloes round their

heads. They bowed low to the Legate as the rest did separately when

they danced their measure, and then all together, the dances

continuing all the while before the Legate. The archbishop of Evora

entertained the Legate and prelates sumptuously at his palace, and

the _fidalgos_ splendidly received the rest in their houses. The

apartments were lined with the finest Flanders hangings, and the

floors were covered with green sprigs and rushes, which is the

custom here at weddings and feasts. They usually remain at table two

or three hours. Each person has a separate cup, and when dinner is

half through the tablecloth is changed. The roast meats are placed

upon the table already cut up and covered, and they are wont to put

into these dishes and others, eggs, many spices, and sugar. The

viands are not sumptuous, but are abundant, and they say most of the

dishes are Moorish. They only serve one dish at a time, and this it

is that makes their dinners last so long, whilst they pass the time

chatting, drinking healths, and helping each other to what is

brought to table, they being very gay the while.”[9]

Of this splendour in the Evora of the past little is now apparent to the

visitor, though the modern Barahona palace, of which, and its wealthy

owner, the Eborenses seem very proud, could probably furnish forth a

good twentieth-century equivalent for it; and behind the closed doors

and frowning walls of many ancient noble palaces, now mostly in the

hands of rich landowners and cultivators of the district, are doubtless

luxurious interiors.

From the Hotel Eborense, with its sixteenth-century outside staircase

and trellised balcony-landing, looking upon a quaint, tree-shaded,

little praça, I descend through narrow streets, that remind me of

Toledo—streets that for the most part still bear historic names, though

of course the inevitable “Serpa Pinto” has modernised one of them. Peace

and stillness reign over all, for the sun stings shrewdly; and those who

are obliged to be out linger drowsily under white walls and the frequent

shade of acacias, cork-trees, and vine-trellises. A ruined church and a

vast monastery attached, and now used as a barrack, first attract my

attention, for the edifice shows signs of past magnificence, and the

white, roofless walls and façade against the indigo sky form a beautiful

picture even in their decay. An Augustinian monastery-church, that of

Our Lady of Grace, I am told it is; and over the broken portico I read

that it was built “_sub imp. Divi Joannis III., Patris Patriæ._” This

John III. was the son of the “Fortunate” Manuel, and was one of the

principal builders of Belem; so that we are justified in expecting

something good from him in architecture. The expectation is not

disappointed, for the work is a gem in its uncommon way. It is, indeed,

but little touched with the Manueline taste of the time it was built

(1524); and has more affinity with the fine cloister of John III. at

Thomar, built by the same monarch. It is, in fact, almost the only

specimen I have seen in Portugal of the pure Italian Renaissance in the

style of Michael Angelo. Columns, trophies, shields, and decorative

statuary, all tell the same story of direct Florentine influence, as

apart from the less virile Raphaelesque tendency of the French

Renaissance, which is much more common in Portugal, and, indeed,

elsewhere. Even in the later decorations of this very church of Graça

the graved medallions, festoons, and delicate panel carving in low

relief, show that, even a few years after the church was built, the

French style was preferred.

It is but a step from the Graça to a splendid church which is deservedly

one of the boasts of Evora, and, for skilful solidity of construction,

one of the most extraordinary churches in Portugal, if not in Europe.

Situated in a wide praça, and flanked on one side by shady groves of

cork-trees, stands the great square church of S. Francisco, all that

remains intact of an important Franciscan monastery of immense

antiquity. Adjoining it, until recent times, stood a royal palace, of

which this church and monastery were privileged to form a part; and the

Franciscans of Evora were altogether very lordly monks indeed. Without a

tower, as is usual with monastery churches, the big square building,

with its rows of battlemented roof ridges, looks more like a fortress

than a church; and from the peculiarity of its construction, it is safe

to say that, unless the hand of man or some great natural convulsion

destroys it, the next four centuries will have as little effect upon it

as the last four have had since its construction at the end of the

fifteenth century.

The great west porch extends the whole width of the building in fine

Romanesque-Gothic. The arches of this porch are almost Moorish in form,

with elaborated twisted-cord capitals; and the peculiar arrangement of

supports noticed in the nave at Alcobaça is also seen here, where the

great inner supports of the arches do not reach the ground, but start

suddenly three-quarters up the pillar, producing the effect of the lower

portion having been cut away. The double doorway itself is fine early

Manueline marble, surmounted by the pelican and young, the device of

John II., and the armillary sphere, which was that of his son, King

Manuel the Fortunate. The inside of the church is very striking. The

immense width of nave (42 feet) is unbroken by pillars or aisles, the

side chapels being apparently embedded in the walls and separated from

each other by fine pure Gothic pillars on the wall surface, each pillar

being carried right up to the spring of the roof and its uninterrupted

arch carried over to the corresponding pillar on the other side, the

effect being one of great width and spaciousness, as the length of the

nave to the chancel arch is no less than eighty-eight feet.

The chapels, some of which are very beautiful with carved figures of the

good sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish period, are separated

from the nave by a handsome black and white marble balustrade of the

same period. The transepts are exceptionally majestic, and, like the

nave, of good unadorned Romanesque-Gothic, but the tiled walls and

overloaded altars—the latter still greatly venerated by the

faithful—sadly mar the simple grandeur of their main plan. The chancel

is magnificent, with its elaborately bossed and groined roof, and fine

carved choir-stalls, the work of the Fleming, Oliver of Ghent, who

carved the now plundered stalls for the Templars’ church at Thomar; and

over the noble chancel arch again the devices of John II. and Manuel,

with the arms of Portugal, are carved.

In the chapels, and especially in one of the transepts, are some

paintings of the highest interest; but the light is so bad that it is

impossible to inspect them carefully. They can, however, be seen

sufficiently well—notwithstanding their deplorable condition—to prove

that some of the great mysterious Flemish-Portuguese masters of the late

fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries must have painted them. One

representing St. Anthony preaching to the fishes is perfectly exquisite

in its minute conscientiousness. I was informed that in the bishop’s

palace twelve fine paintings of the same school, attributed to the

brothers Van Eyck, are kept in similar semi-darkness and neglect; but

these I could not see. It is a thousand pities that these art treasures

and others of the same sort which I have mentioned,[10] should not be

rescued and reverently kept.

A peculiarity of this church of St. Francisco, as of the cathedral of

Evora, which I shall mention presently, is that the brown granite blocks

of which it is constructed are clearly marked out with staring white

divisions of cement, either real or simulated. The effect is one of very

questionable taste, but the peculiarity is not a modern innovation, and

the series of white transverse lines traced upon the brown background

has some attraction from its very strangeness. The story goes that this

monastery-church, founded originally in 1224, twice fell down, and when,

after the second disaster late in the fifteenth century, the famous

architect, Martin Lourenço, was commissioned to construct a new church,

he swore that his building, at least, should never share the fate of its

predecessors. Instead of a single main outer wall he built two on each

side of the church, all of similar height, the space between the inner

and outer walls being about five feet or less, and in the lower portion

of this space the side chapels are accommodated. The two walls were tied

together by transverse walls of similar strength and height between the

chapels, and upon each of these transverse walls, which are carried over

the roof to the opposite pair of walls, similarly constructed, the roof

arches rest. The roof is, therefore, divided into six independent

sections, each one supported by its own separate walls and arch. As if

this were not enough, a similar arrangement was made below the ground,

where corresponding sets of transverse walls were carried across to the

other side, and thus the whole nave consisted of six complete and

self-supporting bodies joined together. Even this did not satisfy Martin

Lourenço. He built yet another wall longitudinally along the central

ridge of the roof, and a similar one underground along the same axis

binding together both above and below the transverse sections from end

to end, and increasing the stability of the building by the added

weight. All this it is, of course, impossible to see from the inside,

but from the praça the top battlements of the four long lines of wall

and the roof-ridge are discernible, and the skeleton of the church, so

to speak, can be understood.

A door in the transept leads to an extraordinary chapel of considerable

size (58 feet long by 34 broad), divided into a nave and two aisles, the

whole of the walls, pillars, and ceiling of which are lined or

constructed of skulls and other human bones, arranged in symmetrical

patterns. The remains of many thousands of human beings are contained in

this ghastly chamber, probably constructed by the monks in the

seventeenth century from the contents of ancient crypts and

charnel-houses. The specially venerated figure of our Lord, of which

this was formerly the chapel, has now been transferred to an adjoining

apartment better adapted for modern worship.

Evora stands upon a gentle eminence in the midst of a vast fertile

plain, surrounded by distant mountains, and upon the very summit of the

hill, hidden away between narrow, winding streets leading up from the

main arcaded praça, stands the venerable Sé—the cathedral of the

archbishopric. In a quiet little open space it rears its two solid,

square, granite Romanesque towers of the twelfth century, flanked by the

whitewashed, monastic-looking palace of the archbishop, the two towers

being united by a pure Gothic doorway porch which fills the space

between them. The inner doorway pillars are adorned by early Gothic

statues of the disciples, all so direct and vivid as to put to shame the

affected elaborations of a later time. Slabs in the porch over ancient

sarcophagi in Gothic niches tell that all this has been restored in

recent years; but it is easy to see that here, at least, the restorer

has been reverent and has spoilt nothing.

Like most of the Portuguese cathedrals of the period the first effect

produced by the interior is that of grave massiveness. The narrow nave

and aisles separated by clustered Romanesque pillars, supporting early

Gothic arches, very slightly pointed, and a graceful triforium, have all

the beauty of serene severity.[11] Here again, the clustered pillars

shoot sheer up to the spring of the roof, and carry an arch over to the

other side, and the cimborio or lantern at the intersection of the

transepts and the nave is especially striking. The pillars that support

it on four sides, chancel, nave, and two transepts, are as bold and

aspiring as those of Ely, and seem to cry out aloud in exalted

triumphant devotion. To gaze up at this cimborio with its lovely

groining and its graceful spandrils carried to a prodigious height at

one sweep is a sensation worth coming from England to experience.

High up on the wall of the nave there is roughly sculptured the

life-sized figure of a man, bearing upon his breast a cartouche with the

Gothic letters C. C. E. cut upon it, representing, as local antiquarians

insist, the figure of the twelfth-century architect of the building,

Martin Dominguez, and the coats-of-arms and sepulchral figures in

chapels and on walls are many. One florid Gothic sarcophagus in the

south transept is that of André de Resende, a relative of Garcia de

Resende, the earliest Portuguese historian, whose house, with its

beautiful Manueline windows, still stands in Evora. The chapels on each

side of the cathedral are much disfigured by tawdry decorations and

curly gilt wood carvings, but several have finely painted altar-pieces,

badly lit and uncared for; and one altar, Our Lady of the Angel, against

a pillar in the nave, evidently much venerated, for it is hung all over

with votive offerings, is grotesquely hideous, with its ill-carved, big,

staring doll upon a gilt monstrosity of a stand.

The little choir loft over the west end of the nave, like that at Braga,

is filled with finely carved oaken choir-stalls, and the episcopal

throne, with Scripture scenes in high relief carved upon the panelling,

probably French or Italian work of the Renaissance period. The Eborenses

complain that the French plundered the cathedral of most of its valuable

treasures; but the church plate and vestments are still of very great

richness, and I was much struck by a great jewelled altar cross said to

contain a fragment of the True Cross. The precious stones upon it amount

altogether to 1425, of which 840 are diamonds; and a chalice of enamel

and gold of the sixteenth century is a veritable thing of beauty. The

chancel and high altar of the eighteenth century, though of precious

marbles, are quite out of keeping with the church, and I was glad to

turn away from them and linger in the pretty little ruined cloister of

the monks, of simple devotional Gothic.

But the exterior of the old Sé after all is more picturesque than the

interior. Glimpses of shady little white courtyards, with acacias,

orange-trees, and abundant flowers; corners and gateways of ancient

palaces, with florid and beautiful Manueline doorways; here and there a

Roman tower or arch; narrow white streets, almost alleys, with

supporting arches from side to side across the way; and over all a blue,

blue sky. The bold, long, battlemented ridges of the aisles and nave of

the cathedral, and the pointed round tower of the wonderful cimborio,

with its eight turrets ranged around it, seem to force upon the mind the

dignified antiquity of the place, hardly marred by the modern classicism

of the trivial chancel apse tacked on to it. Outside the north-west

corner of the cathedral is a Roman tower and arch in perfect

preservation, and adjoining it a quaint triangular praça called S.

Miguel, gives entrance to a ruined mediæval palace of the Counts of

Basto. But, take a few steps to the north of this, turn the corner of

the archbishop’s palace and the choir-boys’ college, and there bursts

upon your view, silhouetted against the blue sky, an object that draws

an exclamation of surprise and delight from the most apathetic. In an

open space, almost surrounded by ancient battlemented buildings, there

stands alone in the midst a majestic ruin, which makes even their hoary

antiquity but a thing of yesterday. A Roman temple, almost complete,

with six Corinthian columns at the end of its parallelogram and five out

of the ten that formerly existed on each side. The supporting wall upon

which they stand is of rough stone with well-dressed granite plinths and

corners, all perfect and complete, and standing over eleven feet from

the ground. Upon this rise the beautiful fluted columns of granite, with

bases and carved capitals of white marble, the granite entablature over

the pillars being almost perfect.

At what was the entrance of the temple the remains of a noble flight of

steps, the whole width of the edifice and twelve feet high, exist, and

it requires no effort of the imagination, turning one’s back to the

cathedral, to repeople the space before us with figures of the long

past. Up the steps to the lovely temple under the blue sky mount the

white-clad citizens of imperial Rome. Slaves there are in many, and

half-civilised Iberian tribesmen, still, perhaps, recalcitrant to the

yoke. Trembling, perchance, for the savage vengeance of Diocletian, they

sullenly look upon the sacrifice to the pagan gods, whilst they in their

hearts hold with the strange new creed of the Nazarene; for this temple

must have been raised in the second century after the advent of Christ,

when already the trumpet sound of Christianity had pierced the hearts of

the Celtiberian peoples, and had awakened vague longings for

emancipation from the oppressive unconsoling gods of old.

And I turn back and contemplate the grave old mediæval cathedral close

by, with its modern addition covered with flourishing cardinals hats and

saintly frippery; and I see there, too, the temple of a creed that is

losing its hold upon the hearts and minds of men. For the great

cathedral I have just left is as empty and silent now as the temple to

the unknown God before me. In successive ages surely the same old

yearning is re-born for direct appeal and nearer personal access to God,

free from the trammels and man-made mediations with which all creeds in

time burden the simplicity of their faith. Here in this temple—called of

Diana with no historical warrant—devout souls offered their sacrifice

without misgiving; and in the old Sé hearts have pierced the

church-raised clouds and reached the Throne any day this nine hundred

years. But as the thirst for equal direct appeal for all souls overthrew

the gods of the temple, so the same longing empties the great fane that

has departed from the severe sincerity of the age that founded it; and

thus the gods do come and go, whilst God lives on for ever.

[Illustration: THE “TEMPLE OF DIANA,” EVORA]

It is difficult to shake oneself free from retrospective visions when

standing between this stately ruin and the cathedral that has supplanted

it; but regarded simply as a Roman material relic, the ruin is

remarkable. It is of a similar period and much resembles the Maison

Carrée at Nimes, although as I recollect it appeared much larger. The

temple at Evora is about eighty feet long and nearly fifty feet broad,

the height of the columns being twenty-five feet. Behind the temple

there is a pretty shady public garden, ending in a balustrade where the

hill drops suddenly away to the plain spread out at the foot for miles

to the mountains far away. It was a spot which will linger in my memory

to the last; and I left it sorrowfully.

Opposite the temple is the Archæological Museum of Evora, containing a

large collection of Roman and mediæval relics, found in the city and

rescued from ruined buildings; and in the streets still the remains of

ancient architecture greet the visitor at every turn. Evora, indeed, is

a museum of itself; and it is impossible even to mention a quarter of

the objects in it that would appeal to an antiquarian or archæologist.

Two buildings there are, however, that cannot be entirely passed over.

The so-called palace of Dom Manuel is now used as an agricultural

museum, and some of the upper portion has been rebuilt in semi-Moorish

style; but the lower portion is intact, and is a splendid specimen of

early sixteenth-century stonework. The hall is low but tremendously

massive, the walls being three yards thick, and the octagonal pillars

supporting the simple groined roof in the centre being massive in

proportion.

From the beautiful semi-tropical public garden in which this palace

stands, just beyond the mediæval walls of the city, it is but a step

across the road to the extraordinary hermitage church of St. Braz. A

great plague had assailed Evora in 1479, and here a temporary pesthouse

was established outside the walls. The bishop vowed that if St. Braz

would free the place from the epidemic he would build here a permanent

temple to his honour. When the plague disappeared in the following year,

1480, the bishop kept his word, and the present church has stood here

ever since. The style, in my experience, is unique—Norman-Gothic local

archæologists call it—the building being a long, low, fortress-like

structure, with six pointed turrets along each side, and with

battlemented parapets; the two first turrets supporting a massive

battlemented ante-porch, with plain pointed arches and Byzantine

capitals, the porch being perhaps a third the length of the church, and

of the same height. For a building so late as the end of the fifteenth

century, just on the verge of the period that went crazy over the

exuberant Manueline, this survival of the Norman-Byzantine tradition is

extraordinary.

Evora was all aglow with the glories of the setting sun when I left it.

Long lines of lofty eucalyptus trees stretched as far as the eye reached

along the railway, the long hanging strips of bark and the bright clean

trunks shining a brilliant orange, whilst the drooping foliage was a

bright bronze tipped with gold. Wistaria and clematis hung in wondrous

bunches and masses over walls and in wayside gardens, and no sign of

coming winter marred the beauty of the day. Long rows of trucks and

waggons filled with cork lined the way, and open doors of depôts and

warehouses disclosed overflowing stores of cork in bales ready for

transport; for Evora is the centre of this profitable industry, and

derives from it much of its prosperity. Over all the gold and emerald

after-glow cast its strange glamour; high overhead the deep blue of the

sky was just flecked by purple cloud, and the soft scented air was like

a breath from the Arabian Nights.

Once only in the four hours’ journey through the night to Barreiro and

Lisbon was I aroused from the series of reveries into which the

impressions of these scenes had cast me. It was at a station by the way,

dimly lit with smoky oil lamps. Some bundles of rags topped by nightcaps

lounged about in the gloom of the platform, and across the way a few

white cottages stood out from a background of trees and the hills

beyond, whilst overhead, through the high branches of the eucalyptus,

the stars shone brilliantly. There was nothing special in all this, for

the same picture is presented by most Portuguese and Spanish railway

stations by night during the interminable waits inherent to travelling

by a train whose first interest is the conveyance of merchandise; but

what did strike me as I looked was the name of the place: MONTEMOR.

From here, then, from this humble remote place, came the man, the poet,

Jorge de Montemor—or Montemayor as he came to be called—who set all

cultured Europe running again after the preposterous pastoral romances

of lovelorn shepherds and shepherdesses, which had been forgotten since

the eclogues and bucolics of classical Italy had been voted

old-fashioned. From here came the inspiration that made Cervantes write

the “Galatea,” Sidney write the “Arcadia,” and Spenser write the “Fairy

Queen”: these sweet fertile hillsides and vales of southern Portugal

were the scenes which the native poet peopled with the erotic swains of

his Spanish pastoral, “Diana Enamorada.” It was a style utterly foreign

to arid Spain, for there the flocks had to travel in vast multitudes

from desert to desert in search of the scanty pasture; but it caught the

fancy of a people sated with knights-errant, and the pastoral became the

rage. That Spain itself should have given it new birth was incredible,

though Jorge de Montemor wrote in Spanish. The neighbourhood of his

birthplace gives us the key; for here in rich pastures and lush,

half-tropical valleys flocks would need but little tending or

travelling, and here beneath the sunny skies shepherds and their lasses

might as easily as in Italy be imagined piping, singing, and telling

their long-winded love stories to their hearts’ content.

Lisbon was all smiles when I arrived; clear and crisp as if no

rain-clouds and wreaths of wet mist had ever crept up the Tagus and put

her out of temper. But the big steamer was lying in the harbour ready to

sail for England, and though Lisbon tempted me, I could not choose but

go. Forth from the splendid panorama we went, past the great white

fortress high on the hill, the city piled up on its amphitheatre and set

in verdant frames, the majestic square palace of Ajuda looking down upon

Belem and its glorious church, and the sturdy old tower rising from the

water dumbly protesting against its desecration by the gasworks that

surround it.

[Illustration: LISBON FROM THE NORTH.]

The next day at noon I stood and gazed over an indigo sea, from whose

waves the light breeze lifted the white foam and cast it wantonly to

leeward in a shower of diamonds. All along the coast gleaming towns

nestled in the laps of the hills. The mountains of fair Lusitania,

pine-clad to the tops, were slowly receding from my view, covered with a

glory of opal grey and gold, touched here and there where the shadows

fell with tints of darkling green and lavender, whilst the sky over all

melted from a horizon of palest primrose, through turquoise, to an

illimitable vault of sapphire. As the lovely scene faded in the

distance, and the bold jagged rocks of Spain loomed ahead, I turned away

full of thankfulness for the ineffable beauty of the world: but I could

find no word to say more than the quaint outburst of the simple-minded

priest whom the Emperor sent to bring home his Portuguese bride five

centuries ago: “_O Portugallia, O Portugallia, bona regio!_” Fifty-two

hours afterwards I was shrinking from the chill embrace of a November

fog in London.

-----

Footnote 8:

Oswald Crawford, “Portugal: Old and New.”

Footnote 9:

The manuscript quoted is in the Vatican Library, and is reproduced at

length by Herculano in an article called Archeologia Portugeza in

“Opusculos.”

Footnote 10:

There are fourteen of the same sort in the Cathedral of Viseu, one the

famous St. Peter.

Footnote 11:

The whole interior width of the church is only 46 feet, much less than

the nave alone of Toledo, Seville, or York.

X

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN PORTUGAL

_How to get there._—By railway the direct route is by the Sud Express,

which leaves Paris twice or thrice a week, according to the season, for

Oporto and Lisbon, _via_ Bordeaux, Medina, and Salamanca, covering the

distance from Paris to Lisbon in thirty-five hours—the cost from Paris,

single fare, first-class, being 222 francs. The journey is naturally

tedious, as well as costly, and for tourists and pleasure-travellers who

are not absolutely averse from sea-voyages the journey by steamer is

much preferable. The Royal Mail steamships from Southampton and the

Pacific Line from Liverpool both have splendid steamers, which run

fortnightly to Lisbon or Oporto (Leixões), the voyage to Lisbon usually

occupying rather under three days, the fare being £8 single and £12

return on both lines. But for those who wish to visit Portugal either

for health or pleasure, and desire to see something of the country under

favourable conditions the steamers of the Booth Steamship Line offer

much greater facilities than either of the previously mentioned

companies, combined with considerable economy. I have travelled to

Portugal by all three lines, and can find little to choose between them;

the newer vessels especially of the Booth Line being in all respects as

comfortable and well served as the others, whilst the fare is lower. It

is, however, chiefly in the organisation of tours through Portugal that

the Booth Line offers the greatest advantages to travellers, the

arrangements being such that most of the difficulties of travelling in a

foreign country are obviated by holders of through tourist tickets. The

system provides for the meeting of travellers on board the steamers and

at railway stations by representatives of the hotels, and advice is sent

forward of the travellers to be expected. The tickets issued include

coupons for hotel expenses, carriages, and all the necessary outlay of

the journey from place to place, and, speaking from my own experience, I

may say that the portions of my journey that were covered by Booth Line

tickets were much easier and less troublesome than those which were

undertaken without them. I found, moreover, that the people at the

hotels were, if anything, more anxious to show attention to travellers

accredited by the Booth Line tickets and forward advice than to visitors

arriving unannounced. Some of the Portuguese tours of the Booth Line

seem extremely moderate in price, including, as they do, hotel expenses

as well as travelling by sea and land, and, so far as my experience

went, everything possible was done for the convenience and pleasure of

ticket-holders.

_Hotels._—We English are not particularly popular on the Continent as

travellers, though we are better liked in Spain and Portugal than

elsewhere. Nor is the reason of our lack of popularity far to seek. We

are apt to assume a demeanour and tone towards foreigners in their own

country which imply a belief in our superiority, and a claim to assert

priority for our own needs and pleasures over those of others. This

attitude is worse than useless in Spain and Portugal, for not only is it

ineffectual, but it turns otherwise polite and civil people against us.

In Portugal an honest desire to please and serve will be encountered by

travellers everywhere, almost without exception. But tourists must repay

this, if they wish to travel smoothly, by cheerfully accepting the best

that the people know how to give them, and must not claim to establish a

new standard for themselves. The hotels in the smaller towns of Portugal

do not exist for tourists. They live almost entirely upon commercial

travellers, and residents, business, professional men, and officials,

who board at the hotel table by contract. A tourist arriving at such an

hotel will be civilly received, but no fatted calf will be killed for

him, nor charged for, and the fare and accommodation considered

satisfactory by the regular customers of the hotel must be good enough

for him or he must go without. Generally speaking these are fair, even

in the small towns, the beds being usually clean, if hard and skimpy of

pillow; and of the dishes offered, some, at all events, will be found

palatable, even to an untravelled Englishman. In any case, it will be

useless to ask for others. These remarks are not applicable either to

the hotels in Oporto and Lisbon, nor to those which specially depend

upon visitors in search of health and pleasure, like those of Bom Jesus,

Caldas, and Bussaco. In Oporto the Grand Hotel is said to be the best,

but it still leaves much to be desired in many respects. The cuisine,

however, is good, though there is a tendency to charge unduly high

prices for extras, such as wine, table water, &c. The same may be said

of the Hotel Central at Lisbon, where the cuisine is excellent and the

rooms generally good, but the extras are charged too high. This hotel

has been greatly improved of late years, and especially since the

reclamation of the foreshore has done away with what formerly was its

principal objection. It is very central for all the tramway routes, and

for a stay of a day or two may be convenient. The noisy, self-assertive

German commercial element is, however, too conspicuous and demonstrative

to be agreeable to most English people travelling for pleasure, and

personally I much prefer the Hotel Braganza, which stands on high ground

overlooking the river, and is quieter than the Central. The Grand Hotel

at Bom Jesus, in its way, is excellent, though purely Portuguese, and

the proprietor, the son of the late Senhor Gomes, whose enterprise made

Bom Jesus what it is, is always anxious to do his best, both here and

with his partner at their hotel at Braga, to be useful and agreeable to

visitors. The Grand Hotel at Bussaco stands in a class by itself, and I

have spoken of it elsewhere.

_Luggage._—As little luggage should be taken as possible, as above 60

lbs. is charged extra on the railways, and a careful traveller will

contrive to get what he really needs in packages that may, at a pinch,

be carried, or at all events lifted, by himself. For clothing, some warm

garments should be worn until Portugal is reached, and again on

embarking, but for use in the country summer clothing, with one light

over-garment, is all that will be needed. The tyranny of the top hat is

almost at an end in Portugal, and this impedimentum may be dispensed

with, though it may be advisable for some men-travellers to take with

them a dinner jacket-suit, as these are frequently worn on board the

larger steamers, and in some of the hotels, such as that at Bussaco.

_Language._—Some acquaintance with the Portuguese language is, of

course, a great advantage, but the knowledge of such words as are

necessary for the purposes of travel may be acquired easily by a few

hours of study. Spanish will be generally understood in the hotels, as

practically all the hotel servants in Portugal are Spanish Gallegos,

though the ability of the latter to reply in Castilian is variable and

limited. Generally a foreigner speaking Spanish will be _understood_ in

Portugal; but a knowledge of Spanish, though enabling him to _read_

Portuguese without difficulty, will not aid him much in understanding it

when spoken, as the pronunciation of the two languages is radically

different. A little French is also not uncommonly spoken and understood

even in the smaller hotels, though very rarely is any English at

command. In Lisbon and Oporto, of course, especially the former, English

is quite common, and is spoken at all the principal hotels.

_Wine._—In all the smaller hotels the wine is served on the table

without charge, as in Spain; and as it is, in most cases, the produce of

the neighbourhood, it is quite pure and genuine, and in some places

excellent. Where it is not liked other wines can always be ordered.

Collares, white and red, grown at the foot of the Cintra mountain, is

always a safe wine to order, and is very moderate in price, usually

about 250 reis per bottle (1_s._ 1_d._). At Lisbon Termo is also a good

wine at very reasonable price; whilst in the north of Portugal Bucellas

may be recommended, and Mirandella is a good cheap little wine. The new

or green wine, Vinho Verde, is much liked by the Portuguese in the hot

autumn weather, as it is light and slightly acidulous; but it is not

much adapted to English tastes. The country wine at Bussaco is

excellent—as it is at Cintra, Ourem, and other places. As I have

mentioned elsewhere the prices charged in the hotels named in Lisbon and

Oporto for ordinary Portuguese wines appear to be excessive in

comparison with the price of these wines in other places. The prices of

foreign wines are everywhere well-nigh prohibitive.

_Water._—The traveller will be wise to regard with suspicion the water

in most places, and to insist upon having some of the excellent bottled

table waters from the springs which abound in Portugal. One of the best

and safest of these waters is Sameiro, drawn from the mountain adjoining

Bom Jesus. It is in character almost identical with Apollinaris.

Lombadas is another pure neutral water from Madeira, somewhat resembling

St. Galmier; whilst Monte Banzão, Pedras Salgadas, and Vidago are

digestive waters similar to those of Vichy. The medicinal waters of

Luzo, just below Bussaco, are like those of Carlsbad, Kissingen, and

Vittel, powerfully digestive and rather laxative. It will be unnecessary

to order any such waters—unless for purely medicinal purposes—at Bom

Jesus, Bussaco, or Cintra, the ordinary drinking water of these places

being excellent.

_Travelling in Portugal._—The roads are usually very good, and open

carriages with one or two horses can be hired in any town at an

extremely reasonable price, four or five milreis a day being ample for a

carriage and two horses, which for the price will cover some

five-and-twenty miles or more according to circumstances. In railway

travelling it must be borne in mind that the trains on Portuguese

railways for the most part run primarily to convey goods and

merchandise, and that passengers must be content to wait whilst the

goods are being loaded or discharged. The trains, except an express on

the main line, are very slow. The carriages are, however, usually

comfortable. The absence of vociferation in Portugal, which in a general

way is a boon, is somewhat a drawback in railway travelling, as the

names of the stations are not called out, and as they are often painted

inconspicuously, and are not visible from the carriage windows, it is

necessary for strangers to be on the alert in order not to pass their

station. The best way is to provide oneself with a railway guide and

count the stations as they are passed. There is, however, usually a wait

at the stations long enough for inquiries to be made, as things are

rarely done in a hurry in Portugal.

THE END

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

Edinburgh & London

ERRATUM

Page 44. From line 2 read as follows: ‘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.’

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Made the correction mentioned in the ERRATUM.

2. Silently corrected typographical errors.

3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

5. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript

character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in

curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.