A PHILOSOPHER IN PORTUGAL In "The Story of the Nations" Series. PORTUGAL. By H. Morse Stephens, M.A., Oxford University Extension Lecturer. Author of "A History of the French Revolution," etc. Large Crown 8vo., Cloth, with Maps and Illustrations, 5 s - LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. A PHILOSOPHER IN PORTUGAL By EUGENE E. STREET, F.S.A. M Author of "PORTUGUESE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY." LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1903 pi [All rights reserved.] !' CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGES Introductory The Globe-trotter in Spain Ad- vantages of Portugal Historical Associa- tions Final Decision in favour of Portugal Paris The "Sud- Express "A Young Lady's Curiosity A Pleasant Companion The Voyage through Spain Arrival at Pampilhosa 1-16 CHAPTER II The Station at Pampilhosa Philological Diffi- culties Observations on the Weather Curious Phenomena connected with the Waking of the Railway Staff A Locked Refreshment Room Arrival of the Train from Lisbon Disappointment of the Philos- opher Sudden Appearance of P. Arrival at Oporto Disappearance of a Portmanteau An Important Calculation . . . . 17-29 CHAPTER III Oporto Smells of Oporto Bacalhao Ox-Carts Amanha Service at the Cathedral The Silver Altar The Rua das Flores Generous Donors The Central Station Fish and Market Women Names .... 30-51 253119 Contents CHAPTER IV PAGES The Douro Boa Vista Cemetery Firemen The English Cricket Field Mine Hunting Villa do Conde Vinho Verde Portuguese Roads Estrada Real Mines Sopas Mattasin- hos Leca Leixoes Harbour Sardines Leca River Sweeties An Awful Pun. . 52-72 CHAPTER V The Journey to Lisbon The Aqueduct at Campolide " Rolling Motion Square " Estrella Church English Cemetery Henry Fielding The " Suisso "Meeting a Friend A Philological Kiss A Missing Word The Archaeological Museum Church of the Carmo The Earthquake Agnes Surriage Fish- women Increasing Population Curious Eyes Moustaches San Geronymo Belem Moorish Architecture Origin of the Name of Lisbon The Flaneur The Markets Feira de Ladre A Latch-key . . . 73-98 CHAPTER VI An Inland Trip Abrantes The View from the Castle Porcalhota Long Walks Wind- mills Black Ants Insects Flowers Lizards Railway Eccentricities Cintra Guides Camoens at Cintra Quelluz Palace Grounds Bellas Over the Hills by Compass 99-124 Contents CHAPTER VII PAGES Agricultural Operations Old Fashioned Imple- ments Herding Cattle Orange Trees The Bichu Insect Pests Mosquitoes Fleas Gallegos Bowls Cricket Cruz Quebrada Carcavellos Estoril Gambling Lot- teries Costumes in Town and Country Fish-girls Male Attire Ornamental Patches 125-149 CHAPTER VIII A Bull-fight -The Shady Side The Parade- Bulls A Man Tossed A Spirited Bull A Plucky Cavalier Over the Barrier Moeos de Forcado Royal Patronage Choosing the Young Bulls Customs A New Performer Habits Adenoids 150-166 CHAPTER IX Portuguese Character Spanish Proverb Hatred of Spaniards Manners at Meals Tooth- picks Kindly and Good-natured Dis- honesty Shame Money Notes A Lost Wallet The Servant Question Criadas Criados A Handy Coachman The Solemn Butler Cultivators of the Soil Washing The Chula Social Divisions Doctors and Lawyers Midwives Love of Children Drink Syrens Jokes .... 167-190 Contents CHAPTER X PAGES The Portuguese Language The " Nine Ex- cellences " of Macedo Irregularities of Pro- nunciation and of Orthography General Construction Literature Elpino Camoens The Lusiads Braga's Folk-lore Three Sisters The Sleeping Beauty "Tic-Taco." 191-209 CHAPTER XI Law and Order Supreme Tribunal Judicial Provinces Relacao Desembargadores Comarcas Julgados Municipaes Juizos de Paz Lawyers Civil Marriage Legacies Criminal Justice Costs Prisons Cintra Railway Officials Character of the Police Civility of the Police Custom - House Octroi Garda Fiscal An Unlawful Seizure Tobacco Monopoly 210-226 CHAPTER XII Wanted at Home Cats Good-bye to Porcalhota and Lisbon Porto Again Rua das Flores A Port-wine Lodge City of Cork Pancratium Club at Mattasinhos Off at Last A Last Farewell Signal Bay of Biscay Deck Quoits Yarns London Docks Cabs A Lost Train Home The Cat Approves 227-244 viii > I 1 , > A PHILOSOPHER IN PORTUGAL CHAPTER I Introductory The Globe-trotter in Spain Advantages of Portugal Historical Associations Final Decision in favour of Portugal Paris The " Sud-Express " A Young Lady's Curiosity A Pleasant Companion The Voyage through Spain Arrival at Pampilhosa. The Philosopher sat smoking in his own snug- gery, meditating deeply, and the cat on his knee also purred in a contemplative manner. Both mentally and physically the Philosopher was below par, and it had become imperative for him to take a long holiday preferably abroad, in a country absolutely new to him, and within his modest means. As the smoke wreathed around in fantastic A Philosopher in Portugal cloud forms, various plans, schemes and itineraries suggested themselves. Some were dismissed as impracticable at once, and some were referred for further consideration. One project gradually seemed to unite several advantages, and that was to visit Portugal. In the first place it fulfilled the three require- ments mentioned above. Its attractions should be very great, for, to quote from Southey's " Letters from Spain and Portugal" " Europe, says Antonio de Sousadi Macedo, is the best of the four quarters of the globe : Spain is the best part of Europe : Portugal is the best part of Spain." In addition to this, it is a country where the tourist is happily rare. The regulation globe-trotter "does" Spain, and if he or she carries off any impression at all upon what is conventionally known as his or her brain; it takes the form of a confused hash, an olla podrida, in fact, compounded of bits of Shelton's or of Jarvis's translation of " Don Quijote," of Smollet's rendering of "Gil Bias," of Washington Irving's " Tales of the Alhambra," Globe-Trotters perhaps of Napier's " Peninsular War/' and sometimes of Borrow's " Bible in Spain." With these are stewed confused reminiscences of places visited and of sights seen, though there is in these a delightful vagueness as to the proportion of real remembrance of the place or sight itself to that which is due to a re- collection of the paragraph in the guide-book relating to the place or sight and the emotions prescribed as being proper for the occasion. These ingredients, compounded with hardly a trace of original observation or of personal reflection, serve as a basis of interminable stories with which to bore friends and acquaintances for the remainder of the traveller's natural life. But this sort of peninsular campaign rarely includes the fair land of Lusitania, to use what Mr. Morse Stephens calls "the old blunder of identifying Portugal with Lusitania." Some- how or other, despite its name, Napier's famous book does not seem to the average English- man to be much concerned with this part of the Iberian Peninsula. Vague to him are 3 A Philosopher in Portugal Wellington's exploits in this land. He re- members perhaps the Lines of Torres Vedras, but forgets the battles of Vimiero and Busaco, or, if he remember them at all, thinks they were fought in Spain. He has sometimes heard of the great national poet, Camoens, (though he knows nothing of his works) and in some rare cases he even knows the name, if not the exploits, of Vasco da Gama. He knows there was once a terrible earthquake at Lisbon, and that Cintra is a spot of great reputed loveliness, where the late Sir Francis Cook had a very beautiful show-place. The most important im- pression on his mind, probably, is that this is the country of port wine, and he feels, or may feel, a feeble sort of wish to see the interior of a port wine lodge, if he happen to know what that is. There are but few Englishmen that have any actual knowledge of the land of our old allies. Besides officers of the Eoyal Navy, who have always been everywhere and seen everything, one comes occasionally across a person who has paid a hurried visit to Lisbon when travelling 4 Portugal by a Eoyal Mail boat, and who may have made an excursion as far as Cintra. More than this is rare. Somehow or other there is no glamour about Portugal for the average tourist who is dependent on a Baedeker or some other well- known guide-book to tell him what to see and what to admire. Here the visitor is left mainly to his own devices and has to determine his own plan of sight-seeing and to lay down his own itineraries, and to make up his own mind upon the amount of admiration due to such objects as he does see. Also the country is not sufficiently far off or difficult of access to entice the traveller who loves long distances and physical difficulties. Hence he also leaves it alone, and few are to be found who visit the country except in the way of business. To the Englishman who knows anything of history, Portugal should be one of the most interesting of European countries, for it has so happened that the English had much to do with setting up the kingdom of Portugal itself in its inception, and have also had no inconsiderable 5 A Philosopher in Portugal share in protecting and securing it on subsequent occasions. Princes of the blood have fought for the liberties of Portugal, including no less a person than John o' Gaunt himself. Borrow, in " The Bible in Spain," says of it : "a country which has twice been liberated from horrid and detestable thraldom by the hands of English- men." This is absolutely correct, for not only was this undoubtedly the case so far as the driving of the French out of the Iberian Penin- sula by Wellington was concerned, an event, at the time that Borrow wrote, still fresh in the public recollection ; but also at an earlier date, English soldiers had much assisted the Portuguese in successfully throwing off the Spanish yoke, and after a long period of sub- jection, once more asserting their liberty from foreign dominion. The battle of Amexial has been forgotten long ago, but it is one which brought much honour to the English arms. Of course in subsequent times, the Portuguese historians claimed all the glory for their own regiments, and barely even mentioned the 6 Battle of Amexial presence of their allies, and did not record any of the acts of valour which led Charles II. to order 40,000 crowns to be distributed amongst his soldiers for their gallant behaviour on that occasion. The Merry Monarch was not lavish of praise without strong reason, and his Treasury was never in a flourishing condition in fact, it is by no means certain that the 40,000 crowns ever found their way into the pockets of the soldiers so it is a fair presumption that the English accounts of the battle are more correct than those of the native writers. According to one account the Portuguese general, the Conde de Villa Flor, when he understood what the English regiments had accomplished, ex- claimed : " These heretics are better than our own saints." All this was a great attraction to the Phil- osopher, who loathed the company of ordinary tourists, and who was moreover absolutely in- dependent of guide-books or any such helps, for he had relatives and friends in the English colonies both of Oporto and of Lisbon who had 7 A Philosopher in Portugal pressed him often and urgently to visit them, and whom he wished to see in their foreign homes. Thus, in the end, these various and varied reasons prevailed, and the Philosopher decided to go on to Oporto from Paris, where he had to go partly on business. After com- municating with his friends in both countries, and after having made all necessary prepara- tions and arrangements for his stay abroad, he started off early one morning and late in the afternoon found himself at a French watering place on the north coast. Here he remained for a few days, and then accompanied his friends back to Paris. There his business left him ample time to revisit old haunts, and even to spend some hours book-hunting on the quays not altogether in vain. He also went about arranging for his journey, and procuring Portuguese and Spanish moneys. Acting on the advice of a friend, he took his ticket from Paris to Irun only, paying for it in francs, and subsequently taking another ticket from Irun to Oporto on the train, and paying for it in Spanish The "Sud- Express" pesetas. He was assured that by so doing he would save a considerable sum. But no amount of the most abstruse calculations have ever made clear to him how this desirable result was obtained. Taking into consideration the rates of exchange, the Philosopher became hopelessly- fogged on the subject ; but he was not prepared to assert that no saving was thus effected. In fact such was his confidence in his friend, that he decided to act in the same way on any subsequent occasion, for at all events there was some amusement to be derived from the calcula- tion of the various amounts in various currencies and reducing them all to a common denominator. Having thus prepared himself and furnished his wallet with a lot of greasy little notes, he drove off one Saturday evening to the Gare d'Orleans and boarded the " Sud-Express " where he took possession of a berth. There were so few passengers on that occasion that each had a compartment to himself. Having arranged his belongings he went into the corridor of the wagon-lit and out on the platform at the end, A Philosopher in Portugal and gazed upon the scene with philosophic calm. The merry-looking young gentleman who occupied the next compartment was leaning out of the corridor window chatting vivaciously with two young ladies and a typical "bon papa" Frenchman who had come to see him off. Suddenly the girls laughed aloud at some remark of the young man's, and jumped up on to the end platform of the carriage, and ran down the corridor to the gentleman's cabin door. Hardly had they got there when the fat conductor shouted to them to clear off as the train was on the point of starting. The girls turned to rush off, but one slipped as she got on the end platform, and had it not been for the Philosopher, who was still standing there smoking his cigarette, she would have in- dubitably broken her pretty nose against the iron rail. He, however, caught her as she fell, and in a moment jumped down and put her on her feet on the low station platform. Taking off his hat hastily he scrambled back on the car 10 Senhor B. just as a seismic sort of trembling of its massive bulk announced that it was indeed starting on its long night journey. The little party on the platform waved fare- wells to their friend and to the Philosopher, and when the group was lost to sight in the gloom of the vast station, the former turned to the latter and shaking hands very heartily, thanked him for what he had done. He poured forth a perfect flood of words, introduced himself as Senhor B. from Lisbon, explained that the young lady was his fiancee, that the old gentle- man was her father, that the young lady who had kept her feet was a cousin, that this was the fifty-fourth time he had travelled by the Sud- Express, that he should never forget the service rendered to his sweetheart, that he travelled twice a year to Paris on business, that he hoped he should be able to be useful to his English friend, if he might call him so, and that nothing would please him better than to do all in his power to render the latter s stay in Portugal as pleasurable as possible. This was all said with 11 A Philosopher in Portugal so much volubility and excitement that the Philosopher may be forgiven for having thought that all these fine promises and expressions of goodwill meant nothing and would evaporate into thin air. But it was all genuine, and the promises were all fulfilled in due course. The pleasant companionship thus begun, and further extended over a smoke and a glass, proved a very enduring one, and not only lasted for the length of the journey, but was renewed in the form of a real friendship later on, when the pair met in Lisbon, where the friendly offers were not only made again, but many kindly services were actually rendered with unflagging zeal and courtesy. Through the night the train sped on south- wards and everyone slept. Occasionally a stop- page would rouse one up, and the Philosopher had a dim sort of an impression that he was thus aroused at Bordeaux- St- Jean, but he only awoke sufficiently to look out of the window at St Jean-de-Luz, and then he drowsily surveyed the scenery and noted the different appearance of Spain the houses and so forth, until he once more dozed off till the train ran into the station at Irun. Here he had to turn out and dress, for this was the Spanish frontier, and not only had the Spanish customs officials to be encountered and satisfied, but it was necessary to change trains, as the gauge is different in the two countries. The customs officers were not at all disagreeable and were not very long in looking at the hand- bags and kit which the passengers had with them, for, of course all the heavier luggage was registered through and was not examined until it reached its final destination. In this matter, as well as in taking him through to the Spanish train, Senhor B., who knew all about it, helped the Philosopher much, and within a reasonable time the two were chatting over their coffee and rolls in the dining car of the new train as they were whirled along through Spain in sight of the snow-topped Pyrenees. All that Sunday they sat and smoked and chatted together, and had their various meals together. They looked out on the Spanish 13 A Philosopher in Portugal scenery and the Englishman noted with keen interest the well-known names of St Sebastian, Vitoria, Burgos, Valladolid and Salamanca, At Burgos, indeed, the Philosopher forgot Napier for a moment as the name recalled to his mind the story of the Cid Campeador, Don Rodrigo de Vivar, and the noble Jimena Gomez praying for justice "en el palacio de Burgos" against the man who had killed her father, but whom she afterwards married. He looked at the national hero's birthplace and felt almost ashamed that he had not been able to read more of the " Eomancero del Cid " than he had ever actually accomplished. Though appreciating the beauties of many portions of the great romance, the Philosopher had always experi- enced a distaste of the metre, and had, more- over grown so tired, after an hour's reading, of Jimena and her woes, of the kings mentioned so often, Don Sancho, Don Fernando and Don Alfonso, of Diego Lainez, and of the walls of Zamora, that he had always chucked the book aside and had only taken it up again after 14 Salamanca a long interval, and always with the same result. Between Valladolid and Salamanca there was a long stop at the junction of Medina del Campo, where the Madrid portion of the train went off, leaving the Portuguese half to continue its more southwesterly course. Salamanca was eagerly looked for and the fine group made by the Cathedral and the University buildings, which dominate the old town, was hailed with delight, not, it must be confessed, so much from the gratification experienced at the view of the " Alma Mater" of Sanson Carrasco and of Don Cherubino, but from the more prosaic circumstance that dinner was not served until the famous city was passed. After the meal was ended, Senhor B. smoked cigarettes in numbers while the Englishman stuck to his pipe. It was night by now and nothing could be seen of the country through which they were passing, and after a final drink and with reciprocal expressions of hopes of meeting in the near future, the two acquaint- 15 A Philosopher in Portugal ances separated and went into their respective cabins, the Senhor to bed, but the Philosopher only to lay down on the seat, for he had to turn out later on to branch off to Oporto. At Villarformozo a visit from the Portuguese customs officers aroused him, but as the ex- amination was very short and perfunctory, and the officers were very civil, sleep soon came to his aid again, and, though somewhat uneasy, was maintained until the fat conductor before spoken of came to announce that the train was rapidly approaching Pampilhosa, and that it was time to turn out. With a sigh the Philosopher complied, and left the comfortable car and civil attendants and was duly dumped down on the platform at Pampilhosa on a wretchedly cold and wet night at 2.20 a.m. to wait for the express from Lisbon which was due in two hours and twenty minutes, at 4.40 a.m. 10 CHAPTER II The Station at Pampilhosa Philological Difficulties Observa- tions on the Weather Curious Phenomena connected with the Waking of the Railway Staff A Locked Refreshment Room Arrival of the Train from Lisbon Disappointment of the Philosopher Sudden Appearance of P. Arrival at Oporto Disappearance of a Portmanteau An Important Calculation. According to the official guide-book of the Company of the Wagon-lits, a car is detached at Pampilhosa and taken in tow by the Lisbon train on its arrival, and Oporto passengers can snooze therein snugly during the long wait. But for some reason or other this was not done on the night in question, and much philosophy was needed to endure the unpleasant situation. It was a pitch dark night and all the lights were turned down as low as possible with the exception of one, which was only half down, and 17 B A Philosopher in Portugal which, as it flickered in the wind, cast ghastly shadows dancing in all the corners and by- places. The refreshment room was closed, and the Philosopher found that it was only opened when and while there was a train actually in the station. (It may be observed, by the way, that an ordinary stop at a first-class station is sufficiently protracted for the enjoyment of a moderate meal.) A slight thunderstorm and some heavy rain came on, and a chill wind wandered around the station, finding its way into all the nooks, corners and recesses which appeared available for shelter. The waiting room was as uncomfortable as it could well be made, with only hard and narrow settees and benches, and hardly light enough to prevent one from tumbling over various bundles of tarpaulins and rugs which lay about under the benches and in the corners. Besides the Philosopher the express had dropped one other passenger for Oporto, a very stout gentleman who was taking particular care of a wide-mouthed bottle in which swam several 18 The Wait at Pampilhosa miniature gold fish, about half the size of stickle- backs. The two had met in the dining car and had exchanged ordinary civilities at table, but hitherto had not entered into conversation. Now, having seen to the safe disposal of his gold fishes, the fat gentleman joined the Philosopher who, puffing viciously at his pipe, was walking up and down the platform anathe- matizing the whole Portuguese railway system. An obstacle to friendly intercourse, however, soon appeared the owner of the little gold fishes was absolutely ignorant of English and was even more ignorant of French than the Philosopher was of Portuguese ! They managed to explain their respective linguistic shortcomings to each other, and laughed heartily at the complication. There- after they walked up and down together exchanging lights and cigarettes and, as it were, skirmishing round each other, hazarding occa- sionally a remark which might or might not be understood. No doubt this was an intellectual amusement of the " missing word" order, but 19 A Philosopher in Portugal it scarcely contained such an element of excite- ment as to compensate for the gloomy and un- comfortable surroundings. A fearful struggle on the part of the jolly Portuguese to evolve a French sentence having failed to make any impression whatever on the mind of the Englishman, they walked on in silence for some time. Then the good-natured fellow led off once more, but this time in Portuguese, saying : " Tern freio, senhor." To this the Philosopher was fortunately able to answer, fluently enough: "Sim, senhor, tern muito freio." Now, why meteorological observa- tions should prove a satisfactory subject of con- versation in all climes and in all languages, and should have the power of loosening tongues otherwise hopelessly tied is a matter for deep philosophical research, but of its phenominal success in this instance there could be no doubt. The Portuguese gentleman's remark: "It is cold, Sir," and the Englishman's reply : " Yes, Sir, it is very cold," started the two talking. Eemarks by the latter in more or less incorrect 20 Daybreak Portuguese on the thunder and the lightning and the rain, which seemed rather to have come out of an exercise book, were understood and were answered by the kindly native with a sort of enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, made little Ollendorfian remarks down to the capacity of his companion ; and so the long wait was beguiled to a certain extent. And now a faint light appeared in the east. This interesting intimation of the intention of the sun once more to resume work was accom- panied by some curious phenomena. Suddenly a man appeared round some trucks on a siding and called out: "Yai-ow." This had no immediate effect, and so the man disappeared for some minutes and then returned with a lamp. He still kept in the vicinity of the trucks, and repeated his original observation at intervals. As the grey morning light advanced, another man emerged from a truck where he had apparently been snoozing. He went up to the first man, and lighted a cigarette at the lantern. Then the two parted, one going up 21 A Philosopher in Portugal and one down the line, both shouting. This time an effect was produced, for a third man came forth from some part of the platform and extracted a plaintive " Too, too, too, too" from a little brass horn which was slung about him. Then one of the heaps of tarpaulins and rugs lying on the platform suddenly began to move. The Philosopher had heard much of the size and power of the bugs in Portugal, and was specu- lating as to whether they were causing this upheaval, and, if so, how many it took to do it ; also as to the danger of standing in the vicinity of such ferocious insects, when a cadaverous looking Galician porter suddenly emerged from the heap, stretched himself, and yawned prodigiously. Then he turned a nearly extinct gas-light up to about a quarter on, and sat down and yawned again. Then he rolled and lit a cigarette and seemed to wake up entirely. The morning light became stronger and again the man with the horn sounded his instrument. Then other heaps of tarpaulins and coverings became violently convulsed, and like butterflies The Station Wakes Up emerging from pupae, more or less dirty porters came out into the world again, rubbing their eyes and yawning, and then they too sat down and rolled and lit cigarettes. A ghostly waiter slipped apparently through the key-hole into the refreshment room, and turned a light there half up. A strictly philo- sophical desire to diminish in some degree a vacuum equally abhorrent to nature and to philosophy caused both the travellers to attempt to get into the refreshment room, but the door was kept obstinately locked. More gas-lights were turned up, some of them quite full on, and as the light from the east increased, it was now possible to distinguish the parts of the station, the rails, the aloes on the sides of the cutting, and the eucalyptus trees beyond, but still the outside only of the refresh- ment room. The man with the horn performed once more, somebody rang a bell, and a greater activity prevailed. Some one came out to the door of the station masters office and whistled shrilly. A Philosopher in Portugal More men came out of trucks, out of luggage and waiting rooms, out of bundles of wraps, all rubbing their eyes and yawning, and then rolling and lighting cigarettes. Another person slipped into the refreshment room and turned a gas-light still higher. Presently a far off rumble sounded as if it might possibly denote the welcome approach of the train. A shrill whistle in the distance which lasted for many minutes and gradually increased in potency, confirmed that view. A bell was again rung, preparations were at last made to open the door of the refreshment room. The Philosopher noted the fact, and an immense satisfaction took possession of him. He did not know what to ask for nor what to pay for it, but he had no doubt but that in a few seconds he would succeed in staying the aching void, and in quenching the imperative thirst. The train was actuary drawn up at the platform, a waiter had actually unlocked that obnoxious door, when the kindly Portuguese passenger was seized with a sudden alarm lest the Philosopher 24 The Train Arrives should not understand that this was his train, and should not be able to reach his destination without mishap. Going up to the official who had come out of the station master's office and whom the Philosopher afterwards concluded from the comparative absence of gold braid from his cap, and from the total absence of bumptiousness from his manner, to have been the Acting- Deputy- Sub- Assistant- Station- Master he begged of him to look after the poor Englishman carefully, as the latter was ignorant of the Portuguese language. Then he shook hands warmly with the Philosopher, who had at all events fully understood these remarks, and himself plunged into the now open refreshment room. With much politeness but with firmness the Acting-Deputy-Sub-Assistant-Station-Master took one arm, and the porter who had looked after his bags from the time of his arrival seized the other, and in a moment the Philosopher was led over to the other side of the platform rather as if he had been a dangerous prisoner, and was hoisted into a first-class carriage. His bags and 25 A Philosopher in Portugal everything were put in by the porter and the door shut on him and locked in the twinkling of an eye. Though somewhat humiliated by this marked mistrust of his linguistic capabilities, and though furious at the loss of the refreshment which he so much needed, he yet managed for a while to keep up an attitude of philosophic calm. He thanked the higher official politely in fairly fluent Portuguese, (for he had taken much pains to learn carefully all polite phrases) and tipped the porter with what he afterwards learnt to have been great lavishness. Then, when the train moved on again, he settled himself in his corner and relieved his feelings for the next four or five miles of his journey. Some stations further on a head was poked into the window, and a jovial cry of " Here you are at last ! " roused the Philosopher from his meditations, and in a moment he was greet- ing P. who had come up in the night train from Lisbon, and had been hunting for him at each station after leaving Pampilhosa, where, in 26 Fore ! the uncertain light, and through the precipitate action of the Acting - Deputy - Sub - Assistant- Station-Master, he had failed to find him. At Ovar P. took him back to the sleeping car and procured some coffee and cognac where- with to assuage somewhat the storm which was raging in the philosophical interior. Safe now in the hands of his kindly host, the Philosopher was soon engaged in a somewhat polyglot conversation with the friends to whom P. introduced him. He regarded also with special interest the golf links at Espinho, when they were pointed out to him, and resolved at once to learn how to call " Fore ! " in Portuguese, and how to use such proper golf language as should impress his caddy. The need for philosophy was not yet past, however. After crawling at a snail's pace over the famous Donna Maria Pia bridge, which is always expected to deposit the next train in the Douro beneath, the train stopped at the Campanha station at Oporto, where P.'s wife and one daughter were waiting to greet the 27 A Philosopher in Portugal travellers. The latter got out and exchanged compliments while the train went on to the central station. All was as merry as possible until the examination of the luggage. All that was in the carriage with the travellers was duly examined and passed, but the Philosopher's portmanteau, which had been booked through from Paris, was nowhere to be found. Inquiries at length elicited that it had probably gone on to the central or San Bento station. Thither therefore the party drove, and there at last the portmanteau was run to earth with a wire round it and a leaden seal attached thereto. Further time was lost in hunting up a guar da fiscal to examine it, as the man who had been on duty had now gone to his breakfast, so it was at least an hour and a half behind time when the dirty, dusty and hungry travellers reached P.'s hospitable abode. Here a good wash and a good breakfast restored serenity to all, and over a pipe the Philosopher soon forgot all his troubles. He had, he considered, learned much as to 28 A Calculation the general ineptitude of the Portuguese and as to the special brand of ineptitude which con- cerned railway travelling. He also commenced a calculation which was continued throughout his stay in the country, and in the absence of an available table of logarithms was not completed when he left. It was this : As a Portuguese train whistles for a mile on leaving a station and for another mile before reaching the next station, for about half a mile before reaching a level crossing, and for about a furlong after, for about seven furlongs when passing a train on the other track, and for about a furlong in each mile besides for casual causes, how many foot pounds of steam are thus lost on each train in the day ; and how many tons of coal might be saved in a year if this unmelodious and unnecessary whistling were lopped down to reasonable proportions ? 29 CHAPTER III Oporto Smells of Oporto Bacalhao Ox Carts Amanha Service at the Cathedral The Silver Altar The Rua das Flores Generous Donors The Central Station Fish and Market Women Names. After breakfast the Philosopher was personally conducted over the pleasant garden, taken to the terrace overlooking the Douro, introduced ceremoniously to the dogs, the cats, the horses, the donkey and other pets, and after what seemed an inconveniently short interval, was called upon to sit down to lunch. After lunch, a period of repose was allowed siesta, forty winks, whatever you like to call it. Then a drive to Leca to see K. and to make the geography of the place plain to him. Dinner, a game of billiards and a good night's rest followed. 30 Oporto A charmingly picturesque town is Oporto, with its little narrow streets of high houses, each story marked with a balcony, and at the top tremendous eaves almost sheds in them- selves which project so far that the low pitched roofs of half-round tiles shut out a considerable amount of light and air, and pour cascades of rain right into the middle of the street. And then the unsavoury odours ! The Philosopher knew Cologne well, with its " one scent and seventy-two smells," but in a week's prowling about Oporto, he had learned to distinguish at least sixty-three odours in addi- tion to those of Cologne, and marked with what, at the risk of a bull, might be called a decided local colour. Cologne cannot compete with Oporto. First and foremost amongst these intensely local smells, comes the " ancient and fishlike" odour of the bacalhao (salted cod-fish). Come down to the quay where a Norwegian bark is being unloaded. First invest in a packet of "Antoninos" cigarettes, and smoke them 31 A Philosopher in Portugal vigorously, expelling the smoke through your nose. Thus you will be able to carry on your investigations, without suffering too much discomfort. The not-to-be-mistaken-for- anything-else-in-the-world odour of the salted fish rises in a solid column from the main hatch of the vessel. It is so powerful that it might be used instead of lyddite for 4.7 inch shells but it would probably be objected to in this capacity on the ground that its use was contrary to the usages 'of civilised warfare. Men who appear to have been inoculated in some way and rendered im- mune, however, stand in the hold and chuck up the fish on deck the fish looking like pieces of dirty deal board, roughly cut up and shaped. There they are weighed in large scales erected for the purpose, a representa- tive of the consignee superintending the operation and keeping a tally. Needless to say he smokes furiously and expectorates viciously as he jots down the figures in his pocket-book. After weighing, the fish is placed Unloading Bacalhao in the peculiar baskets which the men use for carrying fish, or, indeed, goods of any descrip- tion. The basket being loaded up to the brim is hoisted on to the head and porter's knot protected neck of a bare chested, black whiskered, bare footed and indescribably dirty individual, who joins the busy procession of similarly laden men who rush across the gangway, and following each other like a string of ants, trot up the short street from the river, across the broad u Eua Don Henrique " (formerly " Eua dos Inglezes ") and pass up the side of the square, where the Exchange and the Market overlook the waste ground in the centre, where a monument of some sort is to be erected some day. In they turn to the warehouse of the consignee and return with empty baskets to repeat the operation many times more before work is done for the day. Strange vicissitudes befall the popular food on that journey from the ship to the ware- house. Many a fish slips off the basket and falls into the unutterable filth of the streets. 33 c A Philosopher in Portugal It is immediately picked up by one of the innumerable loafers who watch the whole operation with absorbing interest and, regard- less of the additional coating of dirt which it has acquired, is slapped back on to the basket of the porter who dropped it or on to that of the nearest in the line at the moment it is picked up. The baskets them- selves are anything but savoury, being used for sleeping accommodation by their owners for the noon-day nap. The sight is not a cheerful one for anybody possessed of a queasy stomach, and it is advis- able to have tasted the bacalhao and got used to its flavour, and even perhaps to like it, before witnessing this spectacle. Many hostesses administer the dish without telling a newcomer what it is, or even with a certain amount of dissimulation. Then if the new hand happens to like the flavour, with many precautions the truth is communi- cated. Some persons do not like the dishes into which the fish enters because of the 34 Ox-carts flavour, and some cannot bring themselves to eat them, because of the unpleasant odour and surroundings of the uncooked fish. The Philosopher took to bacalhao kindly, and, indeed, became specially fond of the fish-cakes for breakfast made from it. The Philosopher never has been, is not, and never will be a regular sight-seeing, improving- what - by - courtesy - is - called - his - mind sort of person. He preferred to wander about the streets, to lounge in the beautiful public gardens, to loaf round the markets, to hunt up old book and curiosity shops, to observe the manners and costumes (or the lack of them) and the customs of the natives, and to speculate upon the general ineptitude displayed on all sides and in every department of life. The ox-carts delighted him, though the occasional overloading was painful to witness. It should be said, however, that this is nearly the only cruelty practised towards the oxen, not perhaps from any decent feeling, but because cruelty does not pay with an ox. The curious 35 A Philosopher in Portugal square much-carved yoke of the little oxen of the north, the groggy cart with the primitive wheels which groan as they jolt round, the wide spreading horns of the little beasts, their strength, their patience and their endurance, the yowls and bad language of their conductors, male or female, as they pull at the strap on the yoke pole, or shove behind, or " scotch up" a wheel with a stone to prevent the whole machine from rolling backwards down the steep incline of the street, make a scene not soon to be for- gotten. The oxen in the south, it may here be mentioned, are much larger than those of the north. They resemble them, however, in their beautiful colour like the " lemon" of an Alderney cow and in their large branching horns. A sight to see is when two ox-carts meet in a narrow street, one ascending and one descending for except along the river side there is practically no level ground in Porto. Then the shouting and objurgations get louder and freeer, the horns of the bois get mixed up, the wheels Ox-carts scream with indignation, the conductors pull and shove and block up and stumble and get so intricately involved that which is human and which is bovine in the struggling mass becomes difficult of discernment, while as to which is leading which that is impossible to discover. A brown-clad policeman rests his hand on his revolver holster and smokes a cigarette as he looks on with a half-bored half-amused expres- sion on his face. It is not good to want to pass up or down that street while this operation is going on. A philosophical calm is essential. No matter whether a sweetheart is expecting you at the top of the street, or a lunch at the bottom, the way is effectually barred. The struggle progresses, the parties get more involved, the vociferations become more sulphurous, the policeman begins to consider whether he ought to say anything, and removes his cigarette from his mouth and expels the smoke through his nostrils in a dignified way as a preliminary, when Joao jerks the yoke strap of his team at the exact moment that Melitana jerks hers the 37 A Philosopher in Portugal other way, the bois give extra pulls in the right directions, the wheels give an extra howl of ungreased loathing, and the carts have passed, with, as Joao explains to the policeman, a whole millimetre to spare. The latter gravely nods his head, the carts progress in their respective directions, and the Philosopher could have rejoined his lady-love had he had the good fortune to have had one, but was enabled to carry out the more prosaic wish of his heart at the moment, and get down to Ritson's to lunch. One of the things the Philosopher noticed specially was the care and taste exhibited in keeping up the public gardens of the city. Beautiful naturally, with their graceful palms of different species, their tree-ferns, cacti and other semi-tropical plants, everything is done that can enhance the pleasure of these places by labour and skill. Kept well watered and carefully cut, the poor thin grass, if it does not become like an English lawn in texture, is beautifully green and in such a climate is a triumphant success of art 38 Buildings and Monuments over nature. On this point Southey quaintly remarks : " It was very fortunate for Nebuchad- nezzar that he was not King of Portugal, for I know not where he could have grazed for seven years." Of course no one is allowed to walk on the grass, but this is not so irksome a prohibition in Portugal as in England, for the natives are not accustomed to play games on the turf ; there is no grass by the sides of the roads to walk on, and they have not the longing to stand, lie, play, or walk thereon which most, even town- bred, Englishmen feel. In contradistinction to the care bestowed upon the gardens is the utter want of attention paid to public buildings and monuments. Both are generally unfinished. The great building with a centre and two wings is begun with great pomp and circumstance. One wing and perhaps three-quarters of the centre are finished and the other wing shows its foundations. Then half the completed wing and the available portion of the centre are fixed up somehow for their intended purpose, and the unused half of the A Philosopher in Portugal wing and the foundations of the other wing, exposed to the weather, gradually disintegrate and become undistinguishable from the heaps of ashlars, bricks, wooden huts and broken apparatus left behind by the builders when the work was discontinued. But, no doubt, the work will be resumed amanhd (to-morrow) and finished another time. In like manner the statue or other monument remains incomplete because of a failure in the funds devoted to its erection. The pedestal may be ready, but the statue is wanting. Or the reverse may be the case, and the statue is there, propped up on port-wine pipes standing on end and filled up with rubble, and tied together with an old bit of yarn, or some other like expedient, until the funds are found to procure the fulfil- ment of the contract for the base or pedestal and that of course will be amanhd. The rule in all these matters, whether it be the erection of a hospital, or the dedication of a monument to some national hero or to some local benefactor, is simple. As soon as there are 40 Amanha sufficient funds in hand or promised to bribe officials, to pay lawyers, and to begin to pay architects, sculptors, and other artists, the promoters set to work on some portion of the intended structure or memorial. Plans and drawings are selected, contracts are given out, and a start is made with a big ceremony to inaugurate the auspicious occasion, and for the rest amanha. The to-morrows may total up to 365, nay, may reach to twenty or thirty times that number, but the work has been begun, the originators have got their kudos from it, and, patience, all will be well to-morrow ! Possibly, the next generation, the children of these originators, may get a meed of pleasure and triumph, and may even get bits of green or of red ribbon, from starting the work afresh, getting the moss scraped off the weather-w r orn commencement, and adding something to the work. Then again the sparkle ceases, it grows flat, and once again amanha ! A third generation having grown up takes the affair in hand once more. This time they really 41 A Philosopher in Portugal mean business, and occasionally the edifice or the monument is actually completed. Then there is another great ceremony. Fiscal guards, firemen and others come in serried lines ; big drums thunder, and trumpets blare ; a shower of stars and ribbons of various colours pour forth as from Eoman candles and generally settle on the wrong people, or at least on the less deserving members of the movement, or even on innocent spectators. But, for once that this strenuous effort of the third generation is carried to completion or to such comparative completion as to justify the ceremony and the pyrotechnical scattering of orders, it happens more often that the spasmodic effort again fizzles out and the building or the monument is permanently dedicated to amanhd, and becomes a conspicuous example of the general ineptitude of the kindly but not energetic inhabitants. There is not much sight-seeing to be done in Oporto, even by an inquiring and typical tourist. Cook and Gaze have no offices there, 42 A Slovenly Service no well-known guide-book exists to lead one to pay hurried visits to museums and churches. There is, however, one thing to be " sight-seed," and that is the silver altar at the cathedral. One morning the Philosopher toiled up the narrow, corkscrew, noisome streets that lead up thereto and got into the building some time before noon. An intensely dirty old fellow in a purple bed-gown was flitting about. In response to a question as to the silver altar, he bade the inquirer wait until after the service. Shortly after, two or three priests wandered in, bobbed more or less reverently in the direction of the high altar, refreshed themselves from their snuff boxes and settled in their stalls. Then sundry choirmen straggled in one by one, nodded more or less familiarly to the east and lounged into their places. Lastly came two dirty little boys in dirty little cassocks. Suddenly, after a preliminary cough and ex- pectoration, they all set up a sort of plain song, and the few people present dropped on their knees. The droning, unmusical sound went on 43 A Philosopher in Portugal for a quarter of an hoar or so, and stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The priests and the choir sauntered off to their respective vestiaries in the cloisters in the same unseemly and irregular fashion. As they came out again in ordinary garments they all politely saluted the Philosopher who had wandered into the cloisters and was examining their architectural features. Then the purple bed-gown again appeared and while the special guardian of the silver altar was sent for, the ancient verger conducted the visitor to view the dried up blood of a saint and other relics, and so he did his part, accepted the dirty little 100 reis note with gratitude, and passed the donor over to a gentleman in tan shoes who was by that time waiting at the curtain in front of the silver altar. With a bow he pulled aside the heavy cur- tains and revealed the famous piece of silver- smiths' work. The guardian looked on with approval at the genuine admiration expressed by the Philosopher, and when the latter with much difficulty and diffidence intimated that the 44 The Silver Altar workmanship of different parts bore to his mind the impress of varying dates, the good man quite beamed with delight. Speaking slowly and carefully, so that the Englishman should be able to follow him, he explained intelligently enough which was the original work, and what had been added and at what periods, and really made the whole history of the altar, the reredos and all the parts, plain and intelligible. He took an interest in the object, both historically and artistically, and earned his modest fee very thoroughly. The Philosopher came out quite pleased with the object of his pilgrimage and the keeper thereof, and after contemplating the town and the river from the little terrace in front of the cathedral, drifted down through the malodorous thoroughfares and duly reached Ritson's and lunch. After this extremely energetic effort, the Philosopher resumed his apparently aimless wanderings and loafings. He often strolled up the "Rua das Flores " (Flower Street), where 45 A Philosopher in Portugal the gold- and silver-smiths exhibit their most beautiful wares. The elegant silver plate, the dainty gold and silver filigree, and the gold ornaments were always worth looking at. These gold ornaments hearts, chains, ear-rings and so forth are much bought by women of the working classes who thus invest their savings and adorn themselves at the same time. In this street, too, was an exhibition of Fine Arts in the gallery of the Santa Casa da Misericordia, the "Holy House of Pity" a great philanthropical society. The gallery is ranged about with innumerable portraits of Generous Donors. They have not escaped the doom of Generous Donors. With rare excep- tions Generous Donors are depicted in the same wooden and conventional manner and are in- vested with the same self-conscious smirk all the world over. The men may be distinguished by the difference of colour of the ribbons round their necks, and the ladies may have more or less elaborate weeds, but no one can mistake the shirt collar and inevitable smirk of the male 46 Generous Donors Generous Donor, nor the flabby hand and conventional solemnity of the female Generous Donor. The artistic efforts on view varied much in merit. Some of the oil-paintings were ex- ceedingly well done, and some were meant for sign-boards, or as pendants to the Generous Donors. There were three charming pastels which were not for sale. The prices mentioned in the catalogue were not exorbitant, ranging from a modest 5,500 rets (about seventeen shillings) to 200,000 reis, asked for Senhor Malhoa's picture, entitled "What a Great Calamity ! " When the Philosopher came out he wandered on up the street, watching the fish and market women chaffering with the jewellers on one side of the street, the other being given up mainly to tailors and outfitters, where the bright linings of cloaks or the glowing colours of sashes light up at intervals an otherwise exceedingly gloomy view. Thus out into the " Largo da San Bento." There is to be a magnificent railway 47 A Philosopher in Portugal station here some day. In the photograph books there exists a view of the " future central station." At present there is nothing but a conglomeration of wooden sheds with tin roofs. They have been there some time and probably will be there for years to come. They are inconvenient and unsightly. Well, well, have patience, something shall be done amanhd. A church was purchased for the enlargement of the site. It has been half or three-quarters pulled down, but the site has not been cleared yet. No doubt it will be all right amanhd, so do not take any notice but pass on into the Praga de Don Pedro IV., where there is a wavy pavement in imitation of the famous "Kolling Motion Square" at Lisbon, of which more anon. Climb up the "Kua dos Clerigos," with the singular church tower at the upper end. Here you may see in dazzling profusion the brilliantly coloured shawls and kerchiefs with which the women adorn themselves. Here, too, are the 48 Oporto Women women chaffering, for the season of festas is coming on, and if Maria be not sufficiently decked out, mayhap Joaquim will not care to take her to the dance. It is a good opportunity to look at the women themselves. They are not handsome certainly, but the round velvet hat with its tufts of worsted is a regal sort of head-dress, and is not only becoming but useful, helping the wearer to bear her heavily- loaded basket on her head. This habit of carrying weights on the head, and walking with bare feet give grace to their move- ments, and a carriage which many a high-born damsel might envy. As before said they are not often pretty, and they are generally dirty and careless in their apparel ; but when a good- looking fish-wife does take pains with herself, and is dressed in her best, she will appeal to any artist as an object of admiration. Amongst other things that amused the Philosopher were the hot chestnut sellers with their quaint little charcoal stoves, the draught of which they stimulated by the motions 49 p A Philosopher in Portugal of a fan made of pink and white turkey feathers. These he saw on his first visit to Porto. On his return later on these had dis- appeared and had given way to the sellers of cooling drinks. Thus the Philosopher became acquainted with the outward appearance of the Lusitanians, and by this time, too, he was beginning to learn something about Portuguese names. He knew that either Barbosa, or da Silva, or de Souza was the actual name, or was a part, or that two or more of them were parts, of the names of most Portuguese. He had within ten days been introduced to seven separate Barbosas, five da Silvas, (two of whom were also Barbosas,) and the same number of de Somas \ (of whom one was also a Barbosa, and one was actually a Barbosa and a da Silva also). None of these were in any way related to each other. He had besides come across a considerable number of Magelhaes in Porto (whom the English call Magellan), and various da Costas, Tesseiras, Pereiras, de Oliveiras, Guimardes 50 N ames and Pintos, and was now much astonished whenever he was introduced to a lady or gentle- man who was distinguished by any other appellation. 51 CHAPTEK IV The Douro Boa Vista Cemetery Firemen The English Cricket Field Mine Hunting Villa do Conde Vinho Verde Portuguese Roads Estrada Real Mines Sopas Mattasinhos Leca Leixoes Harbour Sardines Lega River Sweeties An Awful Pun. Truly Porto is a delightful old town. The Douro is beautiful both above and below the town. It is good to get to some point where you can look up the river with the two great single span bridges, with the archbishop's palace crowning one height, and the Serra do Pilar the other. It is equally good to look down to the mouth of the river, the pilot station at Foz, the old fort, the gleam of surf over the bar, and the open sea beyond. It is a trying experience to go a picnic up the Douro on a wet day. To have to take shelter 52 The Douro under the awning of a market-boat, while the provisions are towed behind and get wet, to consume these damp provisions in a moist hut under a dripping vine these do not conduce to inspiring recollections. On the other hand such an excursion on a fine day is delightful. Then, after passing under the tottering railway bridge a charming view is opened out, and the reach of the river is enlivened with many craft ; especially to be noticed are the curious wine- boats which have come down from the famous vineyards of the Upper Douro and having delivered their loads, are now returning to lay up until the harvest of another vintage shall be ready to be brought down to the capital of the port-wine trade. Sail up the river if the wind serve, or pull up if you must, and admire the well-wooded banks. Disembark, eat, drink, smoke, and be merry. When the tide turns you can slip back without any trouble, go down to the little landing stage at Masarellos and climb up to where the band of the "Palacio de Crystal," that feeble imitation of the great glass 53 A Philosopher in Portugal house at Sydenham, is discoursing more or less sweet music. Go home, and after due refresh- ment your sleep will probably be so sound that even the clarion call of the mosquito will pass unnoticed, and the barrows, hummocks and hillocks which mark his or their triumphant attacks will show in the morning that they like yourself have been having a good time. Having studied the good people of Porto in life, you may wander to the cemeteries to see how they are disposed of afterwards. They have somewhat curious ideas on the subject, and none but the poor receive wholesome burial. On entering the cemetery of the Boa Vista and it holds good of all the others all around in every direction stand little chapels. On peering through the grated doorways one sees a little altar facing the entrance, and on either side panels of stone or marble with handles like a chest of drawers. Some of the panels have names and dates engraved on them and some are left blank. Some of the shelves are tenanted, some still await their silent occupants. 54 The Boa Vista Cemetery At the Boa Vista these shelves are closed with stone panels, but in many cemeteries the coffins are not enclosed in any way, and it is said that in some cases terrible odours arise and that a favourable breeze will carry messages from the city of the dead to their survivors. Be this as it may these jazigos, as they are called, present a striking feature. In many cases they are care- fully tended by the families whose last homes they are. Beautiful flowers in pots are carefully watered and trimmed, and fresh cut roses adorn the little altar. Though not architecturally beautiful for they are round-shouldered little erections the serried rows of white chapels interspersed with funereal trees and shrubs and brilliant flowers, form a feature eminently characteristic and not unpicturesque. One grave to be specially noticed in this Boa Vista Cemetery is the tomb of the victims of the fearful catastrophe of the burning of the Baquet Theatre some years ago. The indistinguishable ashes of the poor creatures were all buried together in one vast grave, and the monument 55 A Philosopher in Portugal erected over them is built up of fragments of the burnt building. Scorched stone, shattered marble, fragmentary porcelain, twisted and partially fused iron and bronze are combined together to form a striking memorial to the dead who sleep beneath. Such was the extent of this awful calamity that anyone having acquaintance with the native citizens of Porto is bound to know some one who suffered loss of relatives on that occasion. The firemen of Porto are well organised, and under their famous chief, Senhor Guilherme Fernandes, have on more than one occasion greatly distinguished themselves in international competitions. The municipal bombeiros have a useful auxiliary in the volunteer fire brigade, and it may generally be said that the fire service in Portugal is thoroughly good. There is less corruption and less amanhd in the administra- tion of this than in any other branch of the public service, while the men themselves exhibit the traditional courage of their calling. A sudden contrast communicates a useful 56 The Cricket Field mental shock, and the philosophical mind is braced and strengthened by it. This can easily be obtained by the English visitor in Oporto. He has only to jump up on one of the tram cars and be carried out of the town to a certain point, make his way up a little country lane and gain the entrance to the English cricket field the only grass pitch in the country. With the whine of the wretched little beggar who has followed him since he left the tram still in his ears, as he turns in at the gate, behold, flannel- clad youths and rosy-cheeked maidens are playing lawn tennis with vigour and are calling the score in a familiar tongue. In the centre of the field, one or two stalwart young fellows and one or two enthusiastic greybeards are carefully examining the pitch selected for the forthcoming cricket match, and the old country with its habits and pastimes is actually around him. At an extremely early hour one morning, the Philosopher was pulled out of bed by P. and carried off to the Boa Vista railway station to 57 A Philosopher in Portugal start on a mine -hunting expedition in the direction of Povoa. At the last minute they were joined by their friend S. who had run it so fine that he was only half clad, quarter washed, and wholly unfed. The funny little train shuffled off after a time, through pretty country enough, running on a little track, so narrow that the bushes grew over the road and pushed their way into the open windows of the carriages, and stopped at Villa do Conde. There, though the tickets had been taken to Povoa, S. announced that he was not going an inch further before filling up the hideous void covered by his waistcoat. So the trio went off to an hotel and got some excellent fish and other good things washed down by a copious supply of the vinho verde (green wine) for which that part of the country is famous. The wine is not green in colour, but derives its name from its newness. It does not keep long, but is best to be drunk as soon as made. The Philosopher appreciated the "nip" in it and became recon- ciled to the early expedition. It was a very 58 Portuguese Roads hot day and the green wine was an ideally refreshing drink. Then the party started off in a carriage drawn by a couple of old screws that managed to get over the ground very fairly. And such ground ! The receipt for the construction of an ordinary Portuguese road may be stated thus. Take a road some thirty feet wide. On the off side every twenty feet or so allow a transverse hollow to be formed, reaching about twelve feet from the edge of the road towards the middle, about three feet wide at the edge and tapering off to a point. The average depth must range from eighteen to twenty -four inches. On the near side allow similar irregularities to be formed, spacing them so that each near side hole comes between two off side holes. Scatter a few big stones and boulders about, and occasionally fill up one of the hollows with loose stones of irregular periphery and averaging from half a brickbat to two bricks and a third in size. If soaring ambition lead the road-maker to try and reach the level of an estrada real 59 A Philosopher in Portugal (royal road) which is kept up (?) by the Government, the distances between the hollows must be reduced to about sixteen feet, and they must be lengthened to fifteen feet, that is to half way across the road. Their extreme depth must be alternated from the edge to the centre of the road, and the sides of the road must be higher than the middle, so that all the moisture should drain into the centre. An occasional hole must be filled up with a faggot and a little loose earth. A few small rocks should be disposed at any point by the roadside, where the wheel of a carriage would be likely to be guided so as to avoid a descent into one of the transverse gullies with its deep end towards the middle of the road. Allow deep ruts to form, leading from one pool to another, and above all beware of doing any- thing which might better the way. Leave any amelioration to amanhd. Of the effects of such a road upon a traveller, Sou they says : "If Anaximander had travelled the two leagues from this place to Estremos, 60 Portuguese Roads he would have thought pounding in a mortar comfortable by comparison." At first the feeling is almost one of exhilaration, then it becomes monotonous, grows depressing, and finally waxes utterly exasperating. With pitiless regularity you are pitched on to your companion with your elbow in his ribs, and all his harder corners fitting into your soft places, and your cigarette ash is spread over his shirt front, and he tries, but does not succeed, to assume an early Christian martyr sort of look. In the next few seconds, the shock comes on the other side and the position is reversed. His elbow investigates your inter- costal spaces, but somehow or other his hard projections still seem to encounter your unguarded points, and his cigarette ash insinuates itself into your ear, and is suf- ficiently hot to render it impossible to assume the Sunday-school air of forgiveness which you were meditating. At night when you disrobe the side of you which was next to your companion is impressionist in effect, 01 A Philosopher in Portugal presenting a fine study in black, yellow, blue, green and purple. It is said that the most comfortable companion you can have on such a drive is a plump young woman. The Philosopher never got the chance of so saving his ribs but he wondered what would have become of the plump young woman ! The two spavined, ring-boned, wind-galled, blear-eyed old nags galloped gaily over the ordinary and over the extraordinary obstacles of the road ; the old harness, eked out with string, groaned, jingled, and scrooped, but somehow or other held together; the carriage leapt precipices, plunged into valleys, wobbled as the wheels touched earth or not there were never more than three out of the four wheels on the ground together shook up the passengers' livers, but did not collapse, or turn over. This lasted many miles and at last the spot was reached. Leaving the carriage in the road, the prospectors, under the guidance of an ancient peasant, toiled up a lane, turned into a sort of plantation and were soon 62 Mines inspecting the old workings and tumbled-in shafts of the mine and examining the bits of ore that lay about. Portugal is one of the wealthiest countries in the world as regards minerals. Iron, copper, lead, cobalt, arsenic, phosphates, asbestos and many other valuable assets are to be found in great abundance. But there is no enter- prise in the inhabitants. Railroads are scarce, and other means of transport neither abundant nor cheap except in the vicinity of the rivers. On the other hand the minerals are plentiful and labour is cheap. If it were not for amanhd many of the mines might be worked at a fair if not an excessive profit. "When a mine falls into the hands of an energetic Englishman it usually proves a good thing for him, and a blessing to the immediate neigh- bourhood. Where a moderately productive mine is within a reasonable distance of a railway which communicates with a decent port, even with all the disadvantages of corrupt officials, of a general ineptitude of the whole A Philosopher in Portugal people, and of the tyranny of amanhd, a sufficient profit may be secured without undue difficulty. This very deserted old mine which was visited by the trio was within three months being worked to advantage and yield- ing a fair return on the outlay. The inspection over, in the broiling heat of the mid-day sun, the travellers once more entered their old rattle-trap conveyance and were jolted back to Villa do Conde, where, at the hotel, they found contingents from the families of P. and of S. eagerly awaiting their arrival. The Philosopher had no family, for which he was devoutly thankful. A hearty meal washed down with a good draught of the green wine restored the equanimity of the jumbled-up trio, and after a quiet pipe the Philosopher set out to explore the quaint old town. He had not gone many paces from the hotel, when the rain, which had been s threatening all day, began to tumble down, and he was obliged to get back to the hotel, and get through the time as well as he could. The Drive Back After a while the rain ceased, the setting sun illumined the whole place with glory, the short twilight came and went, and as the whole party set off on the long drive back to Porto the moon rose and sailed serenely through the heavens, investing churches, houses, trees, and even roads with her own peculiar beauty. The incidents of the drive back were some- what different to those of the morning journey, for the party were now travelling in a large brake, and consequently the rhythmical jolting was backward and forward instead of lateral. So in place of tickling your neighbour with your elbow you were pitched forward into him, her, or it with a high velocity, and in due course he, she, or it paid a return call without being at all particular on which portion of your anatomy he, she, or it descended. This was variety certainly, but it had the disadvantage of battering the front of the patient, and reducing it to a condition similar to the side which had been operated on in the morning. Also, in consequence of the rain, 05 E A Philosopher in Portugal the gullies, ditches, traverses, or whatever you like to call them, were full of dirty water, which squelched up like a fountain whenever a wheel slipped into one, necessitating agile movements to escape the unsavoury shower- bath. At one spot the carriage " bucked" so vigorously that a small girl sitting on the box-seat was shot off like a bomb out of a mortar, and having described a parabolic curve in the air, was landed safely and with the utmost propriety right side up upon a heap of rubbish by the roadside, somewhat shaken but in no way damaged. The road seemed interminably long, and it was a relief when the horses were pulled up at a wayside inn to be fed on sopas bread soaked in wine. The Philosopher thought that he would have liked to have some of his rabid teetotal friends with him at that moment to see how thoroughly the nags appreciated their refreshment. Although all got out and stretched, and furtively felt their tenderest spots, the horses alone washed out their 66 Lea mouths, and the passengers did not emulate their example. Up to this the road had all been, or deserved to be, estrada real, but after the bait the way got gradually better, and the last few miles were got over in com- parative comfort. The seaside resort of Porto is Mattasinhos, with which are included Leca da Palmeira and the harbour of Leixoes. There are three ways of reaching it two tramways, and what in England is known as a light railway. It is not a very gay place, at least out of the season. There appear to be but few things to do. One of these is to walk along the shore, or to scramble over the rocks north- wards to the Boa Nova Chapel. Or one can go on to the north or on to the south pier of Leixoes harbour, which, by the way, were so badly constructed that they have been much breached by the sea. Steam cranes whistle and groan all day long, and huge blocks of cement or of stone are swung around, lifted, lowered and shifted about. Labourers shout, 67 A Philosopher in Portugal swear, smoke cigarettes, and heave at chains and ropes, or press down levers, or pick away in a desultory manner with pick-axes and crows, the little engine on the little tram line that brings the materials, whistles, shrieks and puffs with enormous importance. All seems really bustle and hurry, but when the end of the day's work has come, and the gangs are called off, and cluster on the little engine and on the little trucks like a swarm of bees, a careful examination reveals that no sub- stantial progress has been made towards keeping out the encroaching sea : preparations only have been made for the work it is intended to carry out amanha. In the mean- while the old women sit upon the top of the wall and placidly fish for mussels. When the tide serves and a big ship comes in there is a momentary excitement, but otherwise there is not anything to contemplate in the harbour itself, and the big ships are few and far between. Another amusement is to watch the 66 Sardines picturesque sales of fish on the beach as they are brought in by the boats. A crowd of women, more or less dirty, but adorned with bright kerchiefs, swarms around the silver heap chucked out on the sands. They vociferate, they bargain, they cheapen, they gesticulate, and one after another they go off with their baskets full, to sell the contents either in the town or perhaps far inland. It is a curious sight, but odoriferous the least disagreeable of the smells being that arising from the fish themselves. Here, too, great catches of sardines are made, and when they are brought straight from the sea and popped into the frying-pan, they are very different to the tin and oil variety which is the better known. Some persons, however, do not like the flavour of a fresh sardine. The inland walks are pleasant enough, but there are not many objects of interest to view, except perhaps one curious old church with a singular sort of "Galilee" porch and a flight of terrace-like steps leading down to the road 69 A Philosopher in Portugal beneath. Flowers and all sorts of insects and lizards abounded and would no doubt have interested the Philosopher, had he not been accompanied upon most of his excursions by two small nieces and a smaller nephew, who made incessant demands upon his botanical lore (which was very feeble), his entomological learn- ing (which was even weaker) and on his general zoology (which was extremely limited). How- ever, philosophy and imagination combined prompted replies which at all events charmed the children and helped to keep them " good." One afternoon the little people, accompanied by a cousin of a larger growth, persuaded their uncle to take them up what is by courtesy called the Leca Eiver. The excursion was made in a tub of a boat which had to be punted up the narrow stream, which is from four to five feet deep, and from ten to twenty feet wide, with alders and other bushes nearly meeting overhead and giving rather the impression of a sewer of most irregular and tortuous direction. It says much for the stability of the boat that it was 70 Nephews and Nieces not in any way affected by the manoeuvres of the children, and also much for the vigilance of the Philosopher and of the elder cousin that no one tumbled out of the boat into the water during the journey. The Philosopher noted one very curious phenomenon, which was that whenever he went out, accompanied by the small fry above mentioned, whatever the objective of the walk, whether the fir-woods, the river, or the north or the south beach, the road invariably led past a sweetie shop, and large stores of saccharine provisions had to be laid in for use during the expedition. Each of the small travellers also secured one of the avuncular pockets for the transport of the provender, and it appeared that the favourite pocket was the one in which a very foul old pipe also resided. Possibly there were other objects animate or inanimate which the Philosopher thought worthy of notice at the time, but one day the little maids got hold of his notes and made paper boats of them ! The Philosopher said nothing 71 A Philosopher in Portugal at the moment, but tried to remember whether Boethius had anywhere touched upon any similar disaster, and whether he had any nieces who had torn up some pages of the " Consolation of Philosophy." Later in the evening the Philosopher eased his irritation by firing off a most venomous pun, calling something a Leca (lesser) evil. He was ostracised for this and so he wandered down to the central jetty and sat and smoked in the moonlight all by himself, for even the young lady who had invited him to come for a moon- light stroll the evening before, now looked on him with disfavour. It was not absolutely certain, however, that this was the effect of the pun ; it might have been attributable to the fact of his having somehow managed to evade the former obliging offer. 12 CHAPTER V The Journey to Lisbon The Aqueduct at Campolide " Rolling Motion Square" Estrella Church English Cemetery Henry Fielding The "Suisso" Meeting a Friend A Philological Kiss A Missing Word The Archaeological Museum Church of the Carmo The Earthquake Agnes Surriage Fish-women Increasing Population Curious Eyes Moustaches San Geronymo Belem Moorish Architecture Origin of the Name of Lisbon The Flaneur The Markets Feira de Ladre A Latch-key. The next journey the Philosopher was called upon to take did not involve any unduly early rising, though perhaps that would have been less uncomfortable than the actual hours of departure and of arrival which the railway time-table im- posed. The train left the San Bento station at Oporto at 7.10 p.m. and was timed to arrive at Lisbon at 4.10 a.m. the next morning. The time of departure was thus excellently chosen to inter- A Philosopher in Portugal fere with the dinner hour, and the time of arrival was selected as the most likely to be inconvenient in the whole twenty-four. The general uncomfort was enhanced when, on arriving at the congeries of huts mentioned before as forming the principal railway station at Porto, the travellers found that there was no sleeping car attached to the train that evening. However they succeeded in obtaining places in a "toilet cama," or carriage in which the seats can be pulled out to form a lounge, and having hired some pillows from a boy in the station, proceeded to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow. The journey was an uneventful and a tedious one, and the Philosopher was heartily glad when he looked out at Campolide and saw in the moonlight the "Stupendous Aqueduct" which Borrow considered unrivalled by any "monu- ment of man's labour and skill, pertaining either to ancient or modern Pome." He was still more glad when a little later he was deposited on one of the platforms of the Rocio station at Lisbon 74 Lisbon fairly punctually at the time stated. At that uncanny hour of the morning he could not go off to W.'s place and wake up the slumbering household. Fortunately, P. had ordered some rooms to be reserved for himself and for some friends who were to meet him in Lisbon, at the Avenida Palace Hotel, and thither the yawning travellers went in the grey morning light. It would appear extraordinary anywhere but in Portugal that a first class hotel adjoining an important railway station where trains con- stantly arrive in the early morning hours should have no preparation for possible guests, beyond a sleepy porter to show them to their rooms, but here it seemed quite natural. Nothing could be got to eat or drink for some time, and when it did come took the form of not particularly good coffee without milk. The Philosopher was roused from his innocent slumbers, took a cup of the steaming mixture and soon fell asleep again, to be shortly awakened by a bad attack of indigestion. Decidedly his first hours in Lisbon were not happy. At half past seven he 75 A Philosopher in Portugal arose, had a bath, said good-bye to P., and having procured an open carriage with a couple of old towel horses, was driven through the waking city to W.'s residence, where a hearty welcome and a hearty breakfast restored his wonted equanimity. Of course the Philosopher was acquainted with the old couplet : " Qui nao ha visto Lisboa Nao ha visto cousa boa." (Who has not seen Lisbon has not seen a fine thing), but he was not then able to judge of the truth of the assertion. He did see, however, that Lisbon looked very charming in the early morning and again the Philosopher noted the bright and well-kept public gardens by which he drove, and he came to the conclusion that this was the one thing in Portugal in which the day's work was faithfully done and nothing left to amanlia. Subsequent wanderings confirmed this opinion. The grand palms of the Poly- technic and in the Avenida might exceed all others, but there are plenty of other gardens 76 Rolling Motion Square in which beautiful trees and shrubs and lovely flowers are combined with trim, well-kept walks and real green grass to form miniature Edens after the hot, dry, smelly streets and the still hotter and dryer squares. In the evening the Ws. and their guest dined at the Hotel Braganza with some friends and after dinner went off to the Opera. When the performance was over the party adjourned to the " Cafe Suisso" for supper. On coming out after that meal the stranger was bidden to contemplate the pavement of the "Rolling Motion Square," a name given by the English to the Praca Don Pedro, otherwise known as the Rocio. The pavement is laid out in sinuous curves of alter- nate rows of black and white tesserse and has a curious quasi-maritime effect on those who have dined or supped too well, or who have looked upon the wine when it is red. It is averred that to such an one it is most perplexing to walk on, inasmuch as it not only, as is the habit of ordinary pavements under such circumstances, occasionally jumps up and hits the patient on A Philosopher in Portugal the nose or on the back of the head, as the case may be, but it is warranted to bring on the most agonizing qualms of seasickness, with a full reproduction of all the least picturesque consequences. The Philosopher, who had seen such pavements in Porto, stood the test and walked over the wavy lines without any devia- tion from the perpendicular, and was considered quite capable of taking care of himself. The next day was spent quietly, but the Philosopher was kept practically in leading strings. He was taken to a friend's to lunch and afterwards was carried off across the Tagus, primarily to inspect thousands of bundles of cork, but he thereby obtained an opportunity of viewing the city from the river, a really striking sight, and one which went far to justify the commendatory rhyme quoted above. He was then taken to the English Club the Athenaeum and made a temporary member thereof, and was carried home to dinner. The day after, however, he broke loose and went off " on his own," strolling along and 78 The Estrella Church loafing to his heart's content. He got into the Estrella Church and admired the dome and other architectural features, and wandered about. Suddenly he heard one of the front doors closed with a bang, and locked. This was disagreeable, but an hour or two of seclusion could be born with equanimity, par- ticularly as he had a good store of cigarettes in his pocket. All at once, however, it struck him that possibly the church would not be open again that day, nor indeed till the next morning at ten o'clock. The idea was alarming and the prisoner began to hunt about for means of escape. At last, passing out of a chamber devoted to relics of greater or lesser sanctity, through a door which seemed to lead nowhere, he discovered at the end of a dark passage another little narrow door which on being pushed open was found to lead into a narrow space open to the sky. Passing round a buttress he came upon yet another door. This he opened and rejoiced greatly to find himself outside the church at last, 79 A Philosopher in Portugal After this the Philosopher went across to the beautiful Estrella Gardens, and sat in the shade and smoked until he was calm again. Then on to the English Cemetery. There he wandered about looking at the stones and philosophising as others have done before him. He gazed with reverence at the monument to poor Henry Fielding, erected so long after he had passed away, by a generation of fellow-countrymen who recognised his bright genius and appreciated his works more than had been the case in his short and troubled life. Had the restoration of his health which he sought in Lisbon taken place, would he have written more master- pieces or would his fame still have rested on "Tom Jones"? Who can tell? Then the Philosopher began to consider that it was time for lunch. He did not know where he was, he did not know where he wanted to go, so he followed his nose and loafed along uphill and downhill till he landed in the Avenida. He gradually recognised his sur- roundings and found the Rocio Station 80 Senhor B. Again and the " Suisso " opposite, where he decided to take his meal. Entering the restaurant, he sat down at a small table, and looked at a bill of fare. Some of it was unintelligible, but he recognised one dish which he had often had at Ritson's at Porto, the Pescada a VHespagnola (rock - whiting stewed wdth tomatoes and capsicums, and, of course, garlic). He managed to order this and a half bottle of Collares wine, and while he waited looked around. Suddenly a young man who had just come in jumped up from where he had sat himself down on the other side of the room, and hurrying over to the Philosopher, greeted him very warmly. It was B. who had proved so excellent a chum on board the Sud-Express and who now expressed much joy at meeting his English friend again. The acquaintance was renewed with great cordiality on both sides, and the Philosopher had often during the next month or so to congratulate himself on having secured such a friend. B. was a man of 81 F A Philosopher in Portugal considerable influence, and through him many places were thrown open which are not gener- ally accessible to visitors. Senhor B. habitually lunched, or as he called it, breakfasted at the ' f Suisso," and the friends met there very often. They were much amused one day when they were sitting at the same table discussing the meal which was break- fast to one, and lunch to the other, but composed of the same dishes and potations, chatting together in French, their common language. Near them sat a fat and jovial Brazilian, who was feeding extensively himself and was also filling to repletion two little girls, one, his daughter, and the other, a little friend of hers. By and bye, as both parties were nearing the conclusion of their repasts and as coffee and aguardente made their appearance on the two tables, one of the little girls whispered something to the big man who burst into a merry laugh, and addressing his two neighbours in French, explained that his little daughter wished him 82 A Philological Kiss to tell them how fond she was of Frenchmen, and that she wanted to kiss them both ! The Philosopher was inclined to temporise, but B. declared that nothing would give them greater pleasure, and that he hoped the other little girl would do the same. With shrieks of laughter, the two little maidens jumped up and ran round to the two supposed Frenchmen and kissed them so heartily, and at the same time with such solemnity, that it appeared almost like a religious rite. When, amid the hilarity of waiters and customers, the sen- horinas had returned to their seats, B. ex- plained to the fat father in his native language, that he himself was a Portuguese, and that his friend was an Englishman, but that they always spoke French together as the easiest language for both. The jolly Brazilian roared aloud at this, shaking his fat sides, and the tears coursing down his cheeks, but the little girls looked rather glum and disappointed that their compli- ment to the French nation had so grievously 83 A Philosopher in Portugal miscarried, till, with a toss of her head, one of them remarked that she did not mind, as if the two senhors were not Frenchmen, at all events they spoke such excellent French, that they deserved the reward they had received. The compliment was acknowledged with due gratitude, and the friends felt momentarily some millimetres taller than before. The two parties then separated with some cordial expressions on both sides, but the Philosopher wondered, as he lit his cigarette, whether the two lassies would, when grown up, ever remember their affectionate greeting of the two French- speaking strangers whom they had met at the " Suisso " in Lisbon, and whether, if by chance the parties should meet again at some future time, the girls would be inclined to continue to reward philological proficiency in the same manner. Of course, when Senhor B. was present the Philosopher had no difficulty in getting any- thing he wanted to eat or drink, but some- 84 A Missing Word times, when B. was absent, he had rather to order a dish that he knew rather than one he wanted. Only once was he in any real difficulty. He wanted some cheese, and could not think of the Portuguese word quejo. The Italian cacio was the only word which would come to his lips, and that the waiter did not understand. At last, by a happy inspiration, seeing another customer eating cheese, he managed to say : "The same as that gentleman has." The waiter cried, "Sim, Senhor" with alacrity, dashed off, and in a few seconds returned with a plate of quince marmalade ! On look- ing at the other table, the Philosopher found that the other gentleman had marmalada, as it is called, as well as cheese. Under the circumstances, the Philosopher, particularly as he liked marmalada very well, thought it advisable to eat what was put before him, and say nothing more. Of course, after he had paid his bill and lit his cigarette, the missing word came flying into his mind, but it was 85 A Philosopher in Portugal too late then, and the only thing to do was to resolve philosophically that the sweet was better than the cheese. The Philosopher made in due course the acquaintance of other noted restaurants, such as the "Leao d'Ouro," where he dined several times with friends, and the "Gibraltar" down on the quays, a house much frequented by the English, particularly by those who have busi- ness quarters down by the river, and which is famous for its soles. As a professed archaeologist, the Philosopher went, of course, to visit the museum of the Archaeological Society of Lisbon, situated in the stately ruins of the old Church of the Carmo, one of the relics of the famous earth- quake. The ruins are very fine, and in what was the nave of the church are many interest- ing monuments and architectural fragments. As one of the still remaining evidences of the earthquake of 1755, the church itself forms a nucleus round which the stories and legends connected with that catastrophe may range The Great Earthquake themselves. Here one may picture to one- self the scene when, in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes : " The turrets lean, the steeples reel, Like masts on ocean's swell, And clash a long discordant peal, The death-doomed city's knell." Here, or near here, may Agnes Surriage have sought for and found Sir Charles Frankland, and rescued him from certain death amongst the ruins where he was pinned down " Beneath its shattered portal pressed." The romantic history of the fair American girl, who from being the mistress became the well-beloved wife of the former Collector of Customs at Boston, was of special interest to the Philo- sopher, as Lady Frankland, after the death of Sir Charles, married a banker in the old city to which the Philosopher belonged, and in the cathedral church of which there is a monument of exceeding beauty to an Agnes, a grand-daughter of the Agnes of the famous Doctor's ballad. 87 A Philosopher in Portugal As has been said before, the Philosopher was not a sight-seeer by nature, and though he did visit also the Fine Art Museum in the street of the " Green Windows," and the interesting Artillery Museum, where his conductor was one of the finest types of the old sergeant, and went into the Church of San Roque, famous for the mosaic pictures in one of its chapels, and from which the image of St Xavier was brought to visit Maria Sophia Elizabeth, the queen of Dom Pedro II. , when she wanted to have a son, the people themselves appealed most to him, and he spent the greater part of his time in loafing about and observing the natives. The fish and fruit women at- tracted his attention, as they had done at Porto by their upright carriage and easy movements. As a rule also, their figures were good, but there was sometimes an uncertainty on the point as there was often an accentuation of outline caused by the oft- recurring evidences of an increasing population. The costume is somewhat different to that of Eyes and Moustaches the Porto women, especially as regards the head-dress, but the general effect was much the same. A peculiarity which attracted the attention of the Philosopher, but which, curiously enough, his friends had not noticed until he pointed it out, is the difference in level of the eyes in many Portuguese faces. The effect is unpleasing, and many a pair of eyes, other- wise handsome, are marred by this cause. It is more noticeable in women than in men, and on the whole the latter are better looking than the former. It is supposed to be very chic to curl one's moustaches over and over, after the manner of fire-hose, and really the effect is not bad. It is very common also to see whiskers so black and bushy as to sug- gest flue brushes. The ladies also sport rather remarkable hirsute adornments, and the upper lips of the majority are shaded with a dark line. This may be considered a beauty in youth, but in grizzled old age becomes so formidable a feature that the spectacle would 89 A Philosopher in Portugal probably restrain any philosophically minded man from committing matrimony, for who could face a mother-in-law so adorned ? Pos- sibly a philosophically minded man would not marry in any case, but this would act as a decided deterrent if the charms of the sen- horina herself had outweighed the dictates of philosophy. It is only proper to add that the ladies do not double curl their moustaches like the gentlemen. Even the most determined opponent of sight- seeing will find it worth while to take the trouble to go to Belem and see the Church of San Geronymo. Going to the quays and boarding the tram which runs along by the side of the Tagus, it is only a two or three miles' ride to Belem. As with all other Portuguese churches it is necessary to visit it in the morning, when it will still be found open. The church is beautiful externally, and the interior, with its fine pillars and roof, and the curious tombs with their sculptured elephants, is sufficiently attractive, in itself, were it not the 90 Belem resting place of the (perhaps apocryphal) bones of Luis de Camoens and of Vasco da Gama. After examining the interior the visitor passes out of the church and turning to the right reaches a sort of porter's lodge, where civil attendants are in waiting and very readily take him or her to view the cloisters a perfect dream of beauty and the great refectory and other portions of the famous school where between 300 and 400 orphan boys are brought up and well educated. On leaving this admirable institution one may go to see the royal carriages, and then down to the river to look at the famous Moorish castle. Unhappily this fine piece of architecture is not easy to view from the land. Some gasworks cut off the view from one side, and a modern fort garrisoned with artillerymen, prevents access from the other. The best view of the tower is from the river itself. It is interesting to trace how large an influence Moorish architecture still exerts over Portuguese buildings. Especially is this the case where from the nature of the building the 91 A Philosopher in Portugal architect can give a free vein to his fancy. At the summer resort of Estoril, for example, where many bungalows and fantastic villas have been erected of late years, Moorish styles and oriental ornamentations are extremely prevalent. Lisboa is pleasantly enough situated by the noble Tagus, upon the high grounds rising up from the river side, and from what may be called the central valley, running up from the fine " Praga do Commercio " to the Rocio. The old writer of the " Account of the Court of Portugal" thinks that Lisbon " seemed designed by Nature for the great Emporium of Europe, and were it in the hands of a People that knew how to improve their Advantage it would go near to draw to itself the Trade and Riches of the World." Alas ! the people still know not how to improve their advantage, and the city has not risen any higher in the scale of prosperity than in the time in which he wrote. Authorities differ as to the origin of the name Lisboa. Some aver that the city was founded by Ulysses in the course of his wanderings after 92 The Name Lisboa the fall of Troy, and that it was first called Ulyssipione, Ulyssipo, or Olyssipo, and from that contracted into Lisboa ; but Braga laughs at this, saying that the story is only made to fit the name. Southey says of it: "but this belongs to the poets, and tempting as is the etymology of Lisbon from Ulysses, the anti- quarian rejects it. It was founded by Elisa, the eldest son of Java, says Luiz Marinho de Azeveda ; he called it Eliseon, thence Elisbon, Lisbon. Nothing can be plainer." There is yet another solution mentioned by Braga as a suggestion made by a Spanish father that the name is derived from the Greek words olis and hippon, drawn from Pliny's account of the swift mares which conceived from the wind. (Nat. Hist. L VIII. cap. 42.) For the French flaneur, Lisbon has not much attractions, for the shops are not made for much display of their wares. The "Kua Aurea" (Golden Street) should perhaps be excepted, where the goldsmiths and jewellers jostle each other for the length of the street, where the 93 A Philosopher in Portugal Lisbon imitation of " Whiteley's " causes little crowds to assemble on the narrow pavement, and where the " Rendezvous des Gourmets " offers its delicacies to hungry ladies and gentle- men and tempts them to have their meals, regular or irregular, as the case may be, within its comfortable rooms. With the exception of one or two establish- ments in the fashionable " Rua do Chiado," the display is not great even in first-class shops in important throughfares ; but the loungers abound everywhere, down Golden Street and down Silver Street, on the shady side of the Rocio, and in the Praca de Luis de Camoes, and though perhaps an animal of the same genus as the Parisian badaud, it is not of the same family. The badaud looks out for his amusement, the Lisbon representative of the tribe awaits for his amusement to come to him. There is one shop, however, a corner shop known as the " Gatto Preto " (Black Cat), where happy people with nothing else to do will congregate and gaze open-mouthed at the 94 Shops contents of the windows and at what they can see through the open doors. Many curious and intensely local articles of all sorts are sold here quaint potteries, grotesque carvings, and queer articles of all sorts and materials and intended for all sorts of uses. There are, moreover, two excellent old curiosity shops in the Avenida, where one can drop in at any time and look round, and where there are always specimens of fine old furniture, chairs of a Chippendale type, upholstered with rare old stamped leather, elaborately carved cabinets and tables from Goa, and bric-a-brac of all descriptions. The temptation to bring back some of these objects was very great, and probably, had it not been for the difficulties of transport, the Philosopher would have succumbed. The Philosopher particularly enjoyed his visits to the great fruit and vegetable market, with its wealth of colour, the piles of oranges, lemons, nespras and other fruits, the onions of many varieties, from the mild eschalot to 95 A Philosopher in Portugal the militant garlic, the salads, the red beans, the green beans, the white beans, the blue beans, the yellow beans, and the speckled beans ; the picturesque saleswomen and their squalling brats, the porters with their long cords assail- ing each person that comes in, desirous of carrying his or her purchases, the ladies marketing, the maids with black or white mantillas and huge gold ear-rings and bright kerchiefs carrying their mistresses' baskets. The mingled odour of the produce and of the producers, tempered with cigarettes, was even an attraction. Nearly every day the Philosopher strolled through this picturesque place. Once he went up to the Feira de Ladre (Thieves' Market), held once a week in the high ground above the old railway station and behind the Cathedral of Santa Fe. There, on the pavement and in the irregular patches made by the intersections of streets, heaps of old iron, old clothes, and of every conceivable variety of marine store-dealer's goods are being displayed and keenly bargained over. Books 96 A Latch-Key rarely of any value religious prints of a most tawdry character, old tools, and new " old furniture " are all heaped side by side. On one of the heaps on the pavement in the square, the Philosopher noticed and examined a whole set of masonic lodge collars and jewels, but the next heap provided for him a still greater attraction, for it contained a handsome bunch of latch-keys. Now, there is nothing frivolous about a Portuguese latch-key. It is an emblem of rectitude of conduct and of unimpeachable sobriety. The man who carries one in his breeches pocket when he goes out of an evening must be a man of weight, a man of substance, and one whose physical powers cannot have been vitiated by excess or intemperance. It is said that some effeminate youths hire Oallegos to carry their latch-keys for them, but even if this be true, the presence of the honest Galician porter must be a restraint on debauchery, and still the key exercises a benign influence. The Philosopher thought that the possession of such a key would produce a favourable 97 A Philosopher in Portugal impression on Portuguese friends, even if there were no door belonging to it, and might have a salutary effect on friends at home, so he selected and purchased one that seemed to fulfil all reasonable requirements. It is of moderate dimensions only nine inches long, three quarters of an inch in diameter, and of half an inch bore. The long diameter of the bow is only three inches, and the ward-piece is only two inches and three-quarters wide, by an inch and a half deep. Lastly, it barely weighs a pound and a half. It is a bagatella, a trifle, a mere nothing. But then the Philosopher is a modest man. CHAPTER VI An Inland Trip Abrantes The View from the Castle Porcalhota Long Walks Windmills Black Ants^- Insects Flowers Lizards Railway Eccentricities Cintra Guides Camoens at Cintra Quelluz Palace Grounds Bellas Over the Hills by Compass. A council of war having been held by the Philosophers friends, it was unanimously decided that he must see something of the interior of the country, and to do this effectively that he must accompany W. and his colleague B. on a business journey to a quinta near Abrantes. So, on a certain evening, he was carried off to the railway station and at half past ten was started on the dreary journey in a stuffy and comfortless first class carriage. At the junction, some two hours later, the travellers were refreshed with a good cup of chocolate, and once more started on A Philosopher in Portugal their weary way, reaching Abrantes railway station at 2.22 a.m. There they were met by the quinteiro and his brother, and a quarter of an hour's walk brought them to the quinta. A bountiful supper had been prepared for them, and it and the plans for the next day were discussed at the same time. W. and B. were to start off directly after breakfast for a ride of between thirty and forty miles on mule back, and it was considered for both the physical and moral good of the Philosopher that he should not accompany them, as the intense discomfort of a mule's paces and the high-peaked saddle might not only have made him blaspheme at the time, but might have rendered sitting down a most uncomfortable attitude for many days. He was told also, that it would improve his mind and perchance sharpen his intellect if he had any to fend for himself for a day, without an English-speaking or even a French- speaking person within reach. In fact, like a young puppy being made to swim, he was to be chucked in amongst the natives to get 100 Abrantes out of his troubles as best lie might. He was to spend the day in the town of Abrantes, some three miles off, and get his lunch there if he could. If from any cause, linguistic or other- wise, this should prove to be impracticable, he could walk back to the quinta, and would no doubt be able to get something from the quinteiro or his family. This, however, was to be only an ultimate resort. Some time after three o'clock they all went to bed, and after a short rest, rose and had an early breakfast, immediately after which W. and B. fixed on their spurs, and rode off on their obstinate steeds, announcing that they should be back to dinner about six. After the excitement of their departure was over, the interest of the quinteiro and his family naturally centred on their foreign guest. He was led about and shown everything and occasionally understood some of the explana- tions. Finally he was put upon his proper road by the kindly quinteiro, who walked over the bridge across the Tagus with him and only 101 A Philosopher in Portugal parted company at the foot of the hill leading up to the little town which had been the centre of so much fighting during the Peninsular War, and which had given a ducal title to Marshal Junot. Up the white road tramped the Philosopher, a road of recent make and which could not be peopled by the most vivid imagination with the French troops of Junot or of Loison, or by the insurgents who attacked and retook the town from the French. The Philosopher smoked cigarettes and steadily pursued his way, exchanging greetings with the woodmen and peasants whom he met, until he reached and entered the town of Abrantes, where he did not appear to be, as Napier says of Junot: " a fearful and un- expected guest." He may have been un- expected but he was not apparently an object of fear to the inhabitants. Soon he had visited nearly every part of the little town, and was struck by the paucity of shops, and of the very indifferent quality 102 Abrantes Castle of those that he did come across. In the small tortuous streets there were here and again dark little holes of wine shops, but other signs of refreshment there were none. This did not look propitious, but the day was young and at present the picturesque aspect of the place was sufficient. After looking all round, and after attempting to make some sketches, particularly of the blue tiles which adorned a curious building, the use of which he could not discover, he found his way up to the old castle, where, in response to his polite inquiry, a grumpy sentry bid him enter the only surly speech he had received or was to receive during his stay in Portugal. The view from the old ramparts was lovely. Standing on an eminence overlooking a vast track of country, the old fort is sur- rounded by landscape of a most extensive and varied nature. The prospect from each of the bastions is different and each is equally delight- ful. Whether the view be over the shining Tagus far below, or across the plains dotted with infrequent villages to the distant hills, 103 A Philosopher in Portugal whether the eye wander over pine woods, cork forests, olive groves, or clumps of lofty eucalyptus, whether the distance stand out clear and well defined, or be lost in blue mist, no one with any appreciation of the beauties of Nature could fail to be charmed with the panorama thus spread out at his feet. The Philosopher lay on the grass of one of the old bastions and felt a peculiar calm enjoyment engross his whole spirit. He would perhaps have dropped into a doze had not a smart staff sergeant of artillery passed at the moment and greeted him politely. This disturbed the current of his thoughts and he fell to speculating as to the appearance of the landscape in the times of which Napier wrote. Having pondered over the matter for some time, he was suddenly reminded by an inward monitor that he really ought to consider how to procure a meal, or a substitute for one. Leaving the castle and finding his way into the public gardens where some young men were teasing one of the magnificent great lizards that are such beautiful objects in the country, the 104 How to Lunch? Philosopher carefully reviewed the situation. There appeared to be three courses open to him. The first was to find some restaurant where he could get a meal in a civilised way ; the second was to go back meekly to the quinta and there make his wants known, by sign language if other means failed. But this he loathed the idea of. His soul revolted at the notion of being beaten in his attempt to look after him- self, and he felt that he would rather calmly submit to the pangs of hunger than avow himself to be defeated. The third method open to him was to assuage those pangs somewhat by getting a glass or two of wine to drink, pulling up tight the buckle of his waistband and smoking one or two pipefuls of his diminishing store of " Craven Mixture." Eising from the seat he had been occupying, the Philosopher strolled out of the gardens with a view of hunting up the least objectional of the wine shops he had noticed in his earlier peregrina- tions. Just outside the gate he met a kindly-looking 105 A Philosopher in Portugal citizen, who politely wished him good-day. In returning the salutation, the Philosopher felt encouraged to ask the friendly native if he could inform him where he could obtain something to eat and drink. The courteous gentleman at once complied and directed the hungry man to an hospidaria, or inn, situated in a sort of square which by some means he had missed in his earlier perambulations. With satisfaction he entered the establishment, passing into a kitchen smelling loudly of garlic, where a dirty old lady, and a fat and still dirtier criada (maid- servant) were busy about something or other. In response to his appeal for something to eat and drink, the old lady invited "his most illustrious excellency " to step into her dining- room. This turned out to be delightfully clean, cool and wholesome looking. Then came an alarming moment what should he order to eat ? He had after all only been a short time in the country and had had but little experience of dishes and their names. A happy thought suggested fried beef-steak and potatoes the 106 A Cheap Lunch Portuguese for which he happened to know. In due time they were placed on the table and proved to be very well cooked. Everything was good. There was an abundance of a local table wine of excellent quality. The water was in a cool porous jar which was refreshing even to look at ; the bread was fresh and good, the country cheese was very nice, and, finally, the coffee which the old lady persuaded him to have was far better than any he had hitherto tasted. After all this came the mauvais quart d'heure of Rabelais. The old lady probably could not write and was constrained to give her bill verbally, and, do what he could, the Philosopher could not understand the amount, stated, as he afterwards found out, in fractions of one of those coins which have long ceased to be of legal currency and which naturally conveyed no mean- ing to him. At last, however, the old dame proved equal to the emergency, and placed before her guest coins of different values which totalled up the charge for the meal 320 reis, somewhere about a half-penny less than a shilling. Having 107 A Philosopher in Portugal discharged this tremendous obligation, and given the criada so magnificent a tip some five farthings that he narrowly escaped being embraced by her, the Philosopher bade good-bye to his hostess, and with the help of his pocket compass, having carefully observed the trends of the roads from the castle walls above, he found his way back by quite a different route, through a grove of olive trees to the bridge over the Tagus and so to the quinta in good time. The quinteiro and his family were pardonably curious to know how the solitary Englishman had got on, but the latter s knowledge of the vernacular did not enable him to satisfy their curiosity all he could do was to make them understand that he was in no need of refresh- ment, either solid or liquid. In due time W. and B. came back from their long ride, and over a mighty dinner each party told their day's adventures. Late at night they again sought the railway station and started on another tedious journey back to Lisbon, arriving at the Eocio station at 4 a.m. 108 Off on Tramp The result of the experiment was distinctly encouraging and subsequently the Philosopher found his way without fear into comparatively out of the way places without needing any one to look after him. So, when he was staying out in the country at Porcalhota, some seven miles out of Lisbon, he often went off on tramps over the hills between Lisbon and Cintra, ''hoofing it" back, or catching a train at some inter- mediate station, or making a large circuit and turning up in Lisbon and coming home by tram, in a very casual manner. On one occasion, after a long ramble among the hills, sketching the quaint little windmills that were scattered along the crest of the downs, so as to catch the strong northerly wind which perpetually blows over that region, and which helps much to render the heat endurable, the Philosopher sat down in the grateful shade of some trees that grew along a little winding water-course, to smoke several cigarettes and generally to rest after his hot scramble down the steep and stony side of the hill. As he 109 A Philosopher in Portugal sat and smoked his attention was arrested by the movements of the inhabitants of a large ants' nest situated in the pathway along which he was to proceed. These black ants were plainly of two sorts. The ordinary active little workers formed one class ; the others were en- dowed with enormous heads and ferocious man- dibles, and were apparently of a soldier caste. Mark Twain's remarks on the ant recurred to the Philosopher's mind, and he determined to observe for himself the amount of industry, leather-headedness and other qualities which might be exhibited by individual members of the community under unusual circumstances. He therefore, after extinguishing the wax vesta with which he had just lit another cigarette, dropped it gently into the hole which apparently constituted the grand entrance to the nest. It was immediately seized by one of the swelled-heads, who carried it off valiantly and tried the pastime of toss- ing the caber with it. Unfortunately the caber tossed the swelled-head who appeared to be much no Ants dazed and confused by the operation. After he had recovered a little, an ordinary worker came along and apparently entered into conversation with him. By and by the worker got excited as in the course of discussion he touched the swelled-head's mandibles, and he evidently cried out to the latter : " Why, that stuff sticking to your jaws is real mutton fat, and have you been fool enough to go and chuck that aw r ay ? " The poor guardsman did not know, it was his business to remove extraneous matter stuffed into the hole by the hand of Providence (in this case by the hand of the Philosopher) and he did not remember what had become of it. The worker smiled a sort of pitying smile, and ran off and collected one or two mates w T ith whom, after a protracted search, he found the match and proceeded to take it back to the nest. Then ensued a scene such as that described by Mark Twain. They all pulled different ways in a frantic manner, they all stopped and ex- postulated and quarrelled fiercely with each other, and with a quite remarkable perversity 111 A Philosopher in Portugal never followed the direct line to their destina- tion but tacked to and fro as if beating up against the wind. At last, by what seemed to be good luck rather than by intelligent effort, they eventually reached home, and in a very short time the match was got down the hole and the last the Philosopher saw of it, it was being carried along a gallery leading off at right angles from the vestibule. These country walks were full of delightful sights for anyone who had been taught to observe nature. Lovely dragon and demoiselle flies flashed in the air, visiting the bright flowers in succession the brilliant thistles of all sorts of hues, the extremely bright coloured vetches and the beautiful blue borage. By the sides of the roads spread long banks of the ice-plant, as it is called, whose fleshy leaves and purple or yellow flowers would gladden many an English gardener's heart if they could be induced to grow on a terrace slope in the open. In among the trees could be seen beautiful geraniums with huge trusses of 112 Lizards brilliant flowers, probably garden escapes, bright spots in the sombre shade of the pine trees, quite banishing any feeling of melancholy such as is attributed often to pine woods. Then there is always the chance of seeing the great lizards (lacerta ocellata), in their gorgeous green and gold liveries, reminding one of the fine fellows who were attached to Cinderella's coach in the capacity of footmen. The little lizards fly about all over the rocks and stones, or lie and bask in the sun and take but little notice of anyone standing still, but the big fellows are more cautious and the best chance of a good look at them is to be found when as happens on occasion a couple rush out into the middle of the road and fight with great ferocity. For his outings the Philosopher preferred "Shank's mare" to the railway, although there are many things about the railways in Portugal which present subjects for contemplation and mirth to the philosophic mind, particularly if time be no object and amanhd will do as well 113 U A Philosopher in Portugal as to-day. On the first occasion that the Philosopher visited Cintra, he started from the San Domingos station, whither he had been driven in F.'s carriage. It turned out that they did not happen to have any tickets for Cintra in the booking office and the officials experienced much difficulty in communicating the fact to the poor man, and in making him understand that he was to pay for the ticket to the collector in the train. The authorities have eccentric ways also of altering the times of the trains without notice and at irregular intervals. One morning all the business men who went to Lisbon by a certain train from the San Domingos station found that the time of the train had been altered and that the return trains had been altered still more, but information on this latter point was very vague indeed. This was on the fourth or fifth of the month, and the Guia Official, the official time table, did not make its appearance for some days after. Progress by rail is slow and stoppages are 114 Railway Eccentricities long. There are lengthy waits at stations because they are graded as first class, quite irrespective of the amount of traffic, or of the business done there. The following is a good example of the remarkable performance of the way how not to do it prevalent on the Lisbon- Cintra line. F., who lived at Porcalhota, on that line, preferred to drive to the San Domingos station, some mile and a half nearer Lisbon, to catch his morning train, rather than to drive to the Porcalhota station some half mile the other way ; and the signal for his starting was the moment that the train from Cintra was seen to be on the line opposite his house ! There was a station Bemfica before San Domingos, and the slow rate of the train, combined with the long wait at Bemfica, gave time for F.'s pair to get to the San Domingos station with some minutes to spare, though starting level with the train. On the whole the carriages are antiquated, stuffy and uncomfortable to a degree, but there are some nice, open carriages on the 115 A Philosopher in Portugal lines out of Lisbon to Cintra and to Cascaes respectively. If one wants to meet a visitor, or to see a friend off, access to the platform can only be obtained by means of a special ticket for that purpose, costing about three farthings. On leaving the railway station at Cintra on the occasion of his first visit to that charming place, the Philosopher was surrounded by quite a crowd of would-be guides, philosophers and friends, anxious to take him to see the sights. They accompanied him for a long distance, despite his reiterated asseverations that he did not want either a carriage, a burro or four- footed donkey, or a guide or two-footed ass. Finding these plain statements of fact to be of no avail, the Philosopher swore fiercely in good English and bad Portuguese, though perhaps the English should be docketed as "bad," inasmuch as the "swear words" were precise and emphatic, and the Portuguese as "good" or as "comparatively good" because the expletives were so very vague and unmeaning. 116 Cintra At last the Philosopher won through all obstacles and got to Lawrence's Hotel whence he procured a guide and went up to the beautiful castle of the Pena. It was a very hot day and by the time the palace and the old Moorish castle had been visited, and the statue of Vasco da Gama on his solitary peak duly admired, the Philosopher decided not to see anything more until after lunch. That meal disposed of. he mounted a donkey and rode over to Montserrat the late Sir F. Cook's place. He found the saddle most uncomfort- able and was glad to get back to Lawrence's, where he met with an English merchant captain and his friends who did not seem to know how to get back to Lisbon. There is Scriptural authority for the blind leading the blind, so he piloted the Englishmen back to the railway station, successfully drove off some importunate beggars who attempted to extract some cash from the party, got their tickets for them, and put them safely into the train for Lisbon, where he met them next day aud 117 A Philosopher in Portugal found that they had got back without mis- adventure. The Philosopher made many subsequent excursions to Cintra, fully agreeing with Borrow that: "If there be any place in the world entitled to the appellation of an enchanted region, it is surely Cintra . . . " and he also realised Southey's difficulty when he says : "I know not how to describe to you the strange beauties of Cintra." The Philosopher did not find the Tomb of the Two Brothers, whose tragic legend is told by Braga as follows: "Two brothers were in love with a young lady who lived in these parts, both ignorant of the others love. By an unlucky fate, on a dark night, encountering each other under the balcony of the object that bewitched them both, one of them, per- suaded that the other was disputing with him the favours of his lady, rushed blindly and inconsiderately upon him and laid him dead at his feet, the victim of a frantic jealousy. But what was his despair when through the 118 The Old Palace dying voice of him whom he judged to be his rival, he recognised that he had become the assassin of his brother whom he much loved and who died in his arms ! Filled with despera- tion, he turned against his own breast the fratricidal steel and fell dead across the bloody corpse of his brother, preferring a swift death to an inconsolable life filled with remorse." He did not again scramble up "The flank of Cintra's hill " to the Pena, but he did visit the old palace, aptly described by Southey as "an old and irregular pile with two chimneys, each shaped like a glass-house," where is the Sola das Armas, round which are depicted the coats of arms of the real old Jidalgo families, and where the visitor's attention is called to a depression in the brick floor of one apartment, said to have been caused by the footsteps of Alfonso VI., when he was a captive there. But to the Philo- sopher's mind the most interesting association connected with this old palace lies in the 119 A Philosopher in Portugal bearing on the fate of Camoens exercised by "the Naiads of Cintra," as he calls the maids of honour of Catherine of Austria : " Bellas estrellas, e hum sol no nieio " (Fair stars that circled round a central sun). Burton. Here also he became enamoured of the maiden Caterina, his " Natercia," as he anagrammatized her name a passion which, through the enmity of the young lady's family, was twice the cause of his banishment and, indirectly, of his exile and of his expedition to India. Indirectly also this episode was responsible for the "Lusiads," for the great epic was begun during one of those periods of banishment. One pleasant day's outing the Philosopher had tramping over to Quelluz, and wandering over the palace gardens. He might have seen the inside of the palace probably, but the pleasant nigger porter did not suggest it and the moth-eaten insides of dilapidated palaces have no special attractions for him. The 120 Quell LIZ gardens are very charming an imitation of Versailles in miniature and laid out very well. There is a lot of good topiary work, but the general ineptitude steps in here and the figures are allowed to grow out of shape and to develop great gaps. Then an attempt is made to mend and restore which often makes matters worse. Nevertheless the grounds are pleasant to wander about in and are very picturesque. There is a wonderful collection of old blue tiles at the lake or canal, or whatever it is called. These old tiles are a feature often occurring in out- door decoration, but those in the sides of the lock at Quelluz are of quite exceptional beauty and interest. Amid the formal alleys and geometrically arranged vistas it appeared quite an anach- ronism to find a lawn-tennis court set out among the trees. Leaving Quelluz, the Philosopher proceeded to tramp over to the little town of Bellas. This proved to be a pretty old town with a 121 A Philosopher in Portugal picturesque church. Facing a queer neglected space, which is probably called the "Praca," is the grand entrance of an old country house. On each side of the door is a fountain, or rather what we should call a conduit and tank, and on the wall above a curious picture in relief apparently of some Scriptural subject. After wandering about and sketching a little, about one o'clock the Philosopher sought a modest mid- day meal. At the first hotel he went to his desire could not be gratified. LunchaVy the Lisbon term for "to lunch," was here unknown ; almogo (breakfast) appeared to be past, and even the old- fashioned merenda, literally " noon-snack/' was unattainable. The proprietor politely but firmly refused to supply a meal before four o'clock. There was some slight difficulty at the next hotel, but this was eventually over- come. The first course consisted of a fish whose odour was to that of bacalhao at least four terms of a geometrical progression. Words failed the Philosopher, but when he had 122 Bellas summoned the waitress, he pinched his nose with such an emphatic gesture towards the fish that the girl burst out laughing and removed the obnoxious dish without delay. Other things were fairly good, and at the conclusion of the meal the old proprietor, who spoke a queer sort of French, came and talked. Now the Philosopher was minded to walk back by a different route to that by which he had come, so he consulted the worthy man as to the possibility of going over the hills. The latter asseverated that no way was practicable there, and that it was impossible to return otherwise than by the road. But the Philo- sopher had observed what he thought might prove a way as he walked into the town, so he disregarded this advice and walked back a little way out of the town, and having consulted his compass, turned up a cart-track over the hill. The cart-track became a bridle- way, the bridle-way became a foot-path, dwindled into a sheep-track, and finally dis- appeared altogether : but by this time the 123 A Philosopher in Portugal summit of the downs had been reached, and a glance at the compass and the identification of a row of little windmills on a ridge some two miles south made it easy to determine the direction to be followed, and after a pleasant scramble over the rough and stony hills, he struck the estrada real about two kilometres above Porcalhota, and got back home in ample time to rest and wash and make himself comfortable before dinner, to which, when it came he did ample justice. 124 CHAPTER VII Agricultural Operations Old Fashioned Implements Herding Cattle Orange Trees The Bichu Insect Pests Mosqui- toes Fleas Gallegos Bowls Cricket Cruz Quebrada Carcavellos Estoril Gambling Lotteries Costumes in Town and Country Fish-girls Male Attire Ornamen- tal Patches. In these tramps the Philosopher had ample opportunities of watching the various agricul- tural operations. They were of a most primi- tive character, and some of them reminded him of the long time ago when he was a little boy staying with an old great-uncle who farmed his own land on old-fashioned principles and who would admit of no new-fangled notions, as he called them. Thus the rhythmical fall of the flail or of two flails working together was reminiscent of the threshing of the corn grown on the old gentleman's estate, and 126 A Philosopher in Portugal of the times when the Philosopher himself could "&eap and mow And plough and sow," as the old rhyme has it. The old farm hands took a delight in teaching the younker all the farm work and in initiating him in the curious lore of the fields which made the old generations of agriculturists skilled workers in their way. Here, too, may be seen another ancient form of garnering the crops, for the oxen are em- ployed to tread out peas and beans. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn " is a well-known injunction, but Deuteronomy is of small account in Portugal, and the mouths of the unfortunate oxen as they tread their patient round under the broiling sun are so secured that they are unable to snatch an occasional mouthful as they toil on. Another old-fashioned implement in common use is the sickle, a tool which even the Philo- 126 The Sickle sopher's great-uncle had discarded in favour of the " fagging hook," as it is called. Two or three old sickles had survived amongst the farm rubbish so that their aspect was not unknown to the Philosopher, but he had never seen one in use until now, when he watched a field of corn laid low by a small army of reapers of both sexes, who sawed their way along through the crop, cutting off little handfuls at a time, and progressing so terribly slowly that it appeared as if the crop would never be gathered in at all. Numbers, however, and perseverance in the end accomplished the feat and nothing was left but the dry stubble in the place of the waving cornfield of a few days before. Labour is cheap, time is esteemed of no value, and the spells of fine weather are constant, so these old processes are still em- ployed, and, however much one must regret the material loss to the country, it must be admitted that rural life thereby gains much in picturesqueness. 127 A Philosopher in Portugal Not everywhere, however, is the cultivation of the land carried on in so primitive a fashion. Machinery of the newest type and best construction is to be met with. Thresh- ing machines take the place of the flail and of the oxen, American mowers oust the bands of reapers with their sickles, and steam cultivators turn up real furrows in place of the mere scratches made by the ex- tremely primitive plough indigenous to the country. Some things machinery cannot touch. The herding of cattle, for instance, remains a very picturesque sight, and it would be difficult to suggest any alteration in the method now employed, primeval though it be ; for, to move cattle by rail would entail a revolution in railway methods such as cannot possibly be carried out for years. From the hills above Porcalhota the Philosopher watched through his field-glasses a large drove of cattle wending its way towards Lisbon. Probably they were bulls for the ensuing bull-fights 128 Herding Cattle accompanied by the trained animals who guide them. In front and behind rode the vaqueiros (herdsmen) on horses or mules, each armed with an enormously long goad, bring- ing vividly to mind the herd of bulls which charged Don Quijote with such disastrous results to the poor knight. The vaqueiros were but shabbily dressed and had no par- ticular smartness of manner, but the whole scene was animated and graceful, and when the leaders turned into a sort of meadow and the herd was induced to follow them and to drink from the little stream that ran through the mead and began to lie down and chew the cud, the pastoral effect was charming. The vaqueiros, leaving two of their number on guard, went off to a neighbouring wine-shop to wash the dust out of their own mouths and doubtless to refresh and stimulate their mounts with bread soaked in common, rough wine. The cultivation of the vine, and of the orange and other fruit trees are rural em- 129 I A Philosopher in Portugal ployments demanding no inconsiderable amount of skill, and entailing much labour. As regards the latter the Philosopher had considerable opportunities of watching the operations connected with the irrigation and treatment of the trees. In F.'s quinta at Porcalhota there were about fifteen hundred orange trees, besides scores of limes, lemons, nespras (known as "Eve's apples"), figs and other fruits. The oranges had already been picked, and the nespras were nearly finished by the time the Philo- sopher arrived. Lemons and limes were not considered worth picking for sale, and hung on the trees in abundance. After a long and dusty walk a lime picked off the tree and sucked in primitive fashion proved to be most refreshing. The irrigation of the orange trees was conducted in a systematic manner. The earth round the group of trees to be watered is dug up and the mould so arranged as to form a basin round each tree, and the basins 130 Orange Tree Cultivation are connected by channels with each other and with one large channel which in its turn connects directly with a permanent carrier or channel running down the whole length of the orchard from the reservoir at the high end of the estate. A plug of earth and rubbish stops the water from flowing further down the carrier and a plug removed from a hole in the side allows it to pour directly into the temporary channel in the mould. This and the other feeders round the trees are skilfully planned and the old gardener and his assistants stand by with hoes ready to divert the flow from one basin to another, by the simple expedient of making a dam across the channel and breaking down a gap in the side above the dam. One morning the parlourmaid came to F. as he and the Philosopher were smoking an after-breakfast cigarette, to say that old Diogo, the foreman, wanted to see the illus- trissimo senhor at once, as he fancied that he had discovered the bichu on one of the 131 A Philosopher in Portugal orange trees. F., with much unparliamentary language, went forth, followed by the Philo- sopher who wondered why the discovery of a bichu (insect) on a tree, should cause so much commotion in that land of prolific and voracious insects. When he saw the curious insect which settles on orange trees, and completely devastates them, and heard of the deadly ravages caused by it, he began to understand the terror which the sight of it caused to F. and which made old Diogo's cheek show pale through the incrustation of dirt which lay thick upon it. Everyone has heard of the ruin of vineyards by the phyl- loxera, but few r know of the destruction of orange groves caused by the white limpet- shaped insect which sucks the vitality out of the orange trees, and once started, propagates its species w T ith extraordinary rapidity and with disastrous results. The origin of this pest is most obscure, though it is generally supposed to have been brought over acci- dentally among the belongings of a negro 132 Orange Tree Pest servant who accompanied his master, a large proprietor, back to Europe. Certain it is that it was first noticed on the estate of that un- fortunate gentleman, who was nearly ruined by the destruction it caused. In those days no remedy had been discovered for it, but now its dread advance may be checked if it be taken in time, and often disposed of altogether before it has had occasion to do serious mischief. F. at once cut off a twig on which some of these strange creatures w r ere congregated and carried it off to Lisbon to show to one of the agricultural societies there, to obtain a decisive opinion as to the identity of the insect, and also to obtain the remedy, if necessary. The Philosopher was left to examine every tree in the quinta, under the direction and with the assistance of Diogo, and to mark any other tree which might be affected. The search was necessarily a long and tedious one, but was satisfactory inasmuch as only one other tree was found to be infested. This was duly marked and nothing remained but to wait patiently. The next day a communica- 133 A Philosopher in Portugal tion was received from the society identifying the specimens as genuine malefactors, and ac- companied by a cardboard box containing the remedy. On being opened this proved to be full of insects of a different kind, shaped somewhat like lady-birds, but very dull and uninteresting to look at. According to instructions the box was fixed open upon the infested tree and left alone. Another boxful of the avengers was procured and fixed in like manner to the second tree. For some days there appeared to be no movement on the part of the good insects, but after a while they set out on their travels and spread themselves all over the tree, settling down wherever they found colonies of the evil bichus and com- placently sucking them dry, and thus clearing them off in a most systematic manner. The cure was most successful and complete, and when the Philosopher greeted F. in England some months later the danger was stayed and the prosperity of the orchard secured. Portugal is a land where insect pests of all 134 Insects sorts play a very large part in the life of the inhabitants, and no one can expect, however great the precautions taken, to escape altogether their most unwelcome attentions. The worst vermin may of course be avoided by cleanly habits, but care must be exercised lest a casual acquaintance be not made with them through chance contacts in public conveyances, for verminous heads are to be found amongst persons of far higher classes than would be thought possible by a stranger. The ferocious mosquito, also, is a dweller in the land. His shrill clarion affords music throughout the night, and the topography of any portion of the human anatomy which may have been left unwarily exposed is modified in a curious and painful manner. One thing Senhor Mosquito does not like is eucalyptus oil and he resents its use by singing with extraordinary energy as he circles round his intended victim and encounters the obnoxious fumes. Unhappily the scent is so distressing to some persons that they are not able to avail themselves of that protection. 135 A Philosopher in Portugal There is a grim pleasure, however, on rising in the morning to seek out your foes as they hang from the ceiling or repose against the wall, their slender bodies swollen up and purple with the blood they have sucked up, and lethargic with their meal, and then to do them to death in such a manner as not to leave any gory stains about. Taking precautions to this end gives quite a sporting character to the chase, and revenge, sport and a sense of usefulness combine to give a zest to the employment and to compensate very inadequately for the miseries of the past night. For this purpose the Philosopher used a small towel, folded into a pad and placed on a golf club with which, as it was a driver, he could annihilate his enemies as from a tee. For some occult reason fleas and bugs evaded contact with the Philosopher. It is said but there must be some exaggeration in the state- ment that on one occasion a friend occupy- ing an adjoining room to the Philosopher's at an inn where they were staying the night, heard 136 Insects such a curious pattering noise when the Philosopher got into bed that he had the curiosity to come in to the latter's room to see what it was, and that it proved to be caused by bugs and fleas hurrying out of the bed and falling on the bare floor below ! Anyhow the Philosopher could look on with calm composure at the antics of his friends who enjoyed no such immunity. Mark Twain, in his travels, heard a very good-looking girl exclaim that she had five hundred fleas upon her. The Philosopher had a friend, a dainty little lady, who might have run a good second to the young lady of Mannheim. She was a great source of attraction to pulex irritans and probably wherever she went attracted them from other people and as Mark Twain observes in the case he mentions: "she immediately lowered their average and raised her own. She became a sort of contribution box." On occasion the irritation became greater than the lady could bear and she had to fly to her own room and lock herself in while she chased the 137 A Philosopher in Portugal nimble foe in the innermost recesses of her apparel. Sometimes these paroxysms of irrita- tion and consequent flights to seclusion would occur at most awkward moments socially, and even the Philosopher, much as he chuckled to himself, would feel pity for the poor lady when she returned and had to make such explana- tions as she could or dared to the friends she had left in so abrupt a manner. The atrocious conduct of insects is a good subject of conversation, and gives rise to almost as much volubility as does the discussion of the atrocious conduct of servants though this latter theme is common to all women- folk in all countries. There is a certain amount of connecting circumstance between the insects and the servants, for the slovenly habits of the latter, and their own want of personal cleanli- ness are no doubt favourable conditions for the multiplication of the more industrious of the two indigenous objects of vituperation. The one really industrious and at the same time the most honest class of the community 138 Gallegos are the Gallegos, the Galician porters. For generations it has been the custom of these men to do any amount of hard and disagree- able work which the Portuguese will not condescend to do themselves. Southey tells a tale of an Englishman at Oporto who wanted his servant to carry a small box next door; the man said he was a Portuguese, not a beast ; and actually walked a mile to find a Gallego to carry the box. This is one of those stories which "if it be not true, is very apt," and instances of a somewhat similar nature will occur to any one who has lived in the country for any length of time. Many persons consider that the employment of these shrewd and thrifty aliens in such large numbers and for so many years has had a deteriorating effect upon the Portuguese character, apart from the tendency to keep wages down to a very low rate. Be this as it may, it is a very real convenience for business men to be able to employ for a moderate hire a trust- worthy messenger to carry letters and messages 139 A Philosopher in Portugal and to fetch parcels with civility, punctuality and integrity. The Philosopher s excursions, on foot, or driv- ing, or by rail, made him well acquainted with many of the outlying districts round Lisbon. One day he had made his way over the hills to Alges, where there is a bull-ring, and also a marine aquarium, which was closed, appar- ently for cleaning, on the one occasion when he mustered sufficient energy to go to it. He sat down and lit a cigarette and looked on at a game of bowls instead. A game of bowls, played on a rink of beaten mud and sand, without an atom of turf, does not sound invit- ing, but the jovial-looking individuals who were playing seemed to enjoy it, and not to mind the occasional eccentricities in the bias of the balls if indeed they were biassed at all, which appeared to be somewhat doubtful. He often went to the English cricket and lawn-tennis ground at Cruz Quebrada, and even played a set or two on the beaten courts, but he preferred sitting in the shade 140 Environs of Lisbon of the well-house and watching the flannel- clad cricketers running up and down their strip of matting, or toiling after the ball on the well-baked ground in the broiling sun. On one occasion he went to the Western Telegraph Company's station at Carcavellos to see a cricket match between "Car," as it is generally called, and an eleven from Oporto. One of the "Car" men laid himself out to be civil to the stranger, and the Philosopher spent a pleasant afternoon. Some month or six weeks subsequently, after his return home, he was talking to a young lady at a garden party when he happened to make some refer- ence to Lisbon. The girl immediately asked him if he knew Carcavellos and the telegraph station there ; and it turned out that it was her brother who had been so polite on the occasion of the cricket match. Verily the world is a very small one ! He was taken once to breakfast at Estoril, a seaside resort on the coast north of Lisbon, then a notorious gambling place. Now, for natives, gambling is strictly prohibited, though often 141 A Philosopher in Portugal winked at by the authorities. A change of ministry occurred about that time, and the new Minister of Justice announced his inten- tion of putting the laws against gambling strictly in force. This fell like a thunderclap on the Estoril Casino Company, and they immediately sought for some means of evading the obnoxious law. One ingenious director evolved a scheme for hiring an old man-of- war and mooring her a little way off shore. The inventor sought advice as to the legal aspects and general practicability of his scheme, and among others he appealed to the Philosopher. The latter pointed out that in order to successfully evade the law the ship must be moored beyond the three mile limit off the coast ; but that, in that case, no native could go out to her without first obtaining a passport from the police to leave the country ! And it was not likely that any one would be able to obtain such a pass- port for such a purpose, at least without having to pay much blackmail for the privi- lege. All this would be in addition to the 142 Gambling horrible discomforts which were bound to be experienced in getting out to or in returning from the floating hell. This idea was therefore abandoned, but no doubt the directors consoled themselves and their shareholders with the reflection that this severity was only intended to provide a means of levying backsheesh in the future. A light is thrown on the application of the law in these matters in the case of lotteries. By the Penal Code, articles 270 to 272, lot- teries are strictly prohibited unless duly authorised. But then they are always duly authorised, and the ticket sellers pester one all day long with their offers of tickets, and even rouse one from healthful slumbers with their raucous cries. Amongst the charms of life in the country cannot, unfortunately, be reckoned a constant view of picturesque costumes. The farmer himself, riding to market on his mule with his high - peaked saddle and cumbrous wooden stirrups ornamented with brass, with his cape strapped on in front with the bright red or 143 A Philosopher in Portugal blue lining outside, and dressed in his smart jacket and wearing a fine sombreiro hat, presents the most purely characteristic rural attire, and undoubtedly the most effective. There is nothing particularly attractive in the appear- ance of the women riding on their donkeys between their panniers, with perhaps a festoon of unfortunate fowls all alive slung on to some part of the steed. It is impossible to secure a graceful pose under the circumstances, and the pink skirt has a knack of ballooning up in a most comical and unseemly manner. Of the w r orkers in the fields the only attraction offered by their garments arises from the accidental grace of outline which sometimes accompanies rags and tatters, and from the indefinable shades of colour which faded material occasionally presents. As a rule their costume is simply torn, dirty, and both evil- looking and evil- smelling. The women at times may put on bright shawls and some- times even clean garments, and the men may put on bright waist-sashes and decorative caps, but these are exceptions, and the Philo- 144 Costumes sopher was glad to turn from the dreary monotony of rural apparel no doubt typical of the dull routine of the wearers' lives to the brighter, more distinctive and altogether more attractive costumes to be met with in the towns. The fish-girls of Porto and of Lisbon are dressed very much alike except for the head- dress that of the former being much the more becoming. The festa dresses of these girls and of the market women are gorgeous in the extreme, but in everyday life they generally wear some article full of colour which enlivens the whole, and which looks well as part of the moving picture of the street, even if it be not aesthetic, being generally of some violent and crude shade. As has already been mentioned, Portuguese work- ing women invest their savings in gold orna- ments of a peculiarly rich colour which they wear constantly, and though they do not dis- play them in an ostentatious manner, the glimpse of the gold chain or filigree heart, or whatever form the ornament may take, 145 k A Philosopher in Portugal lightens up the whole figure and helps to produce a harmonious effect. The gaudy algibeira, or money-pocket, attached to the waist gives another point of colour, and the whole effect is eminently successful. As a rule these girls wear no shoes or stockings and this, together with the practice of carry- ing great weights on their heads from their childhood up, gives them a good carriage and a fine outline of figure. A painter might do much worse than portray a Porto fish-girl either going about her business, or after her hard day's work was done, and she had adorned herself with a bright shawl or a gaudy kerchief and had donned the majenta stockings and saucy little wooden shoes which show so dis- tinctly below her short full skirt. The Philo- sopher thought such a picture, with a background of one of the public water conduits would be more attractive than the inevitable Roman contadina, or the fair and fat Black Forest maiden that are used as stuffing in so many exhibitions. In the towns, too, one sees the graceful 146 Costumes mantillas black and white and the high tortoise-shell combs, the most becoming head- gear ever invented. But, alas ! they are getting rarer, and the Philosopher noted with dismay the inrush of so-called Parisian hats and feathers. These elegant confections are highly becoming to the fair Parisiennes them- selves, but are not suited to any other style of beauty. The outward apparel of the other sex proved a source of intense interest to the Philosopher. This may seem curious, but there were circum- stances connected with it which appeared to deserve critical consideration and calm re- flection. At a first glance, it would not strike any one but a philosopher that there w T as anything worthy of a second glance. In some cases there was not much of it, as in the case of a fish-man with his panniers balanced on a long pole, running over from Alges or Cascaes inland, perhaps as far as Cintra. But in a general way, the pink shirt might or might not have been washed within an ap- preciable time; the jacket slung jauntily over 147 A Philosopher in Portugal the left shoulder might palpably be too dilapidated for any other use ; the green bargee cap with a red edge might be so dis- guised with grease and so faded as to render its original hues uncertain ; the sash round the waist (black, scarlet, or plaid in Porto ; black, crimson, or blue in Lisbon) might be twisted on anyhow, or tied coquettishly with the two fringes absolutely symmetrical ; but the special point of interest was centred in the garments which were supported by the sash and which reached almost to the bare feet below. These unmentionable but necessary portions of attire are ever of uncertain hue and material, and of a skimpiness and attenuated " cut " which renders it a matter of wonder how the owner could get either in or out of them. They are moreover generally patched, and it was the construction and the distribution of the patches which showed the Philosopher clearly that, whatever superficial observers might say, art is not dead in Portugal. Walter Crane alone could do justice to the 143 Patch es theme, and trace the evolution of the patch into an ornament, in a most interesting lecture ; but the Philosopher was enabled on several occasions to work out the process in a rough way. The following diagrams and explanations show how the feat is accomplished : / A shows the original in its integrity ; B shows the painful hiatus which has to be covered up ; C shows the artistic patch, of some colour strongly contrasting with the original material, which has been put over the torn or worn portion, and which has been counterbalanced by a precisely similar patch on the other side, not necessary from any material point of view, but added simply to gratify a purely ornamental instinct. 149 CHAPTER VIII A Bull-fight The Shady Side The Parade Bulls A Man Tossed A Spirited Bull A Plucky Cavalier Over the Barrier Mocos de Forcado Royal Patronage Choosing the Young Bulls Customs A New Performer Habits Adenoids. Of course the Philosopher was taken to see a bull-fight, and, having seen one, he was always ready to go again to a Corrida. Gallenga says : " A bull-ring exists, but the performance is bloodless ; it is like fish without sauce ; and has no attraction except for the disreputable." This appeared to the Philosopher to be an utterly untenable brace of assertions. The Portuguese bull-fight is not a scene of disgraceful cruelty as is too often the case in Spain. There are no poor old horses to be disembowelled, and then sewn up and made to do duty a second time, to be again ripped open by the sharp horns of 150 A Bull-fight the bull. Even the killing of the bull is omitted, which is perhaps a pity, for there is nothing really cruel in the way in which a clever espada gives the final proof of his skill and ability, slaying the bull instantly ; while the bull being spared to fight another day, does not as a rule give the good sport oh a second occasion which makes the Praga de Touros so attractive and interesting. Taken altogether, there is nothing equal to a good bull-fight, whether as sport or as spectacle. The amphitheatre itself is a sight to see, with its tiers of seats rising from the bench just above the outer ring to the boxes at the top. The boxes are more fashionable and far more ex- pensive, and are usually filled with gaily dressed ladies, but the stone bench just on the outer barrier is the place to see and to appreciate what is going on in the arena, and the true connoisseurs hasten to secure these, on the shady side, and hire a cushion to sit on. The seats are divided between those on the Sombra, or shady side, and those on the Sol, or sunny side. The seats on 151 A Philosopher in Portugal the former are as a rule double the price of those on the latter. There are also some intermediate seats, known as the Sombra-Sol, which though in the sun at the commencement of the entertainment are gradually included in the shade as the shadows lengthen. The spectacular part commences with the grand parade of the performers not including the bulls. The gates opposite the president's chair are thrown open, there is a flourish of trumpets, and the gaily apparelled company enter the arena, and crossing it, make obeisance to the president. First come the cavalleiros, the mounted performers, in their magnificent costumes, on their splendid horses covered with gay trappings. These grand animals are beautifully trained, and their manoeuvres offer a sight not soon to be forgotten, as after halting in front of the president, they part and go sideways right round the ring, meeting and crossing at the great gates, and meeting once more in front of the president. All this time their heads are kept facing the audience and 152 The Parade their tails pointing to the centre of the ring, and their riders raise their three-cornered hats and bow courteously to the whole of the spectators. The espada, for so is the principal performer called, in his gorgeous dress, and attended by his cuadrilla (gang) of bandaril- heiros (dart carriers) comes forward and they in their turn salute the president and the audience generally. The attendants and herds- men and others may be seen in the background, and the picturesque evolutions being completed, all retire, and then, usually, one of the cavaliers rides into the ring holding a long dart, and attended by two or three men on foot with cloaks in their hands, and thus they await the bugle call and the entry of the first bull. Bulls differ very much in the amount of sport they give, and the audience watch eagerly for the first appearance and rush of each one. Great is the disappointment if he be not game, for he may be a cow-hearted animal with no fight in him, or he may be one who has been used on a former occasion, and does not care to take the 153 A Philosopher in Portugal trouble to charge cloaks that are waved close, even insultingly close, to his nose, but which his former experience has taught him will prove quite empty and uninteresting if he do charge them. The audience shower abuse upon him, and call him quite untranslatable names. But the bull, like the Philosopher, was only amused at these expressions of public opinion, and the barbed darts, gay with coloured paper, known as bandarilhas, are stuck into his shoulders without any great exhibition of emotion on his part, and all the other feats are performed with- out causing any real excitement. When the well -trained troop of oxen at last appear tinkling the long copper bells hung around their necks and guided by gaily dressed herdsmen armed with long goads, and surround the bull and seek to induce him to trot out of the arena in their midst, there is a moment of expectancy, for sometimes the quietest and meekest bull will suddenly break back into the ring at this moment and for a while there will be a scene of w r ild confusion as the performers and attendants of all 154 A Man Tossed sorts vault out of the ring with commendable activity. It is always interesting to watch the agility and the vigilance of the performers, for however sluggish and sullen a bull may appear to be, it is necessary to watch him narrowly. At the first bull-fight the Philosopher was taken to, a well-known bandarilheiro from the gang of the famous espada, "Bombita," was standing with his back to a not very lively animal, and re- laxed his caution for a second or so. In less time than it takes to tell the bull had charged and tossed the big, heavy man into the air. Almost before he had fallen back on the sand his mates were round the bull waving their mantles and they effectually took his attention from his victim and kept him running from one to the other all over the other side of the ring until their comrade had risen somewhat stiffly and clambered over the barrier. The bull's horns are well padded so the man was not gored in any way, but he had had a nasty shock, and though he came back later in the afternoon and did his part pluckily enough, he was not so nimble 155 A Philosopher in Portugal as in the earlier part of the performance, and doubtless would require many litres of embroca- tion to restore his damaged muscles and tendons. The Philosopher was not insensible to the thrill which passed through and round the crowded Prapa when a bull charged in and made straight for the cavalier who was waiting with his long and gaily decorated dart ready to be plunged into the bull's neck. Evading with much skill the charges made by the bull, the cavalier after repeated trials effected his purpose, and a fair amount of applause was being rendered to his skill, which was turned into a perfect roar as the bull fairly chased horse and man round and round the ring, and they appeared to have no chance of escaping from their infuriated antagonist. Indeed in that particular case the bull fairly drove his opponents off the ground, knocking over both man and horse, in such a manner that had not his horns been padded, a terrible catastrophe would have occurred. The intrepid foot per- formers were soon around with their waving 156 A Game Bull cloaks, and secured the retreat of the man and his steed. These came in again undaunted by their first discomfiture, but again the bull got the best of it, and despite the efforts of the cavalleiro and of his handsome charger, in a few moments they were once more rushing at full speed round the arena pursued by the victorious bull. Then, just as the horse and his rider appeared to be getting into a better position by their skilful manoeuvres, an un- toward circumstance occurred the saddle-girth broke and the unfortunate horseman was thrown heavily while the horse galloped on wildly. For a second the bull hesitated which antagonist to make for, which gave time for the whole lot of bandarilheiros to surround him and so bewilder him with their cloaks that the man and his horse could be quickly got to places of safety. Now the bull created a diversion and charged furiously at the nearest ban- darilheiro, who, abandoning his mantle pre- cipitately, flew to the side and vaulted over the barrier at the moment that the bull's horns 157 A Philosopher in Portugal struck the stout timbers beneath his hands. The undaunted animal followed his enemy, clearing the inner barrier and rushing round the gangway between that and the outer barrier. Then it was a ludicrous sight to see the whole crowd of performers, grooms and attendants vault back into the arena, while the bull was in possession of this supposed place of safety. The shouts and applause of the audience were deafening and seemed to excite the bull still more, so he made several attempts to jump the outer barrier also, and, getting amongst the seats, to give his admirers a taste of his quality. He could not accomplish this feat, however, though it is not by any means unknown, and the special bars having been drawn across the gangway and the emergency gates opened, he once more trotted into the arena. Several of the most agile and experienced of the bandarilheiros then tried one after another to fix a pair of bandarilhas in his shoulders, but he was too much for all of them, and not one of them succeeded in fixing even one of 158 A Game Bull his darts, but all had to fly to the barrier, leaving their darts in the sand. Once more the cavalier and his horse came upon the scene. A plain business saddle without any gorgeous trappings had been placed on the horse's back, and the magnificent garments of the cavalleiro were rent and torn and begrimed with dirt and sand. Again the scene was enacted, and the courage of the man in thus facing this game animal once more was magnificent. The horse, however, was somewhat nervous, and after a little manoeuvring fairly fled before the wild rush of the bull, and was once again caught by the padded horns and rolled over. Again the whirling mantles distracted the bull, and in a few seconds both horse and man had escaped through the gate thrown open by the attendants. Then, amidst thunders of applause, which the bull appeared quite to understand were in his honour, the president gave the signal, and at the bugle call, the tame oxen came in, and after some trouble the conqueror was persuaded to accompany them 159 A Philosopher in Portugal outside where his one slight wound could be attended to, and where a mighty feed awaited him. Elegant and exciting as is this episode of the cavalleiro, and remarkable as are the feats of the espadas, such, for instance, as jumping over the charging bull with the help of a leaping-pole, the Philosopher was perhaps more delighted with the Homeric contest with the porters which terminated some of the items of the performance. In these cases, after the bandarilhas had been fixed into the bull's shoulders and all the rest done, at a given signal a band of seven or eight men, dressed as herdsmen, and known as Mogos de Forcado (literally youths of the prong) enter the arena, and rush at and attack the bull. One, apparently the leader of the gang, throws him- self between the bull's horns, clasping them in his arms and bringing his whole weight to bear upon the animal's head, sometimes doing this remarkable feat backwards. The others all catch hold of any part of the animal 160 M090S de Forcado that comes handy one always seizing the tail and after a few moments of a most titanic struggle the bull is thrown on his side and held down by the men. It is a magnificent exhibition of skill and strength, and in scanning the brilliant posters of bull-fights the Philo- sopher eagerly sought for the announcement : Um Valente Grupo de Mocos de Forcado (A gallant band of youths of the prong), and pestered all his acquaintances with enquiries as to whether this part of the entertainment was likely to be really good and worth seeing. He lost caste as a connoisseur by so doing, as it is looked upon rather as an interlude for the amusement of the profanum vulgus than as adapted for the delectation of true Touro- machians. Even if one were insensible to the picturesque- ness of the whole scene, the beautiful horses, the gorgeous attire of the performers, with their richly embroidered jackets, their clubbed hair and quaint head-gear, the sport itself is well calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of the 1G1 l A Philosopher in Portugal most phlegmatic individual, and it is by no means wonderful that a warm-blooded race such as the Portuguese should patronise it extensively. Gallenga's assertion as to the attraction being felt only by the disreputable portion of the communit}^ is completely dis- proved by a careful consideration of the company who frequent this spectacle. Bull- fights receive royal patronage, and the royal box is rarely empty at any good corrida in Lisbon or the neighbourhood. This is an old custom, for the author of " An Account of the Court of Portugal," published in 1700, tells us : " The King never fails to be present at the publick Bull-runnings all the three Days, which is the time this Feast usually lasts: Perhaps his Compliance in this, as that of Augustus was on the like occasions, may be as much to please the People as Himself: For the Portugueses, from the highest to the lowest, are strangely fond of the Sport." Dom Pedro If., about whom this curious book is concerned, was not satisfied to be merely a 162 Selection of Bulls spectator of the prowess of others, but we are told that at his House of Pleasure at Alcantara " he often enjoys himself at his beloved Exercise of Riding with his Lance at the Bull, Per- forming with admirable Dexterity and Conduct. Nor is he content to deal with that fierce Animal on Horseback, but he frequently engages him on foot." The present king does not enter the arena himself, but contents him- self with encouraging the sport. In June, the young bulls are selected and the members of the Touromachian Societies are fond of exhibiting their prowess in catching and throwing the chosen animals and holding them while they are being marked. It is difficult to get an invitation to these performances, which, however, are not quite so thrilling as they were formerly, several noble amateurs having been badly damaged, and in consequence the work is now mainly done by professionals, and though still interesting enough, loses the personal note which it erstwhile possessed. Besides the enjoyment w T hich he derived 163 A Philosopher in Portugal from the sport itself, the Philosopher keenly- appreciated the chance of observing the de- meanour of the aborigines when attending their national pastime. As might be expected, the characteristic national habits proved to be more openly exhibited when the excitement of the moment removed all feeling of restraint. The whole audience marked their approval or their disapproval of bulls or of performers in a most unmistakable manner. In the latter case a violent torrent of abuse, couched in vile language, and accompanied by inarticulate howls and with gestures of infinite contempt, is directed towards the object of disgust, while a perfect tornado of cheers and yells greets the subject of approval and applause. In the case of a performer who has just achieved some notable feat of agility and courage, this approval takes one form of expression which amused the Philosopher, and which consisted in the frantic showering of all sorts of hats at the feet of the object of homage. It is an inane thing to do and gives much trouble to the m A New Cavalleiro gallant bull-fighter, who has to return these hats to their respective owners. Probably he feels more gratitude towards those members of the audience who signify their appreciation of his efforts by throwing cigars into the arena which he puts in his pocket and smokes when his labours are over. The audience applaud good-naturedly when a young performer is formally introduced to the president on his first public appearance. The Philosopher was present at the Campo Pequeno at Lisbon when a new cavalleiro was presented. He rode up to the president between the two older cavaliers and was duly introduced by them. The introduction was formally acknowledged, and the young fellow rode out of the arena bowing on all sides, to await his turn to perform. This was not until six bulls had been harassed out, when he rode in and taking his long dart in his hand awaited the appearance of the seventh bull. The young cavalleiro was evidently nervous, and seemed to communicate some of his nervousness to the 165 A Philosopher in Portugal beautiful bright bay horse he was riding, but he managed his business very well, sticking his dart into the bull's neck with grace and correctness, and escaping the latter's furious charges skilfully and elegantly. He was much cheered, and no doubt was elated with his success and with his reception. In the intervals the audience indulge in their ordinary habits, smoking innumerable cigarettes of course, and spitting about everywhere, and hawking and " snorking " most prodigiously. Their emunctory performances are of extra- ordinary force and vigour, and suggest that nearly the whole population suffer from some special affection of the internal nasal orifice. The Philosopher was assured that, as a matter of fact, a very large percentage of natives are afflicted with adenoid growths. 166 CHAPTER IX Portuguese Character Spanish Proverb Hatred of Spaniards Manners at Meals Toothpicks Kindly and Good-natured Dishonesty Shame Money Notes A Lost Wallet The Servant Question Criadas Criados A Handy Coach- man The Solemn Butler Cultivators of the Soil Washing The Chula Social Divisions Doctors and Lawyers Mid wives Love of Children Drink Syrens Jokes. The accepted descriptions of the Portuguese character are not as a rule flattering, but, though the Philosopher was constrained to admit that there was a certain substratum of truth in the injurious statements which have obtained currency, they were on the whole unfair to the kindly, good-natured, dirty, thrifty, laborious yet lazy, and dishonest Lusitanians. One of the commonest of these ungracious sayings consists of a comparison of the 167 A Philosopher in Portugal Portuguese with the Spaniard. Southey has on this subject a passage which may be quoted in full : " ' Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a good Portuguese of him/ says the Spanish proverb. I have heard it said more truly, 'Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you have the Portuguese character.' These nations blaspheme God, by calling each other natural enemies. Their feelings are mutually hostile, but the Spaniards despise the Portuguese, and the Portuguese hate the Spaniards." Of the truth of this last state- ment there can be no doubt whatever. The words placed in the mouth of a Portuguese in Beaumont and Fletcher's "The Custom of the Country" " if you were Ten thousand times a Spaniard, the nation We Portugals most hate " are as true now as the day they were first written. They are undoubtedly dirty in their habits and piggish eaters. To quote again from 168 Habits Southey : " Every kind of vermin that exists to punish the nastiness and indolence of man, multiplies in the heat and dirt of Lisbon. From the worst and most offensive of these, cleanliness may preserve the English resident." By the way it is no slight aid to the elucida- tion of the national character that these old books, written by keen observers from one to two centuries ago, contain as true descriptions and convey as accurate impressions of the present state of affairs as if they had been written yesterday or the day before. With regard to their bad manners at meals, Englishmen are more fastidious than any other Europeans in their mode of consuming their food, and the Philosopher could not say that the Portuguese w r ere worse in this respect than the inhabitants of other countries in which he had sojourned. Some people profess to be mightily offended by their habit of having a plentiful supply of wooden toothpicks on the table, which they use freely ; but after all there is one cleanly thing about this, for it must be 169 A Philosopher in Portugal admitted that if you use a toothpick at all, it is cleaner to use a nice new wooden peg every time and throw it away when done with, than to carry one of quill, or of gold, or of silver in one's waistcoat pocket, as many Englishmen do. Certainly the Portuguese are kindly and good-natured, and of this the Philosopher had ample experience. Philosophy and previous travels in foreign lands had taught him that a due observance of local rules of politeness have always a good effect, and in Portugal, this simple act of civility was everywhere repaid with a kindness and courtesy which made his stay in the country very pleasant. They bear the reputation of being singularly revengeful, but as the Philosopher never incurred, so far as he knew, anyone's resentment or spite, he could say nothing at first hand on this point. Undoubtedly the Portuguese are now, as they have ever been described as being, first rate liars, but as philosophers never believe anyone but themselves and do not always go as far as that no particular inconvenience attended 170 Dishonesty this trait. Another eminently national char- acteristic of the Lusitanians is their dishonesty. It is not to be supposed that there are not honest people amongst them, but even these persons do not look with expressed disfavour upon the malpractices of their less scrupulous neighbours, who cheat and thieve with the utmost sangfroid and even if caught out will only smile more or less good-temperedly and give up their ill-gotten gain, or so much of it as may seem to them politic under the circum- stances. As for shame, that they never experi- ence, and would not know what the sensation was, if felt. Probably it would be considered as a physical ill, and a doctor and priest would be summoned in all haste. Decidedly the Philosopher was forced to rely on his philosophy to enable him to bear the numerous petty acts of dishonesty success- fully carried out at the expense of his purse. Especially was this the case in the matter of receiving change before he had learned to dis- tinguish properly what number of reis went 171 A Philosopher in Portugal to make up the different coins or designations in which the amount might be stated. For instance, a hundred reis would be called a cem (simply " a hundred ") by one person, would be designated as a teston pronounced testoon (the name of a coin) by another, and would be expressed as five vintems (a bronze piece worth twenty reis) by a third. All this required con- sideration, and the difficulty was of course much enhanced when the amount was stated in the multiples or submultiples of some coin long gone out of circulation and the use of which has sur- vived only in some out-of-the-way nooks and corners of the kingdom or among certain classes of tradesmen. Formerly, for instance, there was a coin known as a Cruzado, or crown. There was moreover another piece of money known as a Cruzado novo. Now the former was equal to 400 reis, while the "new crown" was worth 480 reis, which provide a fair field for recrea- tion in the way of mental arithmetic, when used to designate a sum of money which has to be paid in modern coins or notes. As the Philos- 172 Money opher gradually gained the experience for which he was paying, he made head against these petty depredations, and was even able to lay traps by simulating a profound ignorance, so as to have the pleasure of catching the cheat. On one great occasion he found after his return home that in bargaining and disputing and ringing the changes he had done a well-known sharp practitioner out of some 150 reis, but this was to be attributed to accident rather than to vice. The expression of amounts in mill-reis (a thousand reis), called " dollars" by the English community once worth 5s. lOd. in English money, but now varying from 3s. Id. to 3s. 4d. has a most gorgeous effect, and the changing of a ten pounds' circular note is enough to turn anyone's head, except a philosophers, and to give an impression of untold wealth. The first time that the Philosopher changed such a note he received no fewer than 65,415 reis, written 65$415. The feeling of the possession of such unbounded riches was very exhilarating when the amount was received, the 173 A Philosopher in Portugal greasy notes with face values from a hundred reis upwards being counted, sorted, carefully examined to see that there were no forged ones amongst them, and placed in their respective compartments of the carteira, or wallet, which everyone carries in Portugal as a receptacle for the paper money. On the other hand, the feeling was far more depressing when that same carteira was lost with about 43$000 in notes of various denominations. In fact there was only philosophy to fall back upon, together with another circular note which fortunately was not in the wallet. The Philosopher was informed that it was not the least use to report the loss to the police, and that the only thing to be done was to circulate a description of it among the conductors of the electric trams, for it seemed most probable that it had been lost on the hind platform of one of them, and to offer a large reward. A friend informed the Phil- osopher, as a consolation, that no doubt if the wallet had contained memoranda only, it would have been restored speedily, but that no one 174 Notes and Coins could be expected to give up such a magnificent haul, especially as the festa of San Joao was imminent. This Job's comforter was quite right in his surmise, and a new carteira had to be procured and had to be stuffed with a fresh supply of notes. This second wallet was most carefully looked after for the rest of the Phil- osopher's stay in the country. The money itself, in the little dirty notes, with a good chance of some of them being forged, is troublesome enough to carry about. Gold coins are unknown in circulation, being only seen occasionally in a money-changer's window, and the handsome silver coinage is scarce. There are plenty of bronze coins, from five to twenty rets in value these latter being known to the English colonists as "pennies" but to carry about several mill-reis in fifties of these pieces would necessitate in such a climate the hire of a Gallego as purse- bearer. Since the Philosopher's return to his native land, the Portuguese currency has been mucli 175 A Philosopher in Portugal improved by the withdrawal of all the small denomination notes, and the substitution of nickel pieces of the same face value. As has been said before, the misdeeds of servants are treated by the ladies with great prolixity, and there is certainly something to be said on the side of the mistresses. Criadas (female servants) are not as a rule smart in appearance nor brisk in manner. The English maid, in her becoming costume, with all her undoubted faults, is a wonderful contrast in every way. While she takes a pride, as a rule, in her dress, appearance and manners, her Portuguese sister generally spends her small wages on gold ornaments, such as have already been described, which she can wear to the festas and servants' balls which she loves so well ; and the girl who gets herself up in a wonderful costume for one of these occasions thinks her mistress a most unreasonable person if she should utter a word of complaint at the sluttish and draggle-tailed appearance of her domestic about the house, or when waiting at table. The m Servants criada is not particularly honest, nor par- ticularly modest, nor particularly euergetic, nor particularly desirable in any way. She does not care whether she is turned away or not as she feels sure that she can get another situation without difficulty. Taken generally without a character, she goes away without one, and is none the worse off. If a lady answer such a typical advertisement as the following, taken from the columns of Commercio do Porto one of the leading daily papers in Oporto : ''Criada, offerece-se uma de 18 annos, Da boas informacoes, Rua do Loureiro, 136" (Female servant, one of eighteen years of age, offers herself. Gives good references, 136 Loureiro Street) and asks for the good references, she will get some testimonials probably, but they will either be false, or will not satisfactorily account for the time during which the advertiser professes to have been out to service. On the other hand she is cheap, is generally obliging, is always kind to children, and gets along somehow if her faults be not too harshly 177 m A Philosopher in Portugal treated, and she is content with cheap food, which, however nourishing and wholesome, an English maid would treat with contempt. Criados (male servants) are generally more satisfactory than the girls. Thoroughly faithful and attached servants may be met with among them, and when that is the case no more excellent servitor can be desired. The Philoso- pher, who was rather tired of listening to the denunciations of servants, was much amused by the graphic description given him by one of his hostesses of her having found it necessary on one occasion to clear out all her criadas summarily, and being left dependent upon the coachman, a young fellow who had been in the family since he was a small boy. He was not the least dismayed; he cooked the dinners, nursed the babies, made the beds, and with the help of a couple of charwomen ran the whole show for a few days until a new staff of domestics could be procured. He kept every- body in a good humour with his merry countenance and cheerful manners, and when X78 A Solemn Butler things were set right, it was found that through all this he had in no way neglected his own work, but had efficiently supervised his sub- ordinates, and that the horses and stables had been kept quite up to the mark. The same lady once had a solemn butler in whom the Philosopher took great interest. He suffered from melancholia, induced by the death of his wife. The doctors prescribed a second marriage or seclusion in an asylum. The state of his mind was very bad, and the Philosopher considered that his choice of the former alternative was ample evidence of his fitness for the latter. He married one of the criadas, but never spoke to her nor to any of the other servants, and was never known to smile but once. That happened when the Philosopher was present. Andre* was waiting at lunch and looking about as cheerful as a mute who saw no prospect of a " go " of gin after the funeral. In opening a bottle of highly charged Eomilhosa water the cork flew out and hit him smartly on the nose. The children screamed with delight, 179 A Philosopher in Portugal and he stood for a moment gazing at the bottle and at the water which was fizzing out, then rubbed his nose sympathetically and finally smiled a real smile. It may have been rather a sardonic smile, but it was an unmistakable smile, and the Philosopher had hopes of him after that. A very faithful, hard-working class are the farm hands, the gardeners, and the various cultivators employed upon a quinta, especially the foremen. Their attachment, however, appears to be directed to the soil itself, and their interest is centred rather in the estate than in their employer. The fact that anything hurtful to the estate is harmful to him, or that anything beneficial to the estate is profitable to him is an accident. The estate claims the first consideration, the owner's advantage is incidental. Washing is another subject whereon the ladies discourse shrilly. There are, it must be admitted, certain points about laundry work in Portugal which are calculated to rouse fierce 180 Washing emotions in the gentlest breast. The Philos- opher had once been told that the difference between an ordinary laundress and a steam laundry was that the laundress washes the buttons off your shirt, but the steam laundry washes the shirt away from the buttons. When he had witnessed the process in Portugal, he came to the conclusion that any method which respected portions of the shirt and some of the buttons was to be commended. At Lega he often paused to watch the women at work at the washing-place by the riverside above the bridge. Each knelt in front of a large flat stone the surface of which was well above the water, but sloped down to it. The unfortunate garment was dipped in the river (where bacilli of various degrees of venomous intensity were swimming merrily), soaped and twisted up into a wisp and then banged on the flat stone as hard as the washerwoman could strike. If the stone were perfectly flat and even, so much the better, and if it were not smooth and there were irregularities in the surface, so much the worse. 181 A Philosopher in Portugal The banging was rhythmical, and punctuated the beats in the song of the Chula, the some- what broad topical song which is so immensely popular with the Portuguese people. It is rather doleful and in connection with the washing might be considered in the light of a dirge over the remains of what had once been complete domestic or personal articles. When the garment in question had been sufficiently mutilated it was rinsed once more in the insalubrious stream and spread out to dry in the sun. In this condition it is sent home, and then has to be sent on to the ironer, for the same person does not carry out the whole process. This is bad enough, but in large towns the cleansing is effected by means of chemicals, and many holes are caused thereby, particularly where marking ink has been used. Everywhere in the rural districts, where there is a stream, no matter how insignificant, and no matter how polluted, at every available point washing stones are to be found, and in the gardens attached to private houses washing 182 Society tanks are provided, each fitted up with a smooth flat stone for laundry purposes. Social divisions in Portugal are hard to define. The old nobility, the fidalgos, to a great extent hold themselves aloof; but the new nobility, composed mainly, according to Gallenga, of adventurers returned from Brazil with fortunes of varying magnitudes, the professional classes, the merchants, the tradesmen, the officials of all sorts, if they do not actually mingle, have many points of contact. The doctors and the lawyers do not perhaps hold the same position that they do in most civilised countries, and something of this is no doubt due to the mode of making professional charges. When asked how much his client or his patient is indebted to him, the man of law or the man of medicine usually answers : "What your Excellency thinks fair." This is very irritating, for it necessitates the working out of an amount by some rule of thumb method which either lands one in an extravagance or in a meanness in one's payment, but rarely in a happy medium. 183 A Philosopher in Portugal The tradesman shakes hands with his regular customers, whatever their rank, places chairs for them, chats affably with them, and after a time, proceeds to ascertain their wants in a leisurely fashion, and then sets to work to get as much out of them as he can. Duels are not unknown, but are generally of the French variety, wherein the smallest scratch is held to be sufficient to satisfy the demands of honour. One flourishing industry in Portugal appears to be that of the midwives, of whom an extra- ordinary number seem to exercise their calling in Lisbon and everywhere else. The parteira, as she is called, generally lives in an entresol, and her doorpost is decorated with a white cross, of the variety which heralds designate a "cross botonee." Why this sign should be adopted for that particular profession, the Philosopher was not able to ascertain ; unless, indeed, it is some sort of allusion to the Virgin. There is one characteristic of the Portuguese people which must strike an observer immedi- 184 Love of Children ately, and must impress him as being a most amiable trait in the national temperament and that is the great love for children which is made manifest at every turn. They may be dirty, they may be naughty, they may be their own children, or they may be the offspring of complete strangers, the greatest kindness and affection are ever shown to the little ones. To be good to a child is a sure passport to the favour of any one interested in it. As a natural consequence the little brats are horribly spoiled. As far as the Philosopher could ascertain there is no system of granting licenses for selling alcoholic drinks. Any man or woman who chooses may set up a wine shop on payment of certain dues, and a great many of these little shops are in existence. Nevertheless although the Philosopher could say with Borrow : " I have known several drunkards amongst the Portuguese," yet he was prepared to endorse the opinion of the author of "An Account of the Court of Portugal," when he says: "and, I believe, there is no people in Europe, less 185 A Philosopher in Portugal addicted, to that inexcusable Vice of Drunken- ness, than they are." Those whom he did see in that condition were in a state of goodfellow- ship. Probably they had been drinking the little light wine of the country, and were of sufficient cubical capacity to hold such a quantity as would contain an appreciable drop of alcohol. Had they, however, been taking drams of the fearful spirit aguardente, raw, new, fiery, vying indeed with the worst of the American rye whiskies, probably they would have been mad drunk and capable of any mischief, if not of crime, before the effects of the vile liquor had passed off. Besides the fact that the wine is hardly more alcoholic than the cider that one gets in non-licensed refreshment rooms, it is a fact that when the average Portu- guese is thirsty, his first idea is not to go to a wine shop, but to quench his thirst with a draught of water, or with a glass of the com- pounds of lemon juice and bitter herbs which the street vendors mix up for their customers at very moderate rates. There was a famous 186 Morals compounder of limonada, whose stall in the Praca de Luis de Camoes at Lisbon was patron- ised by all classes, and the Philosopher had many a glass of his iced lemon-squash as the weather got hotter and hotter towards the end of his stay. Rightly or wrongly the Portuguese women have ever been credited with levity of conduct. Beaumont and Fletcher in " The Custom of the Country" have given a striking account of an institution which if it ever did exist, would be evidence of a most decisive character as to the want of morality of the dames of that period. Though no doubt the real facts are very much distorted by exaggeration, it cannot be denied that even to this day the women are not sup- posed to be very dragons of virtue. Under such circumstances it is not a matter for wonderment that the ladies who derive a professional income from not being dragonesses should attract attention to themselves and advertise their pitiable calling. This is done by hanging the Venetian blind over and outside 187 A Philosopher in Portugal the balcony of the window. This is a signal not to be misunderstood, even if the balcony be empty ; but often in the shadow may be discerned the form of the frail occupant of the room, not over clad. From this coign of vantage the syren looks down upon the crowd in the street, and hisses loudly to attract the attention of any one that seems to be a likely prey, and if he chance to look up, beckons to him. Some, no doubt, yield to the doubtful and dangerous attraction ; most pass on with indifference, and a few smile and signal a gesture used by the Portuguese to convey a negative answer, and which fills the women with rage. Though it has often been remarked that a note of sadness is ever present in the Portuguese, they are not without a sense of humour. It is only in repose or when engaged in serious work that the subdued manner is so evident. Other- wise they can smile and laugh and chatter. They can even chuckle over the comic bits in the newspapers. The Philosopher witnessed 188 Jokes quite an outburst of enthusiasm over a skit in a daily journal, describing the fates of four flies, who were united in the bonds of the closest friendship. One died from eating adulterated sugar, another succumbed to an unwholesome draught of adulterated oil, and the third was killed by the action on his system of some adulterated chocolate. The disconsolate survivor determined to commit suicide, so settled on a fly-paper and browsed ravenously. But this was also adulterated, and consequently the fly waxed fat and flourished exceedingly ! From another Lisbon paper, the Diaro de Noticias, the Philosopher culled the following caricature and rather feeble joke about the relative joys of the country and of the seaside. 189 A Philosopher in Portugal GJL2&FO JEl P>K,A.IAS No campo engorda-se, comendo e tratando das batatas ; nas praias entisica-se amando lando a perna nas valsas. (In the country he fattens, eating and cultivating potatoes ; on the beach he becomes consumptive, loving to shake his leg in waltzes.) 190 CHAPTER X The Portuguese Language The " Nine Excellences " of Macedo Irregularities of Pronunciation and of Orthography General Construction Literature Elpino Camoens The Lusiads Braga's Folk-lore Three Sisters The Sleeping Beauty "Tic-taco." The Portuguese language is very differently described by different persons. Miss Leek, in her " Iberian Sketches," speaks of "the disagreeable nasal sounds, and slip-shod sibilants of the Portuguese"; and this is a very common opinion. On the other hand, Wall (who may perhaps not be considered wholly impartial) in the preface to his Portuguese Grammar, says : 1 ' Latin is the basis of Portuguese, but in the course of time words from other languages have been admitted into its vocabulary. Many Arabic words were introduced by the Moors, 191 A Philosopher in Portugal when masters of the Peninsula. The great commercial enterprise of the Portuguese in bygone days caused the admission of not a few French, English, and Dutch words, so that the language is extremely rich in the means of expressing ideas, while its majestic and sonorous periods make it a worthy rival of its more favoured co7ifreres, Spanish and Italian." Gallenga remarks that: "The Portuguese is not half so loud and demonstrative as his Spanish cousin. The voice is pitched in a lower, dulcet, mincing tone. ... It is very easy to say that Portuguese is only a dialect of the Spanish language, and that the people of the two countries understand one another when each of them is using his own idiom. But it is a fallacy. Portuguese and Spanish are dialects of the same language, but not more intelligible to the people of the two countries than Spanish and Italian." In fact, they are two distinct members of the illus- trious family of the Latin languages, and it 192 Language is as reasonable to expect a Portuguese to understand French as it is to expect him to understand Spanish. As a matter of fact, the Philosopher was once asked in a restaurant in Lisbon to interpret the wants of a Spanish gentleman, who knew only his own tongue. The Philosopher's spoken Spanish was not very fluent, but fortunately proved sufficient for the purpose. Southey quotes from Macedo a curious panegyric of the language, which he asserts to possess nine excellences, set out thus : (l) Its great antiquity, being one of the seventy-two languages given by God to the builders of Babel, and brought into Portugal by Tubal; (2) It has every quality which a language ought to have to make it perfect ; (3) Its harmonious pronunciation ; (4) Its brevity ; (5) Its perfect orthography ; (6) Its adaptability to any style ; (7) Its great similarity to Latin, indeed, some Portuguese writers have amused themselves but no one else by composing verses in the two 193 n A Philosopher in Portugal languages at once ; (8) The wide extent of country where the Portuguese language is spoken ; (9) The commendations bestowed upon it by so many authors. Now, as to the first and the second of these " excellences," the Philosopher was not pre- pared to combat either statement ; but with regard to the third, he found that the pro- nunciation varied according to the locality. Indeed, so great was the difference between the language as he had learned to speak it in Oporto, and as he heard it spoken in Lisbon that at first he found it hard to understand some words. It is said that only in the university town of Coimbra is the language spoken with purity. With regard to the claim for brevity, it may be said that the construc- tion of sentences is pretty much the same as in the other members of the Latin family, but that it is more direct than the others, and admits less of those transpositions of words, which give so much grace to Italian, so much dignity to Spanish, and so much vivacity to French. 194 Orthography It is consequently easy to read, and when the idioms have been mastered the hardest part of any language it is not difficult to write. The Philosopher, who knew it sufficiently to be able to read it easily before he started on his voyage, found no greater difficulties in acquiring a slight acquaintance with the spoken language than the usual ones arising from the inability of the ear to follow the unusual tones, giving the effect of intolerably quick speaking ; and the usual failure of the proper word to present itself to the tongue when required. He found that his knowledge of the other Latin languages was rather a disadvantage, as, if the Portuguese word did not come readily, it would often happen that the equivalent in one of the other three tongues would present itself and cause great confusion. An example of this has been given in Chapter V. The claim for perfect orthography is due to the imagination of Macedo, for the spelling is gorgeously variegated, there being no authori- tative dictionary of academic or of quasi- 195 A Philosopher in Portugal academic rank. In fact, the best dictionary, or, at least, the one most in use, is Brazilian, and, though no doubt very good in itself, cannot be set up as a great authority on the Portuguese tongue as spoken in Portugal itself. The similarity of the language to Latin cannot be denied, but whether the power of carrying such a tour de force into effect as composing a poem in both languages at once can be called an "excellence," the Philosopher was very much inclined to doubt, especially after he had read one or two of these monstrosities. It is a question whether the comparative frequency of adenoid growths mentioned in a former chapter does or does not account for some of the peculiarities of the language "as she is spoke." The Philosopher could not make up his mind upon this point, but the thought did occur to him on more than one occasion that it was possible that there was some connection at least between the physical 196 Pronunciation infirmity and the curious clipping of words and swallowing of last syllables, which is so common, and which is so perplexing to beginners. To give some examples ; in Lisbon he sought to buy a table toothpick-holder of a particular pattern. He accordingly asked for a paliteiro, and had some difficulty in making himself understood, for the final " o" was always eliminated by the shopkeepers, and the word curtailed of its last syllable. In Porto, he was at first somewhat puzzled as to the name of the little square, by the river, where he habitually left the tram to climb the steep lanes to P.'s house. The name as spelt was Masarellos ; but the conductor always called it Masarel. It cannot, however, be ascribed to any deficiencies in the language that there is practically no modern Portuguese literature, and that for a knowledge of what the language is capable of, one has to dive into the past, to read the minor stars, such for example as Elpino, whose Pindaresque Odes, published 197 A Philosopher in Portugal after his death at the University press of Coimbra, though trammelled in formal strophe, antistrophe, and epode, are thoroughly melodious, and possess a charm of their own. The first ode, addressed to Vasco da Gama, embodies a distinctly pretty idea, when the poet pleads that as the unbridled, foaming Nile, rushing through the Egyptian plains, is not too proud to accept the humble tribute of an unknown stream, so the great captain should not reject the notes of the lyre of a humble follower in Pindar's footsteps. The other odes (they are only thirty-four in number) are addressed to notables of various calibres, many of whom are quite unknown to history. The twenty- eighth ode is rather remarkable, being addressed to the Marquis of Pombal, on his much needed reformation of the University of Coimbra. It is difficult to decide from the poem what were the reforms which the celebrated minister effected in that noted place of learning, but apparently all the gods and goddesses of the Greek and 198 Camoens Koman mythologies were united in praise of the great man and of his great work. But above all other writers, one must devote special attention to the study of the great Camoens, and the best help to that study is to be found in Burton's " Camoens : His Life and His Lusiads." Portugal at all events has reason to be proud of having produced one of the re- cognised great poets of the world, and it is only fair to say that every Portuguese of any education at all is healthily proud of the u Principe dos Poetas Heroycos e Lyricos de Hespanha" as he is styled in the famous edition of the OBRAS (works), published in 1729, with the "arguments" of Joam Franco Barreta, corrected and edited by Manoel de Faria Severim, and containing an epistle from Manoel Correa three of the most famous native commentators of Camoens. According to tradition, which is accepted by Burton, Camoens was of Galician strain, and might thus be considered the greatest Gallego 199 A Philosopher in Portugal that ever did good work in Portugal. This explains Fanshaw's lines attached to the en- graved bust, which constitutes the frontispiece of his translation of the Lusiads : " Spaine gave me noble birth ; Coimbra, Arts : Lisbon, a high-plac't love, and Courtly parts : Affick, a Refuge, when the Court did frowne : Warre, at an Eye's expence, a fair renowne " the last line of all ending with the words : ". . . . Beasts cannot brouze on Bayes." There is not much doubt but that he was born in Lisbon either in 1524 or 1525, and that he died there in obscurity and absolute want in 1579 or 1580. In due course the future great poet, and above all, ardent patriot, was sent to the University of Coimbra, where mayhap he attended the lectures of George Buchanan, who was then a professor there. Though not a distinguished student in the college don s sense of the word for probably he must have impressed though not by attacks on the Church the regents of Coimbra in a somewhat 200 The Lusiads similar fashion to that in which, long years after, Shelley was to shock and disturb the dons at Oxford the place and its associations left a lasting impression on Camoens, and in after times he sang of the Mondego stream, on which the university city is situated. The sport of fortune all his life, even after the brave spirit was at rest, trouble still dogged his body. The great earthquake de- stroyed his tomb and buried it under the fragments of the roof of the church of Santa Anna. More than sixty years after, his re- mains were supposed to have been recovered, and eventually the bones which may have been his were transported to the glorious church of the Geronymo at Belem, some hundred years after the earthquake. Of his great work, the Lusiads, Burton has said that: "however popular he may be at home, he has never touched the heart of Europe. . . . The Lusiads, in fact, must rank with the unread Epics of the world, with the Thebais, the Punica, and the Argonautica. 201 A Philosopher in Portugal They find the poet more interesting than the poem, and the man's true epopee was, they declare, his life." At the same time Burton is careful to point out : " that few poets have been more translated : we find him in every European language, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Hebrew." His English translators have been : Fanshaw (1655), Mickle (1776), Musgrave (1826), Quil- linan (1853), Mitchell (1854), Aubertin (1878), Hewitt (1879), Duff (1879), and Burton (1880). The poem is divided into ten cantos. These are composed of many eight-line stanzas vary- ing in number from 87 in Canto VII. , to 156 in Canto X.; and numbering 1102 in all, thus giving a total of 8816 lines. Virgil appears to have established the form of words in which all epics were henceforth to be begun, and the LUSIADAS commence according to the Maronian prescription thus: "As armas, e os Baroes assinalados, Que da occidental praia Lusitana," 202 The Lusiads Which Burton translates : " The feats of Arms and famed heroick Host From occidental Lusitanian strand." And here it may be mentioned that a line which is fairly often quoted : "In nought but her own loveliness adorned," is culled from Quillinan's translation of the Lusiads, Canto V., stanza 52 ; being his way of saying that the lady was, as Hans Breitman puts it : " mid nodings on." The following lines also are not unknown, which occur in the same translator's version of the second Canto, where he has run the 36th and 37th stanzas into one : "A modest gauze, with careless seeming art, The beauty heighten'd, that it veil'd in part." These lines are given in Fanshaw's version thus : "But this transparent curtain draws between, To double the desire, by being control'd." The Philosopher became a "Philo-Cam- 203 A Philosopher in Portugal oensian," to use Burton's expressive term, and delighted his friend, Senhor B., himself a graduate of Coimbra, by his admiration of the great national poet's works. He routed in old book shops, and bought several editions, which he studied with real enjoyment. Nor was he content to read the Lusiads only, but he spent some time over the sonnets and other less-known, and, in some cases, un- doubtedly apocryphal, writings of the bard. There are translations of some of these in existence, of which the best known are those of Viscount Strangford (the object of Byron's satire), published in 1803; and those of Mrs Hemans, whose work, entitled " Translations from Camoens and other Poets," appeared in 1818. Senhor B. took the Philosopher to view all the places connected with Camoens in Lisbon, such as the spot where erst had stood the church of Santa Anna, and the house in the Calcada de Santa Maria, where the closing scenes of the poet's life are supposed to have 204 Literature taken place, and which is marked with an inscription. The study of the w T orks of Camoens, and of Joao de Barros, known as the Portuguese Livy, the Philosopher found, exhausted nearly all research into and consideration of Portu- guese literature. He perused indeed the works of a few minor poets and of other writers, but of all modern books that he glanced at, Theophilo Braga's interesting work on Portu- guese Folk-lore was nearly the only one that he found worth taking the trouble to read. The same author's edition of Camoens also ranks amongst the best of modern editions. Outside of professional books the only modern works to be seen in the booksellers' windows were translations of French novels, and had he had any mind to read any of these nasty productions, he would have preferred to read them in their native impurity. Braga's collection of old stories, jokes and traditions, published under the title of " Contos Tradicionaes do Povo Portuguez," is full of in- 205 A Philosopher in Portugal terest to the student of this subject. It con- tains of course special variants of many of the stock fairy tales, and these versions are in many cases very characteristic. The stories mostly begin in the good old fashion : " Once upon a time there was a king who had a son," or " who had three sons," or may be it was "who had a troublesome daughter," or it might be a "widow with two daughters, one of whom was good and the other bad," or " there were three sisters who lived together." One of the latter, which comes from Algarve, is evidently a variant from one of the "Arabian Nights " stories. Three sisters were talking to- gether one day, when the eldest said she could make a shirt for the king out of the skin of an egg. The second forthwith bragged that she could make him a pair of breeches out of the rind of a green almond ; but the youngest laughed and said : " I wager to bear the king three sons without his knowing it." Of course the king happened to be just out- side and to overhear the girls, and he bid 206 Folk-lore them make good their boasts. The story then goes on to explain how the youngest won her wager and became a queen ; but it does not say anything as to the success or otherwise of the two tailoresses. In the Portuguese version of the " Sleeping Beauty," the time between the accident to the girl and her discovery by the prince when out hunting in the royal park, is not very long. She does not wake up at his caresses but remains asleep, and in that con- dition bears him three children Clove, Eose, and Jasmine. She sleeps on until one day one of the children playing on her bed begins to pull her finger-nails about and so by accident causes the point of the distaff to fall out which had occasioned her long sleep. The subsequent portion of the narra- tive continues on much the same lines as the common version. The queen-mother is jealous and cannibalistic. The episode of her ordering the children to be served up for different meals remains about the same, and 207 A Philosopher in Portugal the clever cook deceives the ogress in the same manner, but being a female cook is rewarded, after the old queen is got safely out of the way and everything put right, by being appointed a lady in waiting to the young queen. One meets, too, with old friends, regular old chestnuts, in the shape of elaborate and cumbersome jokes ; such, for instance, as that hoary one about the country bumpkin who applies to a judge to protect him from the flies that bite him. The judge bids him to kill them with a blow whenever and where- ever he sees one. At that moment a fly settles on the bald judicial cranium, and the erstwhile plaintiff proceeds to execute judgment on the fly and knocks down the judge with the blow meant to annihilate the aggravating insect. As a last example, the following, which is not a fairy tale, but of another well-known type, may be taken. It is said to come from the Island of San Miguel. A naughty 208 "Tic-Taco" friar was wont, whenever he passed a certain lady's window to say to her: "Tic-taco." This annoyed the lady, and she arranged with her husband to give the friar a good lesson. So the next time he passed and re- peated his formula, she invited him in. The reverend personage entered with alacrity, and forthwith made hot love to the lady. In a few moments the latter informed the shaveling that she heard her husband coming in, and, there being apparently no other course, she proceeded to hide the frightened man in a sack. Of course the husband found some excuse for belabouring the sack lustily with- out, however, discovering its contents. After the husband had gone out of the room, the treacherous lady let the poor man out at last and helped him to leave the house. The next time he passed the window, it was the lady who said: "Tic-taco," but the monk shook his head and passed on, saying: "I am not a weevil going into a sack." 209 CHAPTER XI Law and Order Supreme Tribunal Judicial Provinces Relacao Desembargadores Comarcas Julgados Munici- paes Juizos de Paz Lawyers Civil Marriage Legacies Criminal Justice Costs Prisons Cintra Railway Officials Character of the Police Civility of the Police Custom - House Octroi Garda Fiscal An L T nlawful Seizure Tobacco Monopoly. A reading of the text of the Portuguese Codes generally fills a lawyer or a philosopher with admiration, but a practical knowledge of the administration of those laws and of the cor- ruption and laxity of the judiciary very soon dispels the feeling and replaces it with a sense of disgust and contempt. Founded on the Code Napoleon, the Portu- guese law is distributed mainly under the heads of the Civil, the Commercial, the Penal, and the Administrative Codes, and the Code of Procedure. 210 Courts of L aw There is a magnificent judicial hierarchy, commencing at the top with the Conselheiros (Counsellors) of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the ultimate court of appeal, which sits at Lisbon, and which is spoken of with more respect than any other tribunal in the country. Next come the principal courts in each of the two provinces into which Portugal is divided for judicial purposes those of Lisbon and of Porto. In each the high court is known as a Relagao. Why this name is given to this court, the Philosopher was quite unable to ascertain. The word is translated by Valdez as " relation, connection, intercourse. List, catalogue, bill, enumeration. Brief report," as well as " The supreme court of judicature." Neither was he able to fathom the true in- wardness of the title of the judges of these courts, that of Desembarg adores. The verb desembargar appears to imply something to do with sequestration, and Valdez suggests "to replevy" as one meaning, so perhaps the title 211 A Philosopher in Portugal should be rendered " Sequestrators." At all events they do sequestrate people's goods and are in no hurry to surrender possession of them, especially if such possession be profit- able. Below these are the courts of the Comarcas or districts, the Julgados municipaes or courts of cities or towns, and, lastly, those of the juizos de paz or justices of the peace, who are elected by the parishes and assemblies of their respective districts. Besides these there are the Military courts, and the Commercial courts. The Philosopher could not fathom the sub- divisions of the legal tribe, nor clearly dis- tinguish their functions. There was the advogado, the jurisconsulto, the procurador, the articulado (who appears to be a sort of advocate), and the tabelliao (notary public). The word solicitador appears to be used for a suitor or applicant, and is also applied on occasion to his legal representative. Whatever the peculiar designation, however, each one in the ordinary Portuguese mind, spells " rogue," 212 Marriages and they are always accused of being ever ready to sell and betray their clients for a few reis. This, however, is a charge against the legal profession made in more countries than Portugal, and which probably has no more and no less solid foundations in one than in another part of the civilized world. The laws of Portugal are pretty much the same as those of the other Latin countries, whose mixture of Civil and of Canon law has been remodelled on the French Code. There are some marked peculiarities, how- ever, one of which, relating to marriages, is almost startling. Marriages, as in other countries, are divided into civil and ecclesi- astical. The former is defined as being that which is entered into before the officer of the civil state of the domicile or residence, with the formalities of the law only. This sort of marriage, say the law-books, is a contract simply, and can be annulled only by sentence pronounced by a civil tribunal. The actual form of such a marriage takes place according 213 A Philosopher in Portugal to the regulations for the organization of the civil register ; but Catholics must not be wed by any such ceremony unless they remain out- side the bosom of Mother Church, and for being so married, instead of in church with all full ecclesiastical rites, they are not only subject to canonical penalties, but in addition to criminal punishment / As in France, a testator leaving legitimate heirs cannot dispose of the whole of his estate away from them. Amongst the persons who are absolutely incapable of taking a legacy under a will are professed religious persons, unless they secularize themselves, or unless their community be extinct or suppressed. This inability applies mainly to real property, as monks or nuns can take anything left to them for their sustenance whether it be left in money or in portable goods. It will be gathered incidentally from the above that the ecclesiastical power in Portugal is of a very different quality to what it is 214 Criminal Law anywhere else, except it be in the Vatican itself. The administration of the criminal law is very- bad. The one rule which appears to govern the decision of the judges in those courts where there is no jury, is the question Which side is most likely to pay the costs of the proceedings? If a poor man prosecute a wealthy one, apart from the effect of direct bribery on the part of the latter, he is almost certain to succeed, as in that case the costs fall upon the convicted Dives, who is able to pay, while, if there were an acquittal, Lazarus would not be in a position to pay the costs of his unsuccessful prosecution. On the other hand, if Dives prosecutes Lazarus, the latter will almost certainly be acquitted, and Dives will have to pay for his fun himself. The only chance for him is to get the Public Prosecutor to take the case up. Then the beam leans the other way, and as the payment of the costs is certain, the judges are more in- clined to convict, as this is supposed to please 215 A Philosopher in Portugal the Public Prosecutor, who is considered a powerful personage. The Philosopher was told by F. that on one occasion when he had suffered much from the depredations of a dishonest storekeeper, he employed a sort of private detective to find out the thief and how the thefts were accomplished. This the man did, and strongly urged F. to place the matter in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. F., however, entertained such a deep-seated distrust of all officials, more particularly of law officials, that he rejected the advice and prosecuted his dishonest servant himself. The result was that though the evidence was of the clearest, and though there was hardly any defence offered, the man was acquitted and F. had the mortifica- tion of paying all costs into the bargain. The detective consoled him with an " I told you so," and added that he himself had really given honest advice on that occasion, which F. was fain to admit was the truth. There is rather a tendency on the part of juries to acquit if anyhow possible. 216 Prisons There seems to be a general consensus of opinion that the administration of the prisons is of a character so vile that it is only charitable to suppose that it is an indelible mark of the Moorish occupation which centuries of Chris- tianity have not sufficed to eradicate. Take, for instance, the prison at Cintra. It stands in the market-place, and all sorts and conditions of men, young and old, hardened criminals and chance infractors of police or of railway regulations are all huddled together without any classification whatever to await the course of a corrupt and iniquitous adminis- tration of the law. The friends of the prisoners crowd round the open windows chatting, passing food, cigarettes, and money through the iron bars, and attempt to render bearable the lot of those detained in this moral and physical cesspool. The prisoners in the cells above let down baskets for the reception of the little gifts with which their pals and even soft- hearted strangers take pleasure in filling them. The prisoners laugh and joke and look merry 217 A Philosopher in Portugal enough, but fearful scenes have been known to occur. The Philosopher was told many times of the terrible evening, not so long ago, when a ghastly quarrel arose amongst the prisoners, and knives were drawn and used freely; and the gaolers being overpowered, it became necessary to send to the guard-house at the old palace and bring down half a company of soldiers who were drawn up with loaded rifles in the square outside with orders to fire into the windows if the riot continued. Happily it was not necessary to proceed to this extremity, but there was an ugly tale of killed and wounded prisoners when the authorities were at last able to examine into matters. It is no wonder that persons will submit to the black-mail of the police and to the insolence and exactions of railway officials rather than run the risk of being incarcerated under such loathsome circumstances. Eailways are under public control and the employes must be sworn before the judge of the district. They are competent to take 218 Powers of Railway Officials cognisance of all criminal facts and to arrest delinquents taken em flagrante delicto, and place them in prison. It is true that it is specially provided that a passenger who com- mits a crime can be so taken and handed over to the administrator of the commune in which he happens to be, but that for a simple infraction of railway regulations he may not be taken into custody, but he must be summoned to appear before the court of the Policia Correccional, where he may be sentenced to prison for a month, and fined up to 20$000. But the station-master is the judge of whether the passenger is com- mitting a crime, or only infringing a rule, and one of the offences classified as a " crime" of which he must take notice is: " provoking disorder, offending by words or actions any one person or public morality in general." Thus to be angry at being cheated and to call a station-master a scoundrel would, in the latter s judgment probably come under this head, and the unfortunate passenger might 219 A Philosopher in Portugal find himself seized by grimy porters and locked tip in the lamp-room until there was time to conduct him to the far filthier police- cell. This is an actual danger in travelling, and though not of common occurrence, it means that a momentary ebullition of temper at being systematically robbed by a booking-clerk, may render it necessary to expend much palm-oil to prevent a gross abuse of power. The lower class of agents of law and order the police have but a very indifferent reputation. One day when the Philosopher was lunching with Senhor B. at their usual meeting place, the conversation turned upon the brown-coated, revolver- armed guardians of the peace, and the Philosopher learned a great deal upon the subject. From many other sources also he heard much that was edifying. One story that was told him was no doubt an exaggeration, but its being told at all must be taken as characteristic of the opinion which is generally held of the " force." A certain man who had been for some years a dweller 220 The Police in a low quarter of Lisbon, living upon the earnings of lady friends, and combining the occupations of bully, corner-man, loafer and picker-up of unconsidered trifles, took it into his head that he would like to join the police, and made application accordingly. He felt sure that such a combination of unsavoury occupations would not stand in his way at all, even if it were not actually in his favour, and he was much disgusted when he was rejected on account of his character it was not bad enough ! They are also said to be uncivil, but the Philosopher was pleased to record that he had no cause of complaint to make on that score. When asked the way they gave them- selves much trouble to explain it, and were always patient with his linguistic imperfec- tions. One day he caught sight of an ambulance litter at a station which he often passed. Being interested in such matters he entered and asked permission to inspect it. The fat constable with stars on his arm who 221 A Philosopher in Portugal commanded the post immediately called up a couple of his men and showed the whole working of the machine and its capabilities ; and ever after greeted the Philosopher most cordially. Again, there was a very surly- looking constable at Bemfica, whom the Philosopher asked one day for the time, thinking that his own watch had gone wrong. The policeman appeared to be flattered and even gratified at the request, and was qrtite proud to compare watches, and subsequently he saluted the Englishman in such a marked manner as to make him quite uneasy. "To be known to the police" is supposed not to be a subject for pride in London ; but to be a recognised friend of the police in Lisbon argues a far greater depth of depravity. Worse than the police are the custom-house officers and the officials of the local octroi. Southey says ! " We were examined at the gates, and passed a second time through the purgatory of the custom-house." A garda 222 Examining Luggage fiscal, as he is called, can make himself very obnoxious, and produce a very fair imitation of purgatory, by insisting on turning out the whole of one's luggage by the roadside, or on the pavement in front of the guard-house. Of course he is not inaccessible to a bribe, and if he thinks that you are in a hurry and want to catch a train, for instance, he is likely to protract his search and be as disagreeable as he can, in order to induce his impatient victim to give a handsome tip to hasten his investigations. There is a regulation that a garda fiscal shall put on a pair of clean white cotton gloves before delving into trunks con- taining clothing and such like. For some reason or other this is a great source of annoyance to the men and they willingly evade the order. If a man attempts to do so one can score off him delightfully by saying: " Onde sad as luvas?" (Where are the gloves ?) He will scowl at you portentously but he will put on the gloves rather than be reported to the sergeant of the post, who, 2S3 A Philosopher in Portugal however unwillingly, would be compelled to take notice of the offence. These men are very audacious, and occasion- ally get caught in an unlawful act and get into hot water. A case of this sort occurred at Porto while the Philosopher was there. A friend of his, a member of one of the great port-wine firms, came up the river one evening in his yacht, in which he had been for a trip, and anchored off Foz. He was flying the burgee of a recognised yacht-club, and had not attempted to land. In fact it was too late to get his pratique. Two custom-house officers came on board and insisted on searching the ship despite his remonstrances. They turned everything upside down, opened hatches, examined the hold, the lazarette, the cabin, the state rooms, and the men's quarters in the forecastle, and finally seized and carried off a pot of jam which had been brought on board at Vigo, from which port the yacht had last sailed. This was con- fiscated as being Spanish and liable to duty, though, in fact so long as it was kept on board, 224 An Unlawful Seizure it could not be taxed. The next morning, as soon as he had got his pratique y the enraged owner went ashore and interviewed the head of the custom-house, who at once acknowledged that his men had no business to board a yacht belonging to a recognised club, and that they had grossly exceeded their authority in seizing the pot of jam, which came under the head of ship's stores, and was only liable to duty if brought ashore. By the afternoon, the men had been compelled to sign a formal apology, and were further punished, one being reduced in rank, and the other being transferred to a custom-house of a lower class. But the pot of jam never got back. It had vanished into thin air, or had become assimilated into the tissues of a garda fiscal and of the various members of his family. This looks as if redress could be obtained generally for any excess of zeal in the execution of their duty by these custom-house officers; but in this particular case, the injured person was one of the best known merchants in Porto, 225 p A Philosopher in Portugal and was a personal friend of the head of the customs there. It is said that in these low depths there is yet a lower depth, and that that is reached by the officials who look after the interests of the tobacco monopoly. The duties on foreign tobacco are very high, and the penalties for contraband dealings in that article are in the words of the law itself "exceptional." For instance, the crime of smuggling tobacco does not admit of bail being given when the total amount of the fines exceeds two mill-reis, that is, something under seven shillings ! Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the special officers who administer such laws and regulations exhibit an arrogance and incivility hardly to be matched by any others of the tribe. 226 CHAPTER XII Wanted at Home Cats Good-bye to Porealhota and Lisbon Porto Again Rua das Flores A Port-wine Lodge City of Cork Pancratium Club at Mattasinhos Off at Last A Last Farewell Signal Bay of Biscay Deck Quoits Yarns London Docks Cabs A Lost Train Home The Cat Approves. Time was running on, and the Philosopher began to feel that he must begin to think about beginning his return to his native land. Lawyers wanted him, bankers wanted him, antiquaries wanted him, and, most important of all, his cat wanted him, and, through the intermediary of the housekeeper, sent messages intimating severe displeasure at his protracted absence. The Philosopher had made friends with many cats, which is easy in Portugal where cats are loved next to children, and con- sequently look upon all unfeathered bipeds aa 227 A Philosopher in Portugal friends. So a Portuguese cat feels no fear when a stranger approaches with the evident intention of stroking or caressing her, and calls her by the affectionate diminutive of gattinho, but arches her back and begins to purr even before the expected caress is actually effected. The various purposes which had led him to undertake the journey were completed. He had seen all his relatives and transacted his business with them, and had not worn out the warm welcome he had received at their hands. His mental and physical states were both much improved by the complete change, and, finally, his cash was diminishing in a very decided manner. He could say with Southey: "I am now preparing for my return : I am eager to be again in England, but my heart will be very heavy when I look back upon Lisbon for the last time." So, with a sigh he bade good-bye to his friends at Porcalhota, gave a farewell feed to his good Portuguese friend B., and admired the fine 228 Porto Again arches of the Moorish aqueduct as he drove into Lisbon, to take the night train once more, and when he had said his final adieus to the friends who had taken platform tickets to come and see him off, he turned into his bunk as soon as it was ready, and awoke early next morning to find himself once more in dear old smelly Porto. For a few days more the Philosopher wandered about the picturesque old streets, making more or less imperfect sketches, inhaling the odour of bacalhao, ever pre-eminent among the varied smells of Oporto. He lounged in the reading room of the Bolsa (Exchange), of which he had been made free, and which was a very comfortable place to adjourn to after lunch. He went to see the "Factory," the famous club of the English merchants, about which legends accumulate and about admission to the full privileges of which men, and especially their women-folk, quarrel prodigiously. Once again he stood and watched the water conduits where the "good water" pours forth in streams all day 229 A Philosopher in Portugal long free for the benefit of all, and where all day a motley crowd of women young and old, rapazes and raparigas (boys and girls), some old and a few able-bodied men, are grouped all day, carrying their curiously shaped tubs to be filled, and afterwards walking off with them balanced on their heads. He now frequented the Eua das Flores look- ing out presents for home at the jewellers' shops in that thoroughfare. He admired the gold rings and ornaments of artistic shapes and of a deep and rich colour for the gold used is almost pure, and the small percentage of alloy allows the very beautiful tone of the gold to be fully appreciated. Silver and gold filigree work of the most ethereal consistency and of exquisite form, handsome silver articles of all sorts, rare old spoons and dishes were on view everywhere. The young shopmen stood at their doors and invited customers, or those whom they took to be likely customers, to come in and sit down and look around, and did not show any annoyance if after a desultory chat and an examination of A Port-wine Lodge their pretty wares, the fly walked out of the web without disbursing anything. One shop the Philosopher came to know well, for he had broken a figa, a little charm consisting of a fist carved in jet with the thumb sticking out between the fore and middle fingers as a protection against the evil eye, and he took it to a pleasant-looking old fellow to mend and used to look in for a chat with the worthy senhor of a morning until the charm was put right and was once more dangling at his fob. The selection of articles was very embarrassing, and he took some time in choosing them, sandwiching his examinations of the shops in between visits to shipping-agents, consuls and other semi-marine monsters with whom he had to negotiate for his passage back. But his education was not yet considered complete, and one morning he was ferried over to Villa Nova de Gaya, on the other side of the Douro, to visit a port- wine " lodge." There he duly admired thousands of pipes of the good red wine in various stages of immaturity, and 231 A Philosopher in Portugal expressed all the sentiments he was expected to feel at the huge vats of spirits of wine used in the education or building up of the real stuff. The old Portuguese cellarman conducted him with the most scrupulous care from one vast vault to another, explaining the different blends and other operations the wine had undergone, and what was very trying, insisted on the Philosopher's tasting each stage of the progress of the crude wine towards perfection. The Philosopher speedily learned how to hold his dock glass by the foot and give it a semicircular motion and a little jerk to make the contents sparkle, then to smell it knowingly, to take a small sip, to close his eyes, and finally to spit it out with quite an air of connoisseurship as he handed the glass back to the cellarman. But, oh ! the horrors of that continued tasting. So great a nausea overpowered him that when, with a profound bow, old Miguel handed him a glass with the remark : " Now here is a matured wine which the illustrious senhor can really drink," the Philosopher would fain have put 232 The City of Cork it on one side untouched had he not feared to hurt the civil old fellow's feelings ; the wine was really good, but his palate was gone and he could not enjoy it. It of tens happens, so he was told, that when a young fellow, an employe* in one of the port- wine firms, is first sent into the tasting room, he soon gets a touch of gastric fever, as the tea-tasters in Mincing Lane are also said to do. After this experience, the Philosopher was prepared to believe this fully, and hurried back to Ritson's to lunch, and to get a good draught of whisky and soda to take the sweet, sickly savour from his tongue and fauces. At table was a jovial gentleman, the head of a famous port-wine firm, to whom he was introduced with the information that they would be fellow-passengers on board the City of Cork, which, he was further informed, had dropped anchor in the course of the morning. A few minutes after, the popular captain of the Cork came in and acquaintance was soon established between him and the Philosopher. 233 A Philosopher in Portugal The jovial gentleman and the captain were old chums. Then came a time of weary waiting, and the date of sailing seemed to be put off most un- duly. It must not be supposed that the Philosopher was anxious to leave his friends or to quit the country where he had been so hospitably entertained, and which he had learned to like for its own sake, but when one has bidden good-bye to all, has paid all one's farewell visits, and above all, has packed all one's luggage, it is a dreary matter to be kept waiting ready to start while oranges and onions are being stowed away in the interior of the hold, and the announcement is reiterated day by day that it will not be possible to clear at the next tide, but no doubt it will be all right amanhd. However, the delay was the means of the Philosopher's seeing one more phase of life in Portugal this time of the life of the British colony at Porto. He was compelled to go and buy some white gloves and what beautiful 234 Pancratium Club Dance gloves one gets in Portugal and extract his dress suit from his trunk in order to go to the first dance of the season of the Pancratium Club at Mattasinhos. It was a lovely moonlight evening and a most pleasant drive, and when he got there the Philosopher was obliged to admit that every- thing was very nice, that the ladies were very charming, and that even a crusty old miso- gynist could extract much enjoyment from the function. The rooms were decorated with a profusion of the Pancratium lily from which the club takes its name, and which is peculiar to the seashore at Mattasinhos, and the perfume was overpowering. His dancing days were long over but he sat out a dance with a charming young Portuguese lady who had just come back from England, where she had been educated. The Philosopher was greatly amused when he found that the senhorina had completely for- gotten her native language and had actually to appeal to him to convey her wants to one of the club servants. For a moment an awful blank 235 A Philosopher in Portugal sensation overpowered him, but with a mighty effort he rallied his senses and managed to obey the lady's behest. The next morning came the information that the good ship was going to take advantage of the afternoon tide, so after lunch the Philosopher once more bade farewell to his relatives big and small, and taking boat at the custom-house stairs was rowed out to where the City of Cork was flying the Blue Peter. Shortly after he was looking on the panorama presented by the city as the ship steamed slowly down the Douro. As they turned the point by Masarellos and P.'s house came into sight it appeared to be a mass of waving handkerchiefs. This salute was answered according to agreement by the Philosopher's letting a red sash stream out astern like a pennant. As the speed of the vessel increased the house was hidden from view in a few moments, and the traveller felt that he was really off at last ; but one more farewell greeting was to be encountered. When the steamer had finally issued from the mouth of 236 A Farewell Signal the river and was turning northwards, keeping along not far from the coast, the port of Leixoes became visible, and lo ! on the southern pier a female form was discernible frantically waving a red sunshade. As his field-glasses revealed an outline resembling that of the young lady whose invitation for a walk on the north pier by moonlight he had evaded, and as it did not appear that anyone else had any friend at Leixoes, he felt that he was entitled to look on the signal as being meant for himself. He was deeply touched and forthwith sampled a whisky and soda and lit his pipe, and proceeded to take stock of his fellow passengers. These were not numerous, but proved to be exceptionally pleasant people. Amongst them was a jovial young Irishman who would have been able to make a harmonious company out of the most discordant elements. The sea was smooth and nothing occurred on that day, or indeed during the whole of the voyage, to mar a philosophical demeanour or to disturb the serenity of a philosophical interior. 237 A Philosopher in Portugal The Bay of Biscay was in its kindest mood and so calm that the First Officer suggested that " it had been mangled or ironed out, or somethin' of that sort-" for the Philosopher's very special benefit. The voyage was indeed slow, but being unaccompanied by any undue movement, the Philosopher enjoyed it immensely. He looked forward to his meals, which punctuated pleas- antly the rather long day, and in the intervals lounged about, read Braga's " Contos Tradicionaes do Povo Portuguez" the book on Portuguese folk-lore mentioned before, looked out for sea- sights, chatted with the other passengers or with the officers, and won the deck-quoit championship. He further picked up on the bridge and in the chart-house a sufficiency of technical terms to last out his natural life, and calculated to impress upon those of his friends who were unfortunate enough never to have been to sea, the tremendous nature of his knowledge of seamanship and his nautical learning generally. 238 Yarns Under the genial tuition of the First and Second Officers he improved his powers of spinning yarns, so that his friends, whether they had been to sea or not, were unanimous in agreeing that his story-telling powers were much enlarged, and they all expressed regret that he had not been in a land where snakes of varying degrees of deadliness abounded, as there was an impression that a series of quite gorgeous romances would have taken rise therefrom, and would have thrilled them the friends, not the snakes into a state of beatitude. The Philosopher, however, did not even see a sea-serpent, July being too early for the appear- ance of either that monster or of his colleague, the big gooseberry. He saw what he was told was a whale, which certainly spouted at in- tervals, and careered away in a joyous manner. Perhaps he or she had just got rid of an uncomfortable inside passenger of the Jonah variety, and was giving vent to an expression of relief. He saw the Channel Islands dimly 239 A Philosopher in Portugal and afar off, and finally saw the South Coast, and knew the bays and headlands of his native county. In due time he recognised the familiar Straits of Dover, and as the day began to fall he found that he was being borne up the busy high- way of the Thames. The passage had been so slow that the tide had been lost and the ship was obliged to wait at Gravesend. There the doctor came on board and asked where each person was bound for, and after his departure the little company assembled for the last time to consume their night-caps and smoke their go-to-bed pipes together. After a while all retired to their bunks and snored or not according to their natures. All through the night there were strange groanings and noises which roused the Philosopher from his slumbers, and which inter- mingled all sorts of strange fancies in his dreams, and when he finally awoke next morning, the good ship was lying securely fast in the London Docks and the stevedores were preparing to unload the cargo. The hatches were wide open and a curious blend of oranges and onions 240 Cabs floated all over the ship and seemed as if it ought to be powerful enough to overcome the general foul odours of the docks ; but it was not sufficiently strong for the purpose. Breakfast was disposed of somewhat hastily, friends had come on board to meet some of the passengers, the custom-house officers had paid their visit and examined the luggage, and the last good-byes were said. The Philosopher and the Irishman had agreed to share a cab, as their roads lay in the same direction. But it took a very long time to get hold of such a vehicle. The runner sent off to procure the three or four cabs required was gone for a long interval, and when he did turn up at last explained that he had had to go very far afield as at that parti- cular hour the night cabs with few exceptions had gone off and the day cabs, likewise with a few exceptions, had not yet arrived at their posts. However, as all comes to him who waits, the Irishman and his companion got a cab at last and it did not take long to drive up to the 241 q A Philosopher in Portugal London Bridge Station, where they parted com- pany, the Philosopher hoping to catch a train home, and the Irishman going further westward. The former bid a hasty good-bye to the latter and rushed into the station just in time to see his train move off. The disappointed traveller swore violently for a moment fortunately in Portuguese then he recollected himself and resumed the habitual calm and dignified manner appropriate to philosophy. Eeading the morning's paper he strove to reconcile its contents with the state of affairs when he left England, for he had hardly seen any English newspapers since, and the meagre items of English news which he had picked up in the foreign papers left neces- sarily many lacunw which had to be bridged over. There was a certain amount of interest in the process and the long wait for the next train passed more easily than he had anticipated. At last he got into the train and was duly carried through the smoky and grimy suburbs 242 Home at Last down south past the green meadows, hanging woods and winding streams of Surrey, through the tunnels and the deep cuttings till at last he could discern the South Downs with their soft contours, all so widely different to the scenery to which he had been accustomed for nearly three months. Finally he stopped at the sleepy old station in the sleepy old town. Here again no cab was to be had they had all (drivers, horses and vehicles alike) sunk into profound slumbers, from which they could not be aroused. Finding a half-awake boy with a dilapidated truck to carry his luggage, the Philosopher walked up the deserted streets to his home, and ere many minutes had elapsed, was once more sitting in the easy chair in his study with his dear old cat purring contentedly on his knee, and occasionally emphasizing his delight at the wanderer's return by butting his head violently against his friend's waistcoat as if he were trying to ascertain the nature of any foreign food which might be concealed therein, or at least what effect foreign cookery and foreign travel had 243 A Philosopher in Portugal had on the texture of his " boss " ; and each time the gattinho was satisfied with his human friend and quite approved of his philosophical trip to Portugal. THE END 244 INDEX Abrantes, 102 Adenoids, 166, 196 Advogado, 212 Agnes Surriage, 87 Agriculture, 125 Alcoholic drinks, 185 Alges, 140 Algibeira, 146 Altar, the silver, 43 Amanhd, 40 Amexial, battle of, 6 Anaximander, 60 Ants, 109 Aqueduct, 74, 229 Archaeological Museum, 86 Articulado, 212 Artillery Museum, 88 Athenaeum Club, 78 Aubertin, J. J., 203 Avenida, 76, 95 Bacalhao, 31, 32 Bandarilhas, 154 Bandarilheiros, 153 Baquet Theatre, 55 Barros, J. de, 205 Bay of Biscay, 238 Belem, 90 Bellas, 121 Benin ca, 115 Bichu, 131 Blue tiles, 103, 121 Boa Vista Cemetery, 54 Bois, 36 Bombeiros, 56 "Bombita," 155 Bowls, 140 Braga, Theophilo, 205, 238 Buchanan, George, 200 Bull-fight, a, 150 Bulls, 153 young, 163 Burgos, 14 Burton, R. F., 199, 202 Butler, a solemn, 179 Cabs, 241 Camoens, L. de, 120, 199, 204 Carcavellos, 141 Carmo, Church of, 86 Carteira, 174 "Catarina," 120 Cats, 227 Cavallezros, 152, 157 Cem, 172 Change, 172 Character, 167 Chestnuts, 49 Chiado, street, 94 Ghula, song, 182 Cintra, 116, 217 City of Cork, 233 Civil marriage, 213 Coachman, a handy, 178 Codes, 210 ComarcaSy 212 245 Index Conselheiros, 211 Corrida, 150 Costs, 215 Costumes, 145, 147 Criadas, 176 Criados, 178 Cricket, 57, 141 Criminal law, 215 Gruzado, 172 novo, 172 Cruz Quebrada, 140 Cuadrilla, 153 Cultivators, 180 Customs officers, 222 Desembargadores, 211 Dictionary, 190 Dirt, 168 Dishonesty, 171 Doctors, 183 Douro, 52 Drunkenness, 185 Duff, B. F., 202 Earthquake, 86, 201 Ecclesiastical marriage, 214 Elisa, 93 Elpino, 197 English Cemetery, 80 Espada, 153, 160 Espinho, 27 Estoril, 91, 141 Estrada Real, 59 Estrella Church, 79 Eyes, 89 " Factory," the, 229 Fanshaw, R., 200, 202, 203 Feira de ladre, 96 Fernandes, G., 56 Fidalgos, 183 Fielding, H., 80 Figa, 231 Firemen, 56 Fish-women, 49, 88, 145, 146 Flail, 125 Fleas, 137 Flowers, 112 Folk-lore, 205 Frankland, Sir C, 87 Gallegos, 139 Gambling, 142 Garda fiscal, 223 " Gatto Preto," 94 Generous donors, 46 Geronymo Church, 90, 201 " Gibraltar," 86 Gloves, 223, 231 Gold ornaments, 46, 145, 230 Good-nature, 167, 170 Guia Official, 114 Hats, throwing of, 164 Herding of cattle, 128 Hemans, Mrs, 204 Hewitt, J. E., 202 Insects, 135, 138 Irrigation, 130 Irun, 12 Jam, a pot of, 224 Jazigos, 55 John o' Gaunt, 6 Jokes, 189, 208 Judicial provinces, 211 Juizos de Paz, 212 Julgados Municipaes, 212 Jurisconsulto, 212 Kiss, a, 83 Language, 192 Largo de San Bento, 47 Latch-keys, 97 Law, 210, 213 Lawn-tennis, 57 246 Inde x Lawyers, 183, 212 " Leao d'Ouro," 86 Leca, 30, 67 Legacies, 214 Leixoes, 67, 237 Liars, 170 Limes, 130 Limonada, 187 Lisbon, 74 name of, 92 Literature, 197 Livy, the Portuguese, 205 Lizards, 113 Lodge, a port- wine, 231 Lost wallet, a, 174 Lotteries, 143 Love of children, the, 185 Lusiads, 120, 199, 201, 203 Lusitania, 3 Macedo, A. de S., 2, 193 Manners, 169 Mantillas, 96, 147 Markets, 95 Marriage, 213 Mattasmhos, 67 Medina del Campo, 14 Meteorology, 20 Mickle, W. J., 202 Midwives, 184 Mill-reis, 173 Mine-hunting, 62 Mineral wealth, 63 Missing word, a, 85 Mitchell, T. L., 202 Mocos deforcado, 160 Mondego River, 201 Montserrat, 117 Monuments, 39 Moorish architecture, 91 Morality, 187 Mosquitoes, 135 Moustaches, 89 Musgrave, T. M., 202 Naiads of Cintra, 120 Names, 50 "Natercia,"120 Nespras, 130 " Nine Excellences," 193 Notes, bank, 175 Oporto, 31, 52, 229 Orange trees, 130, 131 tree insect, the, 132 Orthography, 195 Ox-carts, 35 Palacio de Crystal, 53 Pampilhosa, 16, 17 Pancratium Club, 235 Paris, 8 Patches, 148, 149 Pena, 117 Philo-Camoensian, 203 Picnic up the Douro, a, 52 Platform tickets, 116 Police, 220, 221 Pombal, Marquis of, 198 Porcalhota, 109, 115 Porto, see Oporto Portugal, 2, 5 Portuguese character, 42, 167 language, 192 Port-wine, 232 Povoa, 58 Praca de Don Pedro IV., 48 Prisons, 217 Procurador, 212 Pronunciation, 194, 196 Public buildings, 39 Prosecutor, 215, 216 Pun, a, 72 Quelluz, 120 Quillinan, E., 202, 203 Railway officials, 218 247 Index Railways, 19, 113 Strangford, Viscount, 204 Eeis, 173 Sud-Express, the, 9 Relagao, 211 "Suisso,"77, 81 " Rendezvous des Gourmets," 94 Supreme Tribunal, 211 Ritson's, 38, 45, 233 Surriage, Agnes, 87 Roads, 59 Syrens, 187 Rocio, the, 77 " Rolling Motion Square," 77 Tabelliao, 212 Rua Aurea, 93 Tagus, 78, 92, 101 das Flores, 45, 230 Testamentary dispositions, 214 do Chiado, 94 Teston, 172 Don Henrique, 33 Three Sisters, 206 dos Clerigos, 48 " Tic-taco," 209 Tobacco monopoly, 226 Sal a das Armas, 119 Tomb of Two Brothers, the, 118 Salamanca, 15 Toothpicks, 169 San Roque, 88 Tribunals, 211 Sardines, 69 Sashes, 148 Ulysses, 93 Senhor B., 11, 81 University of Coimbra, 198, 200 Servants, 138, 176 Unlawful seizure, an, 224 Sickle, 126 Silver altar, the, 43 Valdez, 211 Sleeping Beauty, 207 Vaqueiros, 129 Slovenly service, a, 43 Vermin, 135 Smells of Oporto, 31 Villa do Conde, 58, 64 Social divisions, 183 Flor, Conde de, 7 Sol, 151 Nova de Gaya, 231 Solicitador, 212 Vinho verde, 58 Sombra, 151 Vintem, 172 Sombra-sol, 152 Sopas, 66 Washing, 180 Spain, 13 Whale, a, 239 Spaniards, hatred of, 168 Whistling of trains, 29 Spanish proverb, a, 168 Women, 187 PRINTED AT THB EDINBURGH PRESS, Q AND II YOUNG STREET 248 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. !LC 27 tt LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 YB 26040 r-x "?> 7 253119