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April 1, 1847.
A LIST OF BOOKS
RBCBNTLY PUBLISH BD BY
EDWARD MOXON, 44, DOVER STREET.
MISOBIiLANHOUS.
HAYDN'S DICTIONARY OF DATES, and
UNIVERSAL REFERENCE, relating to all Ages and Nations ; comprehending every Remarkable Occurrence, Ancient and Modem— the Foundation, Laws, and Governments of Countries —their Progress in Civilisation, Industry, and Science— th^'r Achievements in Arms ; the Political and Social Transactions of the British Empire— its Civil, Military, and Religious Institu- tions—the Origin and Advance of Human Arts and Inventions, with copious details of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The whole comprehending a body of information. Classical, Political, and Domestic, from the earliest accounts to the present time- Third EDmoN. In one voltone 8vo, price 18s. cloth, or 23r. calfgUt.
KNOWLES'S (JAMES) PRONOUNCING and
EXPLANATORY DICTIONARY or thb ENGLISH LAN- GUAGE. Founded on a correct development of the Nature, the Number, and the Various Properties of all its Simple and Compound Sounds, as combined into Syllables and Words. A Nbw Edition. In medium 8vo, price lOf. 6(L cloth.
By the Author of « Two Yrars Bbvorb thb Mast."
DANA'S SEAMAN'S MANUAL; containing a
Treatise on Practical Seamanship, with Plates; a Dictionary of Sea Terms ; Customs and Usages bf the Merchant Service ; Laws relating to the Practical Duties of Master and Mariners. Third Edition. Price 6#. doth.
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A LIST OF BOOKS
HINTS ON HORSEMANSHIP, to a Nephew
and Nucx ; or. Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding. By Colonel Okorgb Grjsjsnwood, late of the Second Life Guards. Price 2/. 6d.
THE WORKS OF WALTER SAVAGE
LA.NDOR. In two volumes, medium 8to, price 32s. cloth.
ELLEN MIDDLETON. A Tale. By Lady
Gboroiana Fullbbton. Second Eoitiok. In three yolumes, price Sit. 6d. cloth.
VII.
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VIII.
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RIGHT HON. EDMNUD BURKE, illustrated in a series of B^Ltracts from his Writings and Speeches ; with a Summary of his Life. By Peter Bubkb, Esq. Post 8vo, price 7t, 6d. cloth.
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LIFE IN THE SICK-ROOM: Essays. By
AN Invalid. Second Edition. Pricefif. boards. ■
GOETHE'S FAUST. Translated into English
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NAPIER'S (Capt. Henry) FLORENTINE HIS-
TORY, from the Bariiest Authentic Records to the Accession of Ferdinand the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 6 volumes, small 8vo, price 21. \At. cloth.
xvni.
MEMOIR OF THE Rev. H. F. GARY, trans- lator of Dante. With his Literary Journal and Letters. Edited by his Son, the Rev. Hknry Caby. In two volumes, poet 8vo, price Sis. doth.
irZSRAEI.Z'S VfTOBMM.
CURIOSITIES OP LITERATURE. Thirteenth
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IL
MISCELLANIES OF LITERATURE. In one
volume, 8vo, with Vignette, price 14f. doth.
CONTSNTS:— 1. LiTBIUlRY MiSCBLLANIBS. | 3. CALAMtTIKS OF AUTHOBa. 9. QUABRNLS OF AOTHOBS. | 4. ThX LiTNIlARY CUAEACTSR.
5. Charactsb of Jamsb tbn Fiasr.
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8KBI.IiEV8 IXTORKS.
SHELLEY'S POETICAL WORKS. Edited by
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III.
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DRAMATIO I.ZB1UIJIV.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. With an
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SHAKSPEARE. With REMARKS on his LIFE
and WRITINGS. By Thomas Campbbll. In one volume 8vo with Portrait, Vignette, and'.Index, price 16#.^ cloth, or 3(it elegantly bound in morocco.
ui.
BENJONSON. With a MEMOIR. By William
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MASSINGER and FORD. With an INTRO-
DUCTION. By Hartlky Colbbidob. In one volume 8vo, with Portrait and Vignette, price I6s. cloth.
WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH,
AND FARQUHAR. With BIOGRAPHICAL and CRITICAL NOTICES. By Lbioh Hunt. In one volume 8vo, with Portrait and Vignette price IGs. cloth.
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RECENTLY PUBLISHED BY EDWARD MOXON. 5
DYCE'8 BBAVMONT AMD FIiBTCHER.
THE WORKS OF BEAUMONT AND
FLETCHER ; the Text fonned from a new collation of the earl)' Editions. With Notes and a Biographical Memoir. By the Rev. A. Dvcs. In eleven volumes 8vo. Price 6{. lit. cloth.
ROOBRS'S POBM8.
ROGERS'S POEMS. In one volume illustrated
by 72 Vignettes, from designs by Turner and Stothard, price 16#. boards, or 32*. elegantly bound in morooco.
ROGERS'S ITALY. In one volume illustrated
by 56 Vignettes, from designs by Turner and Stothard, price 16«. boards, or 32«. elegantly bound in morocco.
III.
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pocket volumes, illustrated by numerous Woodcuts, price lOf . cloth, or 30f . elegantly bound in morocco.
VfrOILDVWOTLTia^B POBISS.
WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS. In
seven volumes foolscap 8vo, price 35#. doth.
WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS. Id
one volume medium 8vo, price 20«. cloth, or AOt. el^[antly bound in morocco.
III.
WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS. In one Volume,
price 6s. cloth.
WORDSWORTH'S EXCURSION. A Pobm.
In one volume, price 6t. cloth.
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6 BOOKS PUBLISHEa> BY EDWARD MOXON.
CABIPBBIiI/8 POBMS.
CAMPBELL'S POETICAL WORKS. A Nbw
BDfTfOK. In (me volame, illiutratei by SO Yignettes from designs by TmunBR, and 37 Woodonts from designs by Haryst. Price 20f . boards, or 36t. elegantly bound in morocco.
CAMPBELL'S POETICAL WORKS. In one
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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CAMPBELL.
Edited by Dr. William Bbattib, one of his Executors. In the Pren.
OHAVOBR AMD 8PBM8EB.
CHAUCER'S POETICAL WORKS. With an
Essay on his Lakouaok and VaRsincATioN, and an Inthodoc- TORY DisooimsB; together with Noras and a Glossary. By Tbomas TYRwmn*. In one volume, Svo, with Portrait and Vignette, price ie«. cloth, or 36#. elegantly bound in morocco.
SPENSER'S works!'' With a Selection of
NoTBS from various Commentators; and a Olossarial Indsx : to which is prefixed some account of the Jaws of Spenser. By the Rev. Hbnry John Tooo. In one volume 8vo, with Portrait and Vignette, price 16r. doth, or 36«. elegantly bound in morocco.
CHABI.E8 IiABm'8 IXTORKS.
LAMB'S WORKS. A New Edition. In one
volume 8vo, with Portrait and Vignette, price 14f . cloth.
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA. A New Edition.
Price 5f.
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BOOKS PUBLISHED BY EDWARD MOXON. 7
POSTRV.
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ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. To which is
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LAMB'S POETICAL WORKS. Price U. 6d. BAILLIE'S (JOANNA) FUGITIVE VERSES. Price la. SHAKSPEARE'S POEMS. Price U.
findbary & Evaiu, Printen, Whitefrian.
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/O .'
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JOURNAL
A FEW MONTHS' RESIDENCE
PORTUGAL,
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o
JOURNAL
A FEW MONTHS' RESIDENCE
POKTUGAL,
GLIMPSES OF THE SOUTH OF SPAIN.
IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. L
LONDON: EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET.
MDCCCXLVII.
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PcYtzli/^9r.lfj
'66c -pu.j IS
LoniNm!
■ RADBUBT ARD BTARB, rBIHTaBt, WHITBFBIABB.
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THESE NOTES
ARE DBDICATZD,
IN ALL BEYBBENCE AND LOYE, TO
MY FATHER AND MOTHER,
FOR WHOM TEST WERE WRITTEN.
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PREFACE.
If I had set out jfrom home with the project of writing a book^ I might as well perhaps have gone to Portugal as to any remoter quarter; for there is no accessible portion of the globe that has not been visited and described; and after all the fightings and writings in and on Portugal, there is, I believe, no country in Europe that is less thoroughly familiar to us, none indeed which has been more imperfectly explored by tourists. It is still in fact a labyrinth to strangers, just as Spain was one immense maze of labyrinths till the other day, when Mr. Ford supplied the clue by the production of his methodical, compre- hensive, and most intelligent Handbook — too humble
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viu PREFACE.
a name for so high a work — shaming the De la Bordes and all preceding pioneers through that vast wilder- ness. A similar publication on Portugal^ on a scale of course proportionably reduced, and therefore a labour comparatively moderate, would be precious from the same hand, not only to foreigners but to natives ; — especially if written in a spirit of courtesy, which we too often dispense with in our comments on the Portuguese, but to which they are neverthe- less well entitled. Childe Harold's rash and unlordly sneer has become vulgar in the mouth of Echo, and is therefore unworthy of repetition by a writer like Mr. Ford. "Our old and faithful ally,'' Lusitaoia, revolts at the airs of affectionate contempt with which she is patronised by England, and if we would reclaim any particle of her good-will, we should learn to repress our superciliousness, and —
" Be to her faults a little blind, Be to her.Yirtues very kind."
The worst symptom in her modem character, and
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PREFACE. ix
one indeed whicli to us at a distance does make the Portuguese appear ridiculous^ is that everlasting civiUwarriTig on a small scale^ which seems to begin without a plan^ to pause without a result^ and after a suUen lull to be resumed without any definite aim. But for these turbulent humours the mass of the people are &r less to blame than some of their up- start rulers, who, availing themselves of the evils of a disputed succession, have made the instability of the throne and the fever of the public mind subserve their dishonest ambition, like thieves to whom an earthquake or a fire is an opportunity for plunder.
A stranger has little to apprehend from the natives even when they are in commotion, if he will but refrain from intermeddling in the quarrel. If he has the good fortune to be among them as we were, between the moves, he is safe enough. As for me, though of the sex in whom cowardice is no disgrace, I cannot say I anticipated hazard, or required much persuasion, in rambling out of the beaten tracks in a
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X PREFACE.
country where so few English ladies ever travel at all. Nor have I any personal adventure to relate ; for, as we met none, I resisted the temptation of getting up a few "moving accidents and hairbreadth 'scapes/' and of so giving to my Journal the attraction of a Story- book. The truth is, as I believe, that imless you lay yourself out for danger bysome bravado, or some indiscretion of temper, or by neglect of such ordinary precautions as are customary and reasonable, you may, when the country is not overran with civil warriors, travel in Portugal as securely, if not so smoothly, as you can navigate the Thames from Yauxhall to Richmond, or as you may ascend the Nile from Cairo to the Cataracts, where, under the protectorate of Mehemet Ali, you have for the pre- sent no chance of an adventure if you do not make one for yourself; and hardly of a new one even then, imless you could outdo Mr. Waterton, and ride an alligator up the Rapids to Assuan. The following Diary, prepared solely for my friends
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PREFACE. XI
at home, will in no degree help to snpply the want that I have mentioned of a complete Guide-book for Portugal, nor even for the limited portion of it which I have seen. It gives but a slight notice here and there of a few of the more remarkable objects that to me had all the charm of uncommonness ; and it is diffuse only on the attractive beauty and freshness of the landscapes, and on the generally amiable cha- racter of the inhabitants. On the first of these two subjects, the natural scenery, I have dwelt with a fondness that may expose me to the raillery of having produced rhapsodies ''where pure description holds the place of sense */' on the other topic, the good qualities of the Portuguese people, I can truly say, " As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterised them." My main inducement, indeed, to the public cation of this desultory Journal is the wish to assist in removing prejudices which make Portugal an avoided land by so many of my roviag countrymen and countrywomen, who might there find much to
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xii PREFACE.
gratify them if they could be persuaded that it does not deserve the reproach of being merely a land of unwashed fiery barbarians and over-brandied port- wine. The shores of the Minho and of the Douro, as well as of the Tagus^ so long called '^ the home- station " of our Navy, are now easy of access as the Banks of the Bhine ; and aknost the whole length of the inland country, from Braganza to Faro, has, to most of our travellers who have been everywhere else, the grand recommendation of being new. It is to this " great fact," the possibility of finding novelty even yet in the Old World, and in a quarter within three days' voyage from the Isle of Wight, that I would call their attention, and not theirs only, but that also of ramblers from The New World, the coun- trymen of Prescott and Washington Irving, of whom every year brings so many to the Mediterranean side of Spain, yet so few to this, the Atlantic shore of Spain and western-most coast of Europe— a shore which ought peculiarly to interest all Americans
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PREFACE. Xiu
r— for hither swam Columbus from his burning ship, here he found a home and a wife, and here he medi- tated and prepared his plan of discovery long be- fore Isabella's patronage enabled him to realize it. Here, too, Martin Boehm found patronage; here Magellan and Alvares Cabral were bom ; and here, in the service of King Emanuel, died Americus, the man from whom half the globe so strangely received a name.
In looking over my notes, now that they are printed, I fear that some observations on English prejudice, near the end of this volume, may wear an ungracious air c^ censoriousness, as if I were lectur* ing my own countrywomen while praising the Por- tuguese. Ungracious truly, and even ungrateful should I be, who am much indebted to the civilities of English ladies at Oporto, if I could intend to express myself with discourtesy to them. My re- marks are made in the spirit of my motto por bem, in answer to some of my friends, by whom, I think,
VOL. I. b
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XIV PREFACE.
the Portuguese are misundersood. For example, we often heard of Portuguese meanness as to household arrangements and other matters that are simply con- ventional, and to which we apply the reproach of sordidness, because they di£fer from ours. This is surely inconsiderate. Many of our usages are open to similar censure from them, if they chose to make their particular notions the arbitrary rule of right or wrong. They might compare, for instance, with ours or with that of the French, their mode of pro- ceeding in so strict a test of generosity as a creditor's legal power over his debtor. Every one knows that in a case of bankruptcy with us, the insolvent mer- chant or trader is compelled to make a surrender of every particle of property in his possession, and that the obligation is pretty rigidly enforced, except perhaps as to the watch in his pocket. His furniture and all his household goods go to the auctioneer's hammer as a matter of course, not excepting the cradle in which his babe slept the night before.
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PREFACE. XT
This severe justice the Portuguese creditor might stigmatise as meanness; for^ though the law gives him ample power over "the assets/^ he never molests the family of a debtor^ by sending a broker to take an inventory of his furniture, — ^never dreams of de- manding a list of the watches, gold chains, pearls, jewels, trinkets of any sort, that may be possessed by his wife or daughters; never inquires into the amount or value of these things — ^never meddles with them at all; and it is to be observed that the Portuguese creditor, so far jfrom withholding the benefit of such lenity from the foreign resident who may happen to fail in his debt, is usually observant of even greater delicacy to a stranger in such circum- stances than to one of his own people. In a com- mercial city like Oporto, where Bacchus sits soberly at Ms ledger, vigilant of profit and loss, such gentle- ness to distress rather implies magnanimity than meanness.
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JOURNAL
OP A PEW MONTHS' RESIDENCE IN
PORTUGAL,
AND
GLIMPSES OF THE SOUTH OF SPAIN.
Southampton, Mat 7th, 1845. Queen steamer weighed anchor at 3 p.m. All well as we sailed down the river. A noisy, merry dinner, at which eleven out of the twelve passengers were present : quickly one after another disappeared, and before we had passed The Needles, there was but one gentleman left in the saloon. It blew a gale in the channel, and this increased as we approached the Bay of Biscay, and there we had a storm. We lost our top-sail, and the morning greeting of a sailor to a comrade, on the 10th of May, was, " Dirty weather this, more like November than May;'^ and as the Captain was making his way along the fore-part of
VOL. I. B
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2 CORUNNA.
the vessel — ^rather a dangerous navigation^ for the waves were dashing over the deck as if determined to sweep away all before them, — I overheard him say, a little impatiently, **One need be web-footed in a ship like this/' But a good little ship she is, and right steadily and boldly did she work her course. We were oflf Corunna soon after sunset on the 10th ; but the wind blew so strong, our Captain thought it prudent not to attempt to enter the bay till daylight should clear away all difficulties. Those among us who had never crossed this stormy sea before, thanked him for the delay, when we found ourselves on deck at 5 A.M., on the 11th, for the first time since we left the Hampshire coast, and our vessel quietly anchored in the centre of that beautifol land-locked bay — ^the bright sunshine fialling upon the white walls of the town, which seems to grow out of the water, and runs n^ore than half-way up the green sloping heights, the summits of which are fringed with red-capped wind-mills. The outline of the hiUs behind these heights reminded me of the Trout- beck mountain-range, as seen £rom the large island on Winandermere. Boats pushing off from the shore, some very rude in form^ some of less primitive shape,
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m^^^m
CORUNNA. 3
but all gay and picturesque. The two wMch brought the govemment officers recalled to memory that de- cription of Camoens beginning —
^ Hum batel grande, e largo, que toldado yinhA de sedas de diyersas cores, Traz o rei de Melinde, acompanhado De nobres de seu reino" —
though^ instead of a black prince with his attendant chiefs—
« Dusk £Etces with white silken turbans wreathed " —
they brought only Oalician functionaries, from the custom-house and board of health. There were the awning, imder which sat the important officer^ the oarsmen^ the sea sparkling under the stroke of the oar, the earnest and to me unintelligible jabber of the men as they closely examined our iron steamer, whilst their master was engaged with our post- master and captain in the cabin. All this there was to gratify the eye; and the ear was cheered by sound of Sabbath-bells calling to matins. Well might such a scene make us forget the horrors of a three days^ weltering in the Bay of Biscay.
We were too soon again in motion, and too soon was I obUged to quit the deck ; but not before I
b2
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4 OFF VIGO.
had stored in my mind a picture of the entrance to Corunna, and had had pointed out to me the spot where Sir John Moore now rests ; and had admired again and again the track of foam which the vessel left behind her, and which, lighted np by the bril- liant sunshine, appeared as of shivered emeralds. But Cape Finisterre was lost to me, nor could I gaze upon the glories of ^' a sunset at sea,'' nor look upon the lights which told where Vigo stood; but I could hear, more distinctly than was agreeable, the noise and clamour made by some deck passen- gers who here came on board with baskets full of poultry, — ^fowls, turkeys, ducks, geese, which tbey were taking to the Lisbon market; and difficult would it have been to decide whether the cries of ^arm from the birds, or those of anger, as it seemed, from the men, were more discordant. Birds and bearers were at last quieted, and we steamed away as smoothly and as silently as a steamer can steam : the stars shone brightly, and the crescent moon astonished me by the power of her light. We who were bound for Oporto were not a little anxious for the continuance of calm weather, and not a little thankful to find, at 5 a.m., May 12, on arriving off
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f-.w "J
LANDING AT THE HUTS— THE FOZ. 5
the mouth of the Douro, that the bar was not '' up/' The morning was glorious ; sea studded with open boats, many filled with fishermen, but more carrying peasants to the famous festa at Matozinhos. A boat came out to us from ''the Huts": the luggage was first stowed therein, and then the passengers, a pretty load ! Merry pilot, merry rowers — ^there were twelve of them — ^merrier passengers. Hardly had we cleared the rocks, and shot under shelter of the breakwater, when boatmen rushed out of the boat into the sea to the shore ; men, women, and chil- dren, rushed from the shore into the sea towards the boat ; and by aid of all these persons, the packages and passengers were indiscriminately carried to land. Donkies were in waiting to carry our party to The Foz ; we mounted them, leaving all the luggage in a heap on this wild coast, surrounded by a crowd of people, wild-looking as savages, with their bare necks, bare arms, bare legs and feet, waiting till the custom-house officer should give to each the burthen that was to be carried to the custom-house at Oporto, more than three miles distant — a very inconvenient and stupid process. I looked with amazement at the girls as they passed us^ tripping
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6 THE FOZ.
away with huge boxes on their heads — ^boxes that two of them coxdd not have raised firom the ground; or as we again passed them when they had stopped to talk with some friend upon the roadj unconcerned about the weight upon their heads^ as if it had been a bag of down. The first flower I saw in Portugal was our own little English sea-sand bladder-plant ; and in the first room I entered, there was blazing in an English grate an English coal fire — ^but we went to the house of an English gentleman. Much, how- ever, within the house, and all outside the house, were sufficiently tm-English to satisfy my craving after foreign novelties.
To give a true and lively picture of St. John's da Poz, and of the scenery of the Douro up to Oporto, I cannot do better than extract, by permission, a few passages from a story called " The Belle.''
^' A motley place is this village of Foz. Suppose in about latitude 41, longitude 8^^, a ragged curve ot rocks of sundry shades, from yellowish brown to black, ranging in height from three or four to fifteen or twenty feet, and broken into a thousand forms by the everlasting pressure of the Atlantic Ocean on this salient portion of the Old World. Suppose,
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THE FOZ. 7
among these wave-rent rocks, many sands, creeks, and little bays ; within them a sloping shore of soft deep sand, surmounted by a rough bank on which a village has been constructed on a scheme as rude and irregular as that of the rocks it overlooks. What must have been originaQy a hamlet for fishermen, is now the £ELshionable sea-bathing place of the north of Portugal. Huts and hovels of the meanest appear- ance remain unabashed by the taller and more com- modious residence that have sprung up among them for the reception of summer visitants. This village, which covers a considerable extent of ground, is intersected by several ill-paved lanes, called streets, by courtesy: and these are linked by others still narrower, winding up and down in eccentric care- lessness, and wandering among garden-walls. On a moderate height, at the northern extremity of the^ place, is the lighthouse of ^ Our Lady of the Light.' The broad substantial church is conspicuous in the centre of the village, amidst a cluster of houses of all sizes. Below the church, on a tongue of land that projects into the sea, stands the little sullen fort that defends the mouth of the harbour, and domineers over the in-coming and out-going shipping. The
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8 BAR OF OPORTO,
Opposite shore, the left bank of the river, is a stiff ridge, darkened with pine-trees. At its base are some huge grey stones. A bank of sand, called the Cabedello, runs across the harbour, of which the mouth, between that bank and the port, is therefore very narrow. Just without the entrance to the river are many sunken and some visible rocks, with shift* ing sands among them, and these form the Bar of Oporto. Eastward of the fort is an unfinished wall of strong masonry, checking the tide, and within it is a large area of sand, where the fishermen make, mend, and dry their nets, and bleach their wet sails in the sun," (and where we used to canter on horse- back to and fro by the hour, our horses fiill of fire and frolic, starting back from the half-spent foam- crested wave, as it was about to break over their feet). ^' This is called the Lower Cantereira. Between it and the Upper Cantereira, a pleasant, thinly-planted walk, along the river side, towards Oporto, are two sloped causeways, flagged — ^landing-places for the city boats, and the fishermen^s catrayaa.
" This little scattered chaos of sombre rocks, yel- low sands, white walls, and red-tiled roofs, of tone- ments incongruously spread, or rather thrown as if
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. THE FOZ. y
by chance, in clumps and patches, here huddled in bunches, and there diffused in thin lines, is San Joao da Poz. Yet even in its architecture there are some things that strike the eye of the stranger, as having a character of elegance, particularly the stone crosses that are seen above the various chapels and oratories, and, from some points of view, when the eye comes upon them suddenly, have a singularly magical appearance; for instance, when they are seen over trellises of vines that hide the building to which they belong, and show the crosses, self-poised as it were, in air. Hie stone fountains, too, with their picturesque frequenters are always pleasing objects.
'^ At the back of the village are fields of grass, and rye, and maize, and dark pine groves, so resinously fragrant after showers. All these objects, and above all, that grand, ever-variable ocean, and the glori- ous sunny skies,^^ — ^made our sojourn from May to November perfectly delightful. One of our grand amusements was to go down to the beach to witness the bathing.
Here again I take the allowed liberty of ex- tracting the account given of this exceedingly picturesque and very strange scene, in " The Belle.^'
b3
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10 SEA-BATHING.
'' On a sai^dy flat, flanked by dark and ragged patches of rock, square tents are pitched ; and thns a compact hamlet is formed of poles and canvass, with strait spaces of pathway, necessary for access to the tents, which are the dressing-rooms for the bathers. Persons of all stations come hither to bathe ; while idlers, male and female, stand on the ledges of rocks and on the sands, and gaze at them as they go into these mysterious cabins, attired in their usual dresses, gay or sordid, and as they come out again — the women, clad to the throat in coarse full robes of blue frieze,^^ (their hair beautifully arranged, braided on the forehead, secured by bands of ribbon, and hanging down the back in long plaits, tied with rib- bon, pink or blue, like the one which encircles the head); ''the men in jackets and trowsers of the same material as the dresses of the women. Assistants, both male and female, who look like cousin-germans to the Tritons, conduct the bathers into the sea, and hold them while there,-^ucking and sousing them in every big wave that comes threatening and storming over them, like a platoon of soldiers firing with blank cartridge. The bathers stand as the wave approaches, then ' duck the flash,' the wild water blusters over
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THE BATHERS. H
themj then they rise^ and pant^ and sob, chnging to their guides. It is not nnfreqnent to see stout young fellows thus led into the water by bathing women, and hugging them with all the tenacity of girls afraid of being drowned. You have the blind, the lame, and the halt ; the young and the hand- some of both sexes, the hale and the infirm, the old old man, and more haggard old woman, and the whimpering cherub-child, all floundering in the wave9 together, like the crew and passengers of a wreck. Among these groups of ghastly old visages, and swart young faces, illuminated by black flashing eyes, may now and then be seen two or three fair daughters of the north, English or German. The sight of aU these people thus grouped and huddled together in or on the margin of a basin of the sea, and so many of them aged and feeble, suggests the idea of a pool of Bethesda. An EngUsh person, just landed on these shores, looks on the scene with won- der and distaste, and resolves that his wife or his daughters, who probably are also turning away from it as if they questioned the decorum of the exhibi- tion, shall never be seen in such a situation. He and they get accustomed to it, however, and the
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12 THE ENGLISH.
next, or perhaps before the expiration of this very season, the fairest form that issues from the wave in a saturated blue frieze garment is that of his own wife or daughter.
'Tew Englishmen bathe here. They prefer another and certainly a better bathing-place, Os Carreiros, which t?iey call The Huts, about half a mile away, where we landed. In this they are right ; but the English here, as all the world over, are too exdu- sively English in their tastes. They even have, at this little watering-place, a separate and most incon- venient promenade below the light-house, a rough uneven causeway, approached by a rougher road, which might be smoothed at small cost.'' — Such a promenade ! our very horses were inclined to be restive when we turned their heads in that direc- tion; and then, when they had ploughed and plunged through the deep loose sand in which great stones were dangerously concealed, what pleasure did they evince on coming out upon the firm turf which covers the rising ground above the Huts ! The English ''get more of the sea-air here, it is true; but the Upper Cantereira, where, especially on Sun- day evenings, the natives grave and gay, assemble by
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THE PRAIA, 13
hundreds^ is not only a more social^ but a level public walk ; whereas the English praia as it is called, might seem to have been selected for them by their Portu- guese shoemakers. But let us return to the Portuguese bathing-scene. Carriages of various shapes — ^the lum- bering family coach drawn by oxen, the trim little gaudy post-chaise, that looks to have been 'built in the year one/ drawn by mules, rarely by horses, gay and painted litters, which are sedan-chairs with mules instead of men for bearers, and all alive with jingling bells, convey the wealthier bathers ; and are to be seen soon after daylight, crowded together on the bank, with servants and muleteers, and numerous donkeys, that have also brought their morning vota- ries to Neptune. Simday is the favourite day. The sands and the rocks are peopled with groups of all classes ; and there is not a group among them which a northern painter would not seize with avidity as a subject for his art : so various and striking are the features, and attitudes, and costumes, and so difiPerent firom anything we are accustomed to in the north* This scene continues firom dawn till about mid-day^ From that time till two o'clock, that is, in the inter- val between the last mass and the usual dining hour
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14 St. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY.
of the richer class of visitors; this same place is a sort of fashionable lounge^ where well-dressed ladies sit in rows on wooden benches^ and men stand round them, or cluster on the rocks: and so they stare at each other for two mortal hours, saying Iittle> but looking pins and needles at each other's hearts, £rom under parti-coloured parasols, and brown or scariet umbrellas. Many a subtle flirtation is carried on there, unsuspected by or connived at by the guardian elders, fathers, mothers, aunts.^^ The Portuguese, high and low, have great faith in the efBicacy of a course of sea baths, and all seem to think there is a charm in exact numbers. The Mdalgo will on no account cease from his dippings till hU num- ber, whatever it may be, seventy or ninety, or more or less, is complete ; and the poor man, who may be able to spare only one day £rom daily labour, will compress his number into the twenty-four hours, taking forty or fifty, or perhaps more dips in that space of time. There is a charm in days too, and the anniversary of St. Bartholomew is among the poorer classes the great day. This year it fell upon a Sun- day, and the concourse of people was immense. The shore was literally covered with bathers, thick as they
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THE WOMEN. 15
could standi for two or three miles. The process began before five o'clock a.m.^ and was on this day scaroelj ended at sunset. The peasants come from great distances^ are dressed in their holiday attire, and strange as various were the costumes that pre- sented themselves to my English eye in our village, the Fo2, this day. The massive gold chains and ear- rings of the women surprised me most ; chain upon diain, the weight of which tnuit have been oppressive to many a slender neck that I saw thus adorned. One figure of a group that passed through the village made even the Portuguese look round. A lady on a fine black mule, attended by a gentleman on a very handsome black horse, and followed by two running footmen; and indeed they had to run to keep up with the quick jog-trot of the animals. The Senhor was dressed as any English gentleman might be dressed for taking a ride on the Steyne at Brighton. But his Senhora I She was the wonder. Attired in a rich black silk, curiously fashioned, fitting tight to the figure, and showing off the well-rounded waist ; on her head a large square clear white muslin ker- chief richly embroidered round the edge, falling down the back and below the shoulders, rather standing
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^ BOOTHS.
off fipom the shoulders, and upon this a round beaver hat, of a shining jet black. The crown of the hat was also round, with a little inclination to the sugar* loaf shape — ^the brim might be three inches wide. The white kerchief did not appear on the forehead, but came out firom under the hat, just behind the ears, leaving an unobstructed view of a pair of mag-» nificent gold ear-rings; the neck was encircled by massive gold chains, one of which depended as low as the waist.
Temporary wooden-houses, and booths covered with canvass, are erected on these occasions in the yards of the vendaa or public-houses on the shore and in the streets ; and there the peasants assemble to take their refreshment, which consists principally of bread and wine and fruit. Thousands are the water- melons that appear and disappear on this day; here, too, they dance and make merry. The guitar is the instrument most in use, but the fiddle and a sort of drum are also very common ; and what indefatigable dancers are the Portuguese during their festas! Day and night are alike to them. Repairs were going on in some houses nigh to ours; the workmen, who began their hammering at five in the morning, and
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PYROTECHNIC MANIA, 17
whose hammers at eight p.m. were hardly silent, were not too tired to join in the fun. In fact, they began a dance among themselves soon as their work was ended, in the very rooms where they had been working, and they kept it up tiU past midnight.
But, perhaps, of all entertainments, fire-works most delight the boys and young men. On one festival eve, we heard rockets rapping oflF inces- santly, all around us. That same night, a certain fashionable and wealthy tailor of Oporto was not content with illuminating his house brilliantly and sending his rockets up into the air, but he must send them down into the street too, to see, for the fan of the thing, the consternation they would cause among the passers by; and a rocket actually set fire to a lady^s petticoat as she was walking home fipom the opera. Happily no serious injury was sustained; the alarm, and the destruction of the dress, proving the worst of it. It is quite unsafe to ride about the streets at these/c*/a seasons. Mr. — was on a spirited horse going leisurely up one of the narrowest streets of the city, about 3 p.m., the day very hot, and therefore he was holding up an
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18 ENGLISH STEAMER AT NIGHT.
umbrella to ward off the snn^ when^ without the slightest warning, out rushes a little urchin from a gateway^ and lets off a rocket right in the face of the horse, which of course bolted round, and it was little less than a miracle how our friend escaped being crushed against one side of the street or the other, the space that the horse had for turning being so confined.
Having dwelt so long upon the disagreeable effects of rockets, I must be excused for describing one scene in which they played no vulgar part. It was at night, the signal gun of our English steamer roused me from a deep sleep. I got up— opened the shutters. A fiill moon was shining brilliantly; the white breakers of the bar were as visible as th^ were audible; beyond the bar, southwards, the sea was as a plain of burnished, not gold, nor yet silver, but something between, which now glistened, now glit- tered as the waves rolled gently along. To the north all seemed wrapped in gloom ; but in that direetiou my heart then lay. I again looked anxi- ously into the deep gloom, and a heave of some friendly wave brought into view a galaxy of bright stars floating upon the waters ; it was as if a con-
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SUNSETS. 19
Btdlation had come down £rom the heavens to rest upon these waters. These were lights from the steamer. I watched her long — ^now in sight, now out of sight — ^now one twinkling star, then again the whole constellation] and so it continued for, perhaps, half-an-hour, when from a point midway between the vessel and the shore, and where before I had not distinguished aught upon the water, rose up as bj enchantment a pillar of fire, which, after ascending to an immense height, made a graceful curve, broke, and fell, not noiselessly, into the sea. This was a rocket from the pilot^s boat, on its return to land ; a signal that all was right, and that the steamer might pursue her way — ^which she instantly did, as I suppose, for not another star twinkled from the water's breast. The light of the moon was so strong as to enable me to espy the brave little pilot* boat, as she recrossed the white breakers of the bar, a black speck tossed to and fro like a broken plank. What a spot is this Foz for moon-risings and set- tings, and shinings, and for sunsets ! Well may the Portuguese have a tradition that Noah came to Por- tugal purposely to see a sunset! — and well may Camoens write of sunsets as he does; but / will
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20 CHAPEL OF Na Sa DA BOA NOVA.
spare you my descriptions of such splendours as are liardly to be described :
« For they are of the sky, And firom onr earthly yimon paas away."
But I must be allowed two or three pages to tell of one or two of the many pleasant rides that we took during our six months' residence at the Foz* One of the most invigorating, perhaps, was along the sands to Matozinhos, fording the river Le9ay skirting the town of the same name, passing under the walls of the castle, and so, still keeping to the sea-shore, galloping on o'er rough and smooth for fiill three miles, when all at once you are arrested by the sight of two or three stone crosses poised high in air, which seem to rise &om the top of a grand headland of rock that projects boldly into the sea. You ascend this rugged height, find to your surprise a plot of sloping greensward, and at one extremity of this plot the smallest of small chapels, picturesque in form, and bearing on its roof those crosses which had puzzled us to guess whence they sprung. The chapel is sheltered from the west by a towering portion of the rock on which it is founded, but is open to the north and south.
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MINDELO. 21
It is called ^'The Chapel of Our Lady of Glad Tid- xngs/^ — and glad tidings must the sight of those touching crosses carry to the heart of many a weary voyager by sea and land. Continuing your gallop for three or four miles forther along the sea-shore, you come to the spot where Don Pedro landed, and where a pillar is erected to commemorate the fact. Returning^ as we did, through the village of Mindelo, and there taking to the pine woods, makes a pleasing variety in this long ride, and the pine-wood rides are truly delicious. You canter away along smooth sandy pathways, or over firm turf, and every now and then some opening in the wood gives you a view of the blue sea, the blue made yet more blue by con- trast with the dark green of the pines ; and when a white sail, glittering in the sunshine, chances to appear as it were floating on the top of one of these dark table-pines, or is framed in between their rich red stems, the picture is magical. Another feature there is startlingly affecting; the sound of the church- bell coming to you at any moment, you know not whence ; for when riding through the lonely woods, you cannot help fancying yourself far away from the haunts of man.
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22 St. GEN&— LORDELLO.
Another interesting ride was to St. Grens^ a little clu^el standing on a high hill that rises solitary from a Tast plain^ commandiag sea or land far as the eye can reach in every direction; a most heart- moving house of prayer — ^for there it stands on the rocky eminence, lifting its crosses to the heavens, exposed to every wind that blows ; with no other protection than that which two once fine, but now time-weakened stone-pines may occasionally afford. It was from under the walls of this chapel that Don Miguel so anxiously watched his numerous troops, as they opposed, in the plain below, the small force sent from the city by Don Pedro ; and here Miguel saw his soldiers defeated, and when they began to run, he threw down his telescope, and decamped^ and that day settled his fate.
To the city by the lower road, and back by Lor- dello — ^the village which suffered so severely in the siege, and which still bears the mark of many a cannon-baU — was a favourite ride of mine. The lower road is very beautiful, and a most entertaining thoroughfare of human life.
It runs parallel with the river, and close to it on the right bank ; rows of trees on each side, gracefril
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LOWER ROAD TO OPORTO. 23
jstone fountaiiiB^ sliaded by trees — generally weeping willows — ^about these fountains are women and cbil- dren filling tbeir pitchers. At the tank below are the lavandeiras washing linen, rubbing and beating its Itfe out on the hard stones, and singing merrily in concert as they pursue their humble calling. On the road men and boys are driving carts, drawn by two or more oxen, the heavy wooden wheels creaking most horribly as they slowly revolve with the lum- bering axle-tree. '^The long dry see-saw of an ass^s bray^^ is melodious in comparison. Kcturesque figures are for ever passing to and from the city : fish girls, fruit girls, (their pretty baskets always on their heads) tripping along with a gay, light step; and hearts as light, if we might judge from their bright looks and joyous voices^ and the cheerful greetings they gave us as we met. Groups of fishermen are spreading out their nets to dry, or sitting on the ground before their cottage doors, in the full sun- shine, mending them ; little children darting in and out of these same doors like rabbits, — and often more like the rabbit's enemy than tire rabbit, — tracing across the road, without a rag of covering, to plunge head- long into the water from a considerable height, and
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24 THE RIVER,
there to play for the hour like so many water* spaniels. They rejoice in this sport most when the tide is comiiig in great strength; and what roars of laughter burst from these little fellows when half-a- dozen of them get knocked down by a great wave, which carries them^ in spite of their puny resistance, high up on the shore, and leaves them there, sprawl- ing on the sand, till a second wave comes to make yet more sport. The river is as much alive as the road; large vessels and small, open boats, covered boats; the antique and most picturesque barco of the Douro, too. Fancy a Chinese shoe pointed at both ends, and you see something like one of these ma- chines. Then the scenery on the river banks : one word on that subject, though the banks of the Douro have been so often described. The same objects may be seen in a thousand different lights, and as vari- ously represented, yet each picture may be true and new ; but I will only tell of what struck me most : — the hanging gardens with their rich flowers, and vine-clad arbours and terrace-walks covered with trellis of vine, and the Quinta with its overhanging roof and irregular outline, its verandahs and mirante^ and the churches and chapels, and chapel-yards, with
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BEGGARS. 25
their simple or elaborate stone crosses crowning the topmost heights; and here and there a single table- pine growing out of the bare rock, and resting its dark head against the blue sky, and the city of Oporto ^^ on its bluff and craggy hiUs opposed by the heights of Villa Nova and the Serra Convent, with the many-coloured Douro flowing between." But the beggars — say you nothing of them ? What can I say after the writer I have already quoted ? But I can vouch for the accuracy of his report. They go on all through the day, '^ canting, whining, squall- ing, screaming at your door, or within your porch, or on your staircase. It is of little use to close your outer door, for they make no ceremony of knocking till it be opened, nor will they move from the place^ or cease their cant till the surly voice of one of your servants stop them with, ' It cannot be now." We had another sort of beggar at our portal, a pet pig. Swine are pets, and cunningly knowing pets in Por- tugal ; ours was a pretty, round, plump, short-backed, short-legged little fellow, who used to come grunt- ing, first at the outer door ; if not attended to there, he walked forward, and grunted for some time in the hall, and if no notice was then taken of him, he
VOL. I. c
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26 PET PIG.— PARROTS.
would mount two or tliree of the steps, and there squeal and squeak until we went to him, and he would not quit the place until something was given to him. Piggy was an epicure : he evidently pre- ferred the sweet melon to the water-melon; but the seeds of the water-melon were what he liked best of all the delicacies we hunted up for him, unless it were sweet chesnuts : apples, too, he was very fond of, and figs if they were ripe and good. He knew
OUT voices perfectly, and whenever he heard Mr.
talking in the streets, and at a considerable distance too, he would come nmning to him, and he was un- willing to leave him unti] his back had been gently rubbed with the foot or the walking-stick j he gave a sort of grunt of thanks, ''while joyfully twinkled his tail,^^ and then he contentedly withdrew. Pigs and parrots are to be seen at almost every cottage door in the Foz, and both are free of the house, to go in and out when they please. This is not quite cor- rect as to the parrots, for I observed they were not "un&equently chained to the top of the half-door, or to some other place appropriated to them near the door or window. Perhaps these chained birds were not yet quite tame enough to be trusted with liberty,
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SERVANTS.— work-people- 27
or may be their xuistressea might fear their being stden. The Portuguese and Gallegos are a little .given to petty larceny. Untold gold is perfectly £afe left upon your table, but you must keep good watch oyer your sideboard and your store-room keys, and it is well, too, to have your wardrobe locked. The Galicians make most pleasant servants, so obliging and so courteous ; and my small experience of the Portuguese maid-servants leads me to speak in like terms of them. In sickness nothing can surpass their tender and watchful care and attentions: of this I can speak from my own experience, and aU the English with whom I talked on the subject, and many of whom had lived for years in Portugal, con- firmed my impression, though too ready, as we English ever are, to find grievous faults with any person and thing out of our own country.
The Portuguese are certainly an industrious people. I have already spoken of the stone-masons who were employed next door to us, and the cliak of whose hammers and chisels was to be heard from sun-risie till sun-down. The men rested at nine o'clock for one half-hour to take a second breakfast; then they set to again, and no cessation till half-past twelve. c2
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28 MASONS.— FIELD WATCH-WOMAN.
At two they began again^ and went on till after sun- set ; and this, day by day, till their work was ended, I was surprised to observe that the workmen courted rather than shunned the burning sun; for the blocks of granite which they were hewing into shape were all arranged on the sunny side of the street, when it ■ would have been equally convenient to themselves and the passers-by to have had them placed in the shade. I must say a word or two of the industry of the women, and this is best done by stating exactly what came under my own observation. The occupation of the woman I am about to give as an example, was to drive away the little thieves of birds from a crop of Indian com, in a field adjoining our garden, and extending up a steep slope towards the lighthouse. This woman got up with the birds (before four o'clock) and went to bed with the birds (about eight), and never left the birds all day, but ran to and fro across the sloping ground under a burning sun, or a blus- tering wind, or a pelting rain, never once resting her poor legs, so far as I could discover, and I chanced at the time to.be confined by illness to a room that overlooked this field. She was busy the while too with hand and voice; one loud shrill note was for
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OUR FOUNTAIN-NYMPH. 29
ever repeated, to an instrumental accompaniment not more harmonious — a sort of watchman's rattle. Another instance I may quote, of a tall handsome young girl who came daily to the house where we were staying. She acted as the agimdeira, the water- carrier, bringing &om the fountain all the spring* water that was required for the day ; helping in the garden, weeding or watering, and willing and ready at any moment to be sent up to the city, three miles off, on any sort of errand. Thither she went regu- larly every other morning; let the weather be what it might, she was off before four o'clock, and home again by eight or nine, bringing on her head, in a large basket, everything used or consumed in the house, except the coals. On her return she would sit down for a quarter of an hour whilst she ate her breakfast, then away to the fountain, and if nothing more were required &om her, she hastened to her mother's humble cottage; and call there at any hour, when she was not out in some other person's service, you were sure to find her busy with her spindle and distaff, or with her knitting.
The Portuguese knit beautifully, and so very rapidly; and we English might take a lesson from
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30 FEMALE INDUSTRY.
them. They hold their thread so as to make only two movements with the hand^ instead of three^ as is our mode. The Germans have only two, I believe; but here the manner of holding the thread is different from the German; the needles differ too; those of the Portuguese are much bent^ and have a little hook at the end to catch the thread and draw it through. The Portuguese are very neat needle-women also; but this is a digression.
I must return to our industrious " Camilla/' for that was her name. She thought nothing of going even twice up to the city in a morning, and strange burthens did she sometimes bear on her head, at least what seemed strange to us &esh &om England; one of these was the half of a large heavy window. The windows in many of the Portuguese houses are real plagues, being constructed in that primitive fashion, which, in default of pulKes, requires a prop for the under-sash when it is lifted up for the admis- sion of air. One stormy day, an awful crash was heard : we hastened to the quarter whence the sound came, and found that the prop of a window had given way, and the sash had come down with such violence that four of tiie large panes of glass were forced out
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WAGES.— FOO0.— PRICES. 31
and had fallen in shivers into the street. " Send for Camilla to go up to the city/' and, as I supposed, to fetch the glazier; but no; the window was to go to the glazier, and not the glazier to come to the win- dow ; and sure enough the clumsy frame was taken out, put upon Camilla's head, and away she walked with it to Oporto, got it mended, and brought it back. This womfm is but one instance, you may say, but every gentleman's house in the Foz would tell you of its agiuideira and carreteira as industrious as ours. The wages are very low. That woman who laboured from morning tiU night in the field, would not receive more than 3rf. (English) per day. The wages of the men (out-door labour) about &d. Mechanics, such as stone-masons, carpenters, &c., about lOd, Then it must be remembered, that brda, the yellow gritty bread made of Indian com and rye, is very cheap; so are fruits and vegetables and wine. Here, too, by the sea, the people have seasonable supplies of fresh fish at moderate cost, besides their salted sardinhas. A vast quantity of bacalbdo, or salted cod-fish from Newfoundland, very cheap food, is consumed also by the mariners and labouring classes, and served out as rations to the soldiery. At Oporto the average
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32 FOOD.
price of the best meat was 4rf. per lb., when we were there. Up in the country, the best pieces of beef may be had for 2d. or Sd. Eggs and poultry are plentiful, and consequently are low-priced, which is well, as calda degallinha, (chicken-broth) is the sove- reign remedy ''for every ill the spittals know,^' Newly-hatched chickens you see running about the cottage-doors every week in the year. Mutton is held by the Portuguese and Galicians in little esteem: some of the too well-fed Grallegos in English houses go so far as to say it is not fit food for Christians ; and, however good the dinner that may be set before them, unless they have their proper portion of boiled beef (but not boiled quite to rags like the French bouilli)y they are much dissatisfied; and yet these very men, were they to return to their own homes, would dine contentedly on a piece of salt fish, dry and hard and tough as leather, or on a few sardinhas, cured pilchards. On their days of abstinence they live much on vegetable soup : the pumpkin and the vegetable marrow make a capital soupe maigre for the poorest. You see acres of land covered with these plants. In the autumn, and late into the winter, how often did I
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CLOTHING. 33.
stop to admire the green and golden tints of this magnificent fruit-vegetable, as it was ranged round the low walls of their eira9, or on the roofs of the cottages. Interesting objects, likewise, are those eiras where the threshed com is laid out in the open air to dry, and where the women turn over the grain with the bare feet*
To the Portuguese, the cabbage is as important an article of food as to the Scotch and Germans ; every hovel has its cabbage-garden — ^but such cabbages ! I have seen them again and again, ^^ broad and stately,^' and ten feet high at least. Potatoes are, I understood, but little used by the native poor.
The wages of the poor, then, are small, it is true ; but happily their wants too are small; and so far aa I could gather, there is no such thing a^ absolute starving poverty, as in England. One grand advan- tage that the poor of Portugal have over ours is their glorious climate. They require little fuel and little clothing; the latter is principally of coarse woollen cloth, and this they spin themselves, as they do any linen they may require. The women who carry on their heads poultry, fruit, &c., to the market, spin a§f they go ; and they sit, too, like the men, at thei|f c3
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34 DOGS.
doors in the full simshine^ spimung, or knittings or semring^ while their young ones^ half naked^ are play- ing about them^ and rolling in the sand like little pigs* By the way^ though our ^^ pet pig of the Muses '' was a very pretty pig — a quaint Chinese, — the porkerar of this neighbourhood are generally hideously ugly-— immense creatures with great long ears, long backs, rising in the centre like an arch, hollow flanks, and covered with a long, softish sort of black hair, but so httle of it as to show distinctly the black skin be- neath; and yet the cottagers make pets of these creatures, and they answer to names, and come at call like dogs, and are quite as fond of being talked to and caressed. Almost every house has its dog too, and a plaguy nuisance these curs are. At the Poz, and in the suburbs of Oporto, they come bark* ing at your horse's heels, out of one door after another, till you get a whole pack upon you before you reach the end of the street; and if they leave you there, you will find another pack awaiting you in the next street, you may be sure. A year or two ago, the magistrates, in wder to abate this nuisance, offered so much for the head of every vagrant dog that might be found without its responsible owner
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CATS. 35
in the street. Heads of dogs in plenty were pro- duced for the reward at the police-office ; and the dog-decapitation trade prospered for some days, till it was discovered that not a head nor a hair had suffered of any of the mongrels against which the canine edict was issued; but every gentlem9.n^s dog that could be seized, and all the ladies^ lapdogs that could be caught, had been the victims. Of cats, also, there are enough ; but it is difficult to recognise the relationship between our long-tailed pert-eared tab- bies of England, and these earless, tailless cats of Oporto. It is the fieishion to cut off their ears and tails ; they are the better mousers for such clipping, it is supposed. When I once remonstrated against such a barbarous practice, I was answered by a query which was unanswerable : " Is it more barbarous than your English fashion of docking your horses^ tails, and your dogs^ tails and ears too V*
It might be edifyii^ to some of the London world, who dine at night and rise at mid-day, to hear a his- tory cxf a day at the Foz*— this fashionable watering, place of the north of Portugid. They will be startled at the outset ; for they must hear of servants knock- ing at the sleeping-room door soon after 5 a.m., and
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36 LIFE AT THE FOZ.
of merry voices heard under the window even before that hour — merry voices from the bathers and their attendants passing to and from the sea. The phice is alive with ^'fashionables^* soon after sunrise^ and thus continues till nine o'clock^ the usual breakfast-hour. When they retire, the vendors of fish, poultry, game, fruits, flowers, oil, charcoal, candles, shoes, shawls, sweetmeats, chocolate, and a long et catera, keep up the bustle till three o'clock, the common dinner-hour. After that, the sesta, — and then the streets would be tolerably quiet, but for the noisy beggars. Before five o'clock the village is again astir, with ladies on foot or on donkey-back, gentle- men on foot or on horseback, children and their nursery-maids, and mxTsery-men, infants under three years old, three or four on one donkey, followed by two or three running footboys and old nurses — ^all bound for the praia, the sea-shore, and the rocks ; there to loiter about, to flirt, and amuse themselves as might suit the age and fancy of each. The sun has long set before these crowds of people return to their homes. The Portuguese have, certainly, no dread of remaining out after sunset, or of expos- ing themselves to the night air in their balconies ; at
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LIFE AT THE FOZ. 37
these they sit and talk with their Mends about them^ or with such as may chance to pass^ till nearly mid* night. Some of them are^ I fear^ gentlemen return-^ ing from an adjacent club-house^ alias gambling* house.
It was between the hours of 4 and 5 p.m., that we set out on those delightftd rides to which I have alluded. On our first arrival in Portugal, we rode before breakfast ; but that we soon gave up, for we found the sun too powerful even by eight o^clock. The ride under such a sun made idlers of us for the day; so we contented ourselves with doing as our neighbours did, keeping to the sea-side and near home. Dinner parties, dances, tea-drinks among the rocks, riding parties, and pic-nics, were taking place every day; and pleasant parties all these were — ^for the hours were early, and there was no trouble of preparation, except for the cooks, as even the dances were at- tended in undress; but the riding parties and the pic-nics were the most charming; and oh the comical scenes and the comical adventures I What food for Punch ! Even H. B. might have taken many a hint.
I will now give an account of the most extensive of our rides from the Foz, a tour of the province
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38 ENTRE DOURO E MINHO.
enire Douro e Minho. This fertfle province, the smalleBt, except Algarre, and the most populous^ and perhaps the most interesting, in all Portugal^ extends to the length only of eighteen leagues from north to south, and is twelve leagues in its extremest breadth from east to west at the utmost.* It is bounded on the north by the river Minho, which separates it from Galida; on the west, by the At- lantic Ocean; on the south, by the Douro, that divides it from the province of Beira; and on the east, partly by Gahda, and partly by Tras os Montes. It abounds with streams, which, with a good soil and isir climate, account for its great fertility, and the luxuriant growth of its trees.
It is, or was, distributed into five comarcoAy or hun- dreds— Oporto, BarceUos, Viana, Valenca, and Gui- maraens ; to which a sixth may be added, by count- ing Braga and its ecclesiastical district as another. It comprised 1500 parish churches, an archbishopric at Braga, (which stands in the very centre of this charm- ing district,) a bishopric at Oporto, and it did com- prise, till recently, 5 collegiate churches, nearly 180
* A Portuguese common league is three English miles and four- fifths.
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THE DOURO. 39
convents of nuns and friars, whose nmnber exceeded SOOO. It has, or had, 500 chapels and shrines {ermi-^ das e santiunios), and several hospitals and charitable institutions.
Its principal rivers, besides the Douro and Minho, from which it takes its name, are the Bio d^Ave, the Cavado, and the Lima. There are many minor rivers and streams, some of which wiU be noticed as they occur on our route.
But I will here say a few more words on the Douro, before we turn our backs on it for a while to make acquaintance with its northern cousin, the Minho. — The Douro (Spanish, Duero), called by the Greeks Arfyios, by the Latins Durius, has its source in the mountains of Urbion (anciently Pelendones), in Old Castile, and passing by Soria— as probably as any other the site of Numantia — it runs west- ward by Osma, Aranda, and Boa, receiving the rivers Pisuerga, Eresma, and others. It traverses Lecm, dividing it into two parts, and, after flow-* ing through or by the towns of Simancas, Tor^ desiUas, Toro, and Zamora, serves as a boundary between Leon and Portugal for several leagues, bathing the walls of Miranda, and receiving the
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40 THE DOURO.
waters of the Tormes, the Mansuecos, the Huebra, &c. Presently, at the confluence of the Agaeda, it enters Portugal, separates the provinces of Beira and Tras os Montes, receiving from the latter the rivers Sabor, Tua, Corgo, and others, and also seve- ral little tributaries from Beira, which province it also divides from that of Entre Douro e Minho, whose fine river Tamega soon adds to its flood, so that it rolls with an impetuous current, over a rocky channel and between rocky banks, with many sinuo- sities and with frequent rapids, till, before it meets the tide, it checks its haste, glides placidly (unless after a flood, here called a fresh) between Oporto and Villa Nova, and their suburbs Massarellos and G^ya, and, at our bathing-place of San Joao da Foz, pushes over the bar into the ocean.
A fresh is sometimes occasioned by an unusual duration of the season of very heavy rains, and some- times by the excess of suddenly melted snows, or by both causes combined, in the Spanish mountains, &c. Such an accident is not frequent, not even annual; but when it does come, it is a most incon- venient encroachment, swelling the river to such a degree, that the cellars and ground-floors of the
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A FRESH. 41
lower parts of Oporto and Villa Nova are inundated and the power of the flood is then so great, that the old bridge of boats (now superseded by a sus- pension iron bridge) was sure to be carried away, if the warning given by the weather and the altered state of the water was not attended to for its timely removal. I have heard an odd adventure of an English gentleman, who, on the way to his wine-lodge, was crossing that pontoon-bridge, when it gave way, and he found himself all at once em- barked on a seaward voyage, on one of the boats that had broken loose. Clear, however, of the perils of hawsers and cables, and shipping at anchor, and of all obstructions and intricacies of the river navi- gation, the truant bark piloted itself rarely, till, just as the astonished man had lost all hope of escaping the roariQg bar, the boat whirled off and grounded, with a shock that made him describe a summerset, and he found himself almost buried, but high and dry, in the soft sands of the Cabedello. Generally, mischief was prevented by detaching the boats, when, a fresh was expected, and mooring them safely till the peril was over. He who saw the Douro at such a time only, or even after a succession of moderate
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^ THE DOURO.
rains, would call it a coarse and mnddy rirer ; but he wonld be mnch mistaken — ^for it is, dnring the greater proportion of the year, as clear as can be wished ; and the sunsets on it are often delightftQ^ adorning its surface with a fine yariety of colours — here as if with polished silver, there with a rich saf* firon colour; here violet or amethystine, there jasper, — as if all the gems had been fused and interfused by that powerful sun into every exquisite harmony of hue and light and shade. This river, though nar* rower than the Tsgua, and 70 or 80 miles shorter, runs in a deeper channel, and having, perhaps, more copious tributaries, carries much more water to the sea, whence the proverb qnoted by Barros, —
** O Douro leya as agnas, o Tejo as nomeadas." The Douro has the waters, the Tagus has the fame.
In Claudian^s time the margins of the Douro abounded with flowers. So they do still.
Callicia risit Floribus ; et roaeis formosus Duria ripis.
And, as the old Oalida here mentioned comprised also the Minho country, the praise stands good for the land which we are now going to explore.
On the twenty-fourth of May we set out at seven
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TRAVELLING PARTY. 43
A.M.^ too late an hour. Our party consisted of two ladies^ two gentlemen^ a Gulician servant^ and a muleteer. Our horses were all hired. J was
mounted on a well-bred black horse that was rather fond of kicking ; my steed was quite as good as hers^ and much more amiable. Both these animals were
in a fair condition. Mr. rode a high-bred and
handsome but old and spavined white horse, and Mr. H. was perched on a tall brown Bosinante^ whosef hipbones protruded awfully. One baggage-mule (and a baggage she turned out to be), carried all our travelling-gear, including not only carpet-bags, but hammock nets, &c., &c. Yet she had but a moderate load, for our "marching orders^' were, "leave all your band-boxes at home, and take nothing that you can do without.^' Our trusty Galician went cheer- fully on foot, and the muleteer was also to walk. This was no splendid turn-out, but " economy is the life of the army," said Mr. , who was our com- manding officer. For a while we got on pretty well over rough and smooth, but the rough predominates in Portuguese travelling ; and though there are now several good roads about Oporto, this way to ViUa do Conde was not one of them. It was detestable.
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44 ROADS.
almost from the starting point. In one part^ — ^where, as often occurs^ a jumble of stones forms a causeway, two feet wide, as a bridge for one side of the road, while the rest is a swamp or a bog, — J. valiantly took the causeway, but when she had got about half- way over ^^the bad place,'^ the stones seeming more and more wide apart from each other, she took fiight at her own courage, gave her horse a sudden jerk, and brought him down into the swamp: he began kicking, which made his fore-legs sink deeper and deeper into the mire. Miss cried out; "Oh dear ! ^' and seemed determined to cry and fall off; but the seiyant rescued her, and brought her horse out in safety from this perilous Slough of Despond. We proceeded along narrow roads, where were plenty of great stones, and plenty of holes, now dusty now miry, between stone-waUs, within which were rows of pollard oaks vine-wreathed, through pine woods ; — gloomy woods they are, and few birds love them; but we heard the cuckoo in one of them. We passed many picturesque clumps of cork-trees, many oKve groves not picturesque, many pleasant varieties of verdure, and abundance of wild flowers.
YiUa do Conde stands on a flat near the mouth of
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VILLA DO CONDE. 45
the river Ave. Some writers aflfirm that it is of very ancient foundation^ and that its name was Villa Comitis. Others say that it was founded by Sancho the First in the year 1200. The huge Nunnery of Santa Clara is a fine buildings and a still more striking object is the superb aqueduct that conveyed fair water from far-off well-springs to the noble lady-nuns^ whose fingers were famed for expertness in the art of making sweet pastry. Beautiful view of this Nunnery and aqueduct from a street where an old church of Arabesque Gothic comes in as part of the picture, with gay green trees about the church, and blue hills far behind the town,
I forgot, and it is hardly worth while to recollect, that at Povoa, a fishing village, and in the season an inferior sea-bathing place, less than an hour's easy ride from Oporto, if the road had been a road, our muleteer had the modesty to inform us, with an authoritative air, that there we were to halt till next day, at a wretched venda or winehouse ! A comical
altercation ensued between the man and Mr. .
J.^8 horse took the man's part, and plunged violently, as if he too had made up his mind to proceed no further. Mr. , who soon perceived that he had
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46 MULE AND MUL£MAN.
no clxance in argument with the muleman^ who had found the wine good here^ and was fiercely eloquent^ quietly ordered Orenho^ our Galician^ to go on with the mnle. But the mule would not budge. The affair was getting unpleasantly ridiculous^ for a crowd was gathering about us. A priest luckily came up^ and with all the urbanity becoming his callings settled the matter in two minutes. What he said to the muleteer I hardly know^ but the few words he addressed to the wine-possessed man
appeared to exorcise him. Mr. changed horses
with J., and we arrived in due time at Villa do Conde; and^ after waiting there for a reasonable time we resumed our journey. The baggage-mule at one ugly place was inclined to have a roll in a mud-pond^ which would have been delectable for our changes of Unen; but the muleteer remonstrated with her^ and continued for a mile or two to lecture her severely, and the mule had nothing to say for herself. We passed twice under the aqueduct. We had a Jong and very hot and very fatiguing ride to Barcellos, over a lully country; and what a silent country it is! There are cultivated valleys sur- rounded by gloomy hilU of pines; but you meet
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APPROACH TO BARCELLOS. 47
Imrdly B human being. Old cork-trees are scattered liere and there^ single or in clumps; old^ I say^ for every cork-tree tliat I see looks, like Wordsworth's thorn, "as if it nev^ had been young;'' and this tree has not yet shed half of its brown wintry foliage, which, though the spring is nearly over, seems unwilling to yield place to the new leaves, — ^small glossy leaves, sloe-leaf like. Shabby olive-trees abound ; they are like the willow we call sally. Oak pollards you perceive in every direction, and on every one of them a bright green vine twining and flaunting. The magnificent hill boundary is in parts nakedly rocky, but most of it, as I have said, is covered with the eternal stone-pines, which, in the nearer masses, look in their distinct blackness more like thunder-clouds than green trees, but far away they are dimly hazily blue, till the outline melts into the bluer sky. Part of this ride, as we approached Barcellos, was almost as good as a ride in any of the rougher parts of Westmoreland, and perhaps would have been quite so but for the want of lakes and " trotting bums." At Barcellos, however, the river is beautiful; and so are the views, up and down, from the old stone-bridge that rests on its five or six
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48 BARCELLOS.
arches over the Cdvado ; and what a fine old town Barcellos is ! The inn detestable^ but that is nothing; it is like ahnost all the rest in the country.
Next day we breakfasted at eighty on chocolate with milk^ firesh eggs, bread and honey. The
gentlemen then sought Senhor G , to whom
we had a letter. They found him at one of the old churches, in command of the military guard that was to attend a procession. He very obligingly promised to shew us the lions when his church-miU- tant duty was over. Our friends then called on a Fidalgo, to whom we had a letter from a prebendary of Braga. Our Fidalgo, a fine-looking man of middle age, received them with much politeness, told them his house was at their service, regretted that his wife, who spoke English, and his mother, were both ill, and that the other ladies of his family were not dressed; assured them that we were at the very worst inn in the place, showed them his dining-room, and did n/ot ask them to dinner. Here, appearances were against the hospitality of the Fidalgo; yet nothing could be farther from the truth than that he was inhospitable, as we soon found. He also showed them something much better than his dining-
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BARCELLOS. 49
room (though that was very good^ as was his house altogether) — ^an ornamental garden; some of the beds nothing but box in fantastical knots^ stiif^ but very pretty; beds of flowers disposed with indescrib- able ingenuity; topiary fancies numberless^ and all graceful. From a covered balcony, at the back of his house, as well as from his garden, were strik- ing views over the Cavado, of the rich country to the south ; on the right the famed Franqueira summit; three leagues away to the left, Nosso Senhor do Monte, the holy hiU near Braga. After paying a visit to the best inn, at Barcelhinos on the other side the river, near the bridge, to assure themselves that there was such a house, and to whet their appetite for anger against the ill-conditioned muleteer who had quartered us at the worst, when it was too late to look out for ourselves, our gentlemen returned to us, and found us at a balcony, looking at the procession, and all the bustle of a fair; for this was a great gala-day at Barcellos. The clatter of voices in the square, from the motley, happy throng that filled it, was to us Babel outbabbled, though but one tongue was spoken. Such a contrast to the stillness of the pine-woods yesterday ! St. George,
VOL. I. D
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50 BARCELLOS.
the hero of the day, a wooden figure in painted armour of bronze colour, was miwilling to carry his lance, and the hone was unwilling to cany St« George. His attendants "wete half-an^hour settling this matter ; but at last the lance was steadied in SU George's hand, but St, George rode very unstea- dily on the shy led horse, who seemed to doubt whether he had got the saint or the dragon on his back. Marshalled by this mock Master of the Horse, came a gigantic and coarsely-painted figure of Christ, dressed in canonicals, and borne on a sort of trestle on men's shoulders. He was crowned with a most gorgeous wreath of thomless roses: there was something touching in that fancy, amidst all the worse than bad taste of the exhibition.
When it was over, Senhor Gr ^, true to his engage- ment, came to us, and with him the Fidalgo, already mentioned, came to pay his respects to the ladies, and to invite us, on the part of his wife, and mother, and daughters, to a little ball, which they had suddenly determined on getting up for us in honour of our letter of recommendation. This was a proffered civility much more marked than an invitation to dinner would have been, and if we had accepted it, would have put
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BARCELLOS. 51
the truly hospitable inviters to much more trouble and expense. We decl^ied it^ because we felt that we had no spare strength to waste on dancings but must husband what we had for the hai;d work before us. I have since thought that it was a stupid spiritless thing to refuse the ball. Our gentlemen thought it very stupid indeed, and accused us of jealousy of the black eyes of the {emsle fidalffuia of Barcellos. No doubt we should have met as much of the "best company '^ of the place as could have been collected on a brief summons, and we should have added some- thing to our small stock of knowledge of Portuguese provincial society at home. But, besides the reason I have given, I must own that I was shy. My want of ridU in the spoken language made me sure that I should bore and disappoint the kindness of our inviters. Some misgivings about the toilet, too, might have flitted before me, when I begged to be excused. Carpet-bags are sorry wardrobes for ladies, and we had no other. The Fidalgo was so evidently disappointed at our declining the kind bidding, that we took pains to assure him of our sense of his cour- tesy, and we parted, I hope, good fiiends. Towards
evening, Senhor Gr accompanied us on a ride
d2
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52 THE FRANQUEIRA HILL.
to the Franqueira Convent (that was) and the church above it^ on the top of a steep height which com- mands a great prospect of hills^ plains^ and sea ; the mountain GrerSz in the distance^ and Nosso Senhor do Monte^ near Braga^ distinctly visible. We saw
also^ what we supposed to be^ and was^ the M
steamer on its way to England. Our friend B
was on boards and our letters for home; and so^ while standing on that height^ our thoughts steered homeward too^ at more than steam-ship pace.
In Senhor G y our guide to the Franqueira, we
found not only a most obliging but a highly intelligent companion. He had been an exile in Don Miguel's time, and had resided three years at Exeter. He still spoke English well. On our return to the inn, the gentlemen insisted on his helping us all out with a bottle of his own present of champagne ; for he had sent us some half-dozen bottles in the morning, and also two bottles of Scotch ale, which one of our two cavaliers stowed away for future service as ^' a juice, far more precious in this latitude than champagne, or even than tokay. Put that down in
your journal,'^ said Mr. . " What V '' The two
bottles of ale, and the good fellow who sent them to
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BARCELLOS TO PONTE DE LIMA. 53
lis/' So here they are duly recorded. Before Senhor
Gr had left us, a person from Ponte de Lima was
shown up tons ; he had been sent by Senhor M
and his family, who had been expecting us for the last two or three days, and somehow or other had been informed of our arrival at Barcellos. By the advice
of Senhor G we had resolved to go to Viana first,
and thence up the river to Ponte de Lima. But this messenger represented that it would be a great disap- pointment to Senhor M if we did not go direct
to his house. We therefore changed our plan.
I do not pretend to meddle with the history and antiquities of Barcellos; Father Poyares's "pane- gyric '* on this old place may serve as a beginning for the curious reader. For the annual miraculous appearance here of crosses in the air, see Bluteau.
Mat 26th.
We were not ready for a start till after eight this morning. When the luggage was adjusted on the
mule, J , who had been the first to mount, was
moving out of the way, at which the mule became uneasy, thinking, said the surly muleteer, that her favourite white horse was going to leave her; so
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54 LIKfi MAN LIKE MULE.
there Kras a kick or two^ and a cniccessfiil straggle to break the hatter hj which she was tethered to the wall ; another wicked kick or two dislodged the Ing*^ gage, and down came the stupid mnle, bmising one of her knees, and her side; and onr things lay all
littered aboat the gronnd. Mr. was alarmed
for the champagne-flasks, and yet more for the two bottles of Edinbn^h ale; bnt he had had them packed so cnnnmgly in a covered basket, that they were all safe. After some coaxing, and reproaches, and ex- postulation, the mule suffered hoself to be re-loaded ; but still the cargo was not nicely balanced, and she winced, and went awry, and gave symptoms of medi- tated mutiny. The muleteer, who looked fiightened, now assured us that she wanted a man on her back, to make the baggage ride more steadily, and he desired our man Orenho to mount. On the first day^s march, £rom Oporto to Barcellos, he and the muleteer had trudged about thirty-five miles, and we were sorry that we had not been more liberal in this part of our arrangements, and taken another mule that they might ride and tie, though it is the com- mon custom of the country for the attendants to go on foot on such journeys. Orenho would, on that
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HOW TO QUIET A MULE. 55
first dsLjf gladly liaye mounted^ but the muleteer would not let him; but now that the mule had be- trayed her vieiouA character^ he deelined the honour of riding. In a little while^ however^ the animal seeming quieter, he was emboldened, and contrived to get on her, after several failures. The mule^s feelings being thus composed by the additional weight of twelve or thirteen stone, we proceeded without further accident through a highly interest- ing country. The mixture of cultivation and wild- ness, the feurmed valleys, and the rough serras,^ the varieties of verdure and of flowers, the glocmi of pine trees that clan like rooks in thousands, and the vari- ous shades, and sometimes lights^ of green, of the other cone^bearing &miliesj and the cypresses^ cedars, and cork trees; the classical and fruitful, but at present only flowerful, insignificant-looking olive trees; the churches and oratories, with their stone- crossesy on every high pinnacle, as well as on hill- sides and in the valleys; and lastly, the beauteous and rich vale of the Lima, with mountain-btickground whichever way you looked; the graceful river Lima
* Serra, Portuguese; Sierra, Spanish. A mountain with ridges; jagged like a law.
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56 PORTUGUESE HOSPITALITY.
itself^ with its old long bridge; the picturesque small town^ the quinias, the decayed mansions of Fidalgos^ the very ancient buildings and remains of buildings in and near the town^ all combined to give memor- able effect to our journey this day. Our host, Senhor
M ^metusatabouthalf-a-league&omPonte. We
rode under a long and capital ramada through his estate, which was in high and clean cultivation, along the pleasant banks of the Lima, to his house in the town, the best in the place. He received not only ourselves, but the servants and quadrupeds, in spite of our entreaties that they should be sent to the inn. His wife and children also gave us an evidently cor- dial welcome. We dined shortly after our arrival, which was about 2 p.m. The party consisted of sixteen persons, including our host and hostess, their son, a youth of fifteen, and daughter, about fourteen,
a Senhor C and his sister, and other Portuguese.
Our host had been in England, and the biQ of fare wiQ show that he gave us, in fact, something very like a good plain English dinner. Two soups, bread- soup and macaroni ; two dishes of trout, boiled beef and bacon, and a ham; roasted chickens, a roasted turkey, &c. ; the' boiled things first, then the roast,
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PONTE DE LIMA. 57
then sweetmeats and pastry, then cheese, and fiiiit ; white and red wines, and French liqueur, pretty much in the order in which such things are served at an English table. After dinner we walked with our host
and Senhor C to a handsome but neglected-look-
ing quinta, formerly the residence of the Conde de Freire one of the ministers of John VI. We passed the house of the brotherhood of San Luiz, to which Fra Francisco de San Luiz belonged, the Biy)o Conde ^ who was more than once president of the chamber of peers. He was Bishop of Coimbra, the author of some statistical works on Portugal, and other esteemed writings, and was considered one of the most learned men of his time. We also saw in the town a house of the Silveiras, and an old mansion of the same family, on a hill at a distance. The name will recal a nobleman who made a noise in this country a few years ago, the Marquis of Chaves ; a madman he was, say the new chartermongers ; a vardo — a man — ^he was, like the Silveiras of old times, say those to whom old-fashioned bigotries are dearer than newfangled inconsistencies.
I had not time to learn anything worth relating about certain venerable edifices of Ponte de Lima; i>3
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58 DIOGO BERNARDSS.
arifltocratic houi^s— ^verjr one of which miut hare ft history — sqiiat^ towers^ old p&lace^ Moorish mosque, still entire^ and now a chapel ; and t had nothing like an authentic book^ old or new^ at hand to give me some glimmering of insight into their mjsteries. On the banks of the Lima the poet Diogo Ber* nardes was borb^ one of the too nnmerons^ bnt one of the best, pastoral potets of Portugal. His compo^ sitions are not free from a sameness and a tameness that characterise the peninsular literature in this vein. His numbers flow very sweetly; but I am not sure that either in his eclogues or in his love-lyrics there is much more of real tehdemess perceptible than can be found in other Arcadian effiisions. His true love of his native place, however, is unquestion>- able. It is shown perpetually in his writings, one volume of which he called "The Lima,'* the other, " Flowers of the Lima/* When one hears him apos- trophise a shepherdess on the margin of this river,
" 0, Nise, Nise, Lima, Lima, Lima,"
one cannot but suspect that the heroine of his raptures is as ideal a personage as the Nymph of the stream, and that the poetic stream itself is the sole source of
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THE POET OF THE LIMA. 69
his inspiration. Whatever the quality of that inspi- ration may be^ however^ Lope de Vega has declared that he was taught to compose pastoral verse by the eclogues of Bemardes. One might suppose the ^' Sweet songster of the Lima^'^ as he has been styled^ to have passed a dreamy existence on its borders. Yet he was a man of the world, and lived in the world ; he was not only a poet, but a courtier, who knew how to rise at court. He was cotemporary with Camoens^ and has been accused, but I believe un- justly, of having plagiarised some of his minor writings. Certain, however, it is, that, both as a poet and a courtier, he gained personal distinctions which Camoens never gained: among them the peculiar favour of his young sovereign, Sebastian, who assigned to him the honour — ^unenvjable as it turned out — of accompanying him on his expedition to Africa, as the poet of victories there to be achieved. Camoens had almost solicited this honour at the con- clusion of his noble epic. Bemardes, before the ex- pedition sailed, wrote a soniiet, anticipatory of the triumphs that he was to witness. Both poets, proved false prophets : Camoens staid at home to die broken- hearted, tiianking Gk>d that he '^ died with his count
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6a PONTE DE LIMA.
try;'' Bernardes was taken prisoner on the field where Sebastian fell^ and his Carmen Triumphale ended in a dirge. After severe sufferings — ^the suf- ferings of a Christian shive in Barbary — he was ran- somed^ and returned to Lisbon^ where he died in 1596^ having survived his king about eighteen years^ and outlived Camoens but a few months less.
Mat 27th. We did not breakfast tiU eleven o'clock ; for some of our party consoled themselves for the fatigues of travel by sleeping till nearly that hour, not aware that all the family, though early risers, were politely fasting tin their guests appeared, and would not suffer them to be disturbed. No Scotch breakfast was ever better than ours to-day. Coffee, tea, beef- steaks, quince marmalade, and other sweetmeats, with bread as white as milk. The table was taste- fully decorated with flowers. We passed our morn- ing, or rather, afternoon, in sketching, lounging, sauntering, and the dolce far niente, which was
really dolce to the wearied limbs of J and
myself, who were new campaigners. We dined about five, and in the evening the drawing-room was
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SOIREE. 61
filled with visitors, invited by our hostess. The beauty of the ladies was not so remarkable as their affability and lively good-humonr. There was not a pretty girl among them ; but every one of them had good teeth, dark eyes, and jet-black hair. They were all dressed nearly alike; plainly, in black. Some of the young men were better-looking; but they were more reserved, had more starch in their manner, than their sisters. Two or three of the young ladies played difficult pieces of Italian music, from recent and fashionable operas, admirably on the piano. One of the young gentlemen, after much soUcitation by the lady of the house, overcame his bashftilness, and sang, with good voice and good taste, several very pretty though melancholy and rather monotonous vnodinhas. But the star of the
night was Senhor Jeronymo , a professor of music,
who had been a pupil of a celebrated pianist, Senhor Bom TempOy Good Time — ^no bad name for a musician. Senhor Jeronymo performed on the pianoforte with exquisite delicacy ; but one of the ladies present, a maiden lady of about forty, continued exclaiming every minute, "Bravo, Senhor Jeronymo, ah I — bravo, Senhor Jeronymo.^' The effect was most
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62 u WILL YOU WRITE ! »»
ladicrous; for bo other person uttered a syllable^ and the short way in which she snapped out so repeatedly, ^' Bravo, Senhor Jeronymol^^ cut the music, as it were, into bars in the wrong pUices. The effort of the silent auditory to keep grave faces was painfdlly comical. Benhor Jeronymo also sang an Italian aria, and was, as before, interrupted in his most critical quavers by the enthusiastic lady. " Bravo, Senhor Jeronymo ! Ai, que gracinhal^* — (ah, what darling grace !) But we had some plain tidk, as well as vocal and instrumental harmony. Admiral Napier (Don Pedro's admiral — ^the Nelson of his cause) lodged himself in this house in the course of his gaUant vagaries as an amphibious warrior in the north of Portugal, after his exploit at Cape St. Vincent. Senhor C gave a curious ac- count of his bluntness of deportment to the astonished
natives. Senhor C called on him here. ''What do
you want ?'' inquired the admiral* He was lounging on the 80& in the drawing-room, smoking a cigar; he WM dressed in clothes once blue, now of no co- lour; and was altogether the most slovenly-looking of heroes. — '' I called to pay my respects.^' — " WiU you write?'' — ''Whatever your Excellency pleases."
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••MUITO OBRfGADO.'' 63
The admiral throws his dgar out of window^ takeft a pinch of fsnxiSf and reflects* ^' Write then to the Joi^ de Fora^ he must feed all my men directlj. Is that done? '*— " Yes/'—" Send it oflf then/'— A pinch of snufif. " Write to such an authority of such and such a parish or village; he must famish three bullocks, &c. &c. '/' and So he went on, taking pinches of snuff, and issuing his requisitions. The abbot and prin- cipals of a neighbouring monastery waited on him in form. They were introduced, and ranged themselves in semicircle, making their bows. The admiral on his sofa seemed in a '* brown study/' till reminded by some gentlemen that these visitors were persons of distinction. ^' What do they want ?" — " They come to offer their compliments to your Excellency/' — He got up, inclined his head, and thanked them, ^' Mtdtd obrigadOy muito obrigado" — ^much obliged, much ob- liged— and bowed them out. His demeanour here was thought altogether rough and eccentric. I dare say he had neither leisure nor inclination to bandy compliments with Portuguese gentlemen and friars, the greater part of whom, he might well suspect, wished him and all Don Pedro's partisans at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. I give this report.
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64 THE LIMA.
without offence^ I trusty just as it was made to us by
Senhor C y and confirmed by several of Senhor
M ^'s friends. Senhor M was absent at the
time of Napier's foray ; for he, too, had found it pru- dent to expatriate himself during the tyranny of Don Miguel, by whose government every man of substance and of local influence, who did not declare himself for the "king absolute,^' was treated as a foe and a traitor. Senhor M took refuge at Liverpool.
Mat 27th. We set off in a boat, at 8 a.m., accompanied by
Senhor M , down the delightful Lima. The sail
was arranged over the centre of the boat as a coved
awning, and under it was a couch all ready for J
and me, and a basket with wine and cake, &c. Thus the attentions of our host and hostess were minutely thoughtful to the last. The sail protected us from the sun, without impeding our view. Two men, one at the head, the other at the stem, shoved the boat along with poles. The bed of the river is of soft, clean sand, and abounds with shallows, through which the men are sometimes obliged to dig chan- nels; though the flat boat in which we were, not
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THE LIMA. 65
drawing above half-a-foot of water, would, probably, seldom or never require such a clearance — at least, unless mucb more heavily freighted than it was now. At Bertiendos, about two miles below Ponte de Lima, we observed a handsome quinta belonging to a fidalgo, — a stately house, with stone pinnacles, open galle- ries, square stone tower, battlemented, and standing within a grove of noble trees. We were told that it was occupied by lineal descendants of those Fereiras whom old Gil Vicente describes.
** They are thorongh-bred nobles and good cavalierB, Good defenders of right, if ike cost be not theirs ; Full of zeal for the reahn, both abroad and at home ; And, when once they are married, not given to roam. — But the women, the genuine pride of the race ; Oh, they are the women for beauty and grace ! No flowers are so lovely, no bhrds are so gay, And a spell is in all that they do and they say."
At Passagens, a mile or two lower down, our worthy host took leave of us, and mounted his horse. We often could perceive our own horses and mule, along the river side, leisurely wending towards the same point to which we were so pleasantly gliding. We, too, however, were tempted to land at Veiga de Corilho, on the edge of a plain, three leagues in extent, well cultivated, and now alive with waving
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66 THE LIMA.
rye^ nearly fit for the sickle. This plain is backed by cone-flhaped rocky hdlk^ The fi^er banks are more than £ringed mik oaks and olives: the old dire trees thus intermingled with oaks by no mean» disfigure the landscape; the lichen-stamed tnmk is ahnost as picturesque as that of the time-silvered birch. Under the far-spread shade of the oak» we sauntered along for a mile or two^ then took to the boat again. On a hill to the left is a pretty chapel^ Nossa Senhora da boa morte, '^Our Lady of the good death /^ and another^ not far off^ San Estevao da facha^ " St. Stephen of the torch.'* On the r^ht bank^ we have passed the small white chapel of St. Christopher, on a grey rockj lower, the chapel of St. Justa. Yonder, on the left bank again, is Yicto- rina, a hamlet, near the Casa dos Abrens Cotinhos, a mansion which was grossly abused a few years ago, and had all its furniture destroyed by the Natumai Guard of Fonte de Lima, because MiguelUe papers were found, or pretended to have been found, there. But the '^little wars'' of retaliation are nevar ended in Pcnrtugal. Miguelites and Pedroites, Hump* backs and Thumped-backs, Chartists and Septem- brists, &c., &c., for ever re-appear under some new
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THE LIMA. 67
nickname or otW^ said fight their little spites^ and neyer fight them ont ; and «o it will eter be, unlesfs this fair region shall at last be blest #ith & strong and honest goi^^mment. It is a pity th^ the noi-^ some subject of Portuguese discords mil obtrude itself 6Terjr«rhere, even on the Limft^ Biit yonder are some men flsh-spearing ; better that than spear- ing one another. Just now we passed a group of fishers netting. As we glide along we are greeted, in mid-river, by men who are wading across with baskets on their heads; the first men that I havi^ seen esirrying burthens in that fashion ; but hands and staff are needed here td steady them acroi^s the unequal shoals. Nightingales are in full song in the hazel fmd olive copses with which the river margin is decorated as with hedgerows—" hardly hedgerows, little lines of sportive wood tun wild.^^ The distant cudkoos are eaUing to each other. Now we come upon a fleet of boats, in ftill sail ; for here is deeper water, — above twenty boats, and a very pretty fleet it is. They are working up from Yiana to Ponte de Idma with bacalMOi &c., and empty pipes to fetch wine. Blue dragon-flies — ^blue, green, golden-^are hovering over the water ; and in the water is a kind of long
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68 THE LIMA.
delicate weed, that looks like seaweed, the finest, most heautifiil that ever was seen ; hut it is the growth of the river sand, for there it has its root, and the long fibres wave and stream under the current with more life than the current itself, and look, indeed, like the tresses of some group of Nymphs whom the silver sands have suddenly hidden at our approach, leaving nothing of them visible but their hair. The sky above and around is all bright azure — no, not all just now; for there are eider-down-like clouds, with brown edges hovering over the mountains, which those white clouds darken, but not sadden, with their shadows. The men have now taken to their pad- dles, and we glide along against the breeze, if breeze it may be called, that comes so soft, and so fragrant from the west, and need not *' whisper whence it stole its balmy sweets,^^ for yonder is the orchard it has been robbing — -a grove of orange trees and lemon trees in flower. The hues of the slightly rippled and quite transparent river are now more beautifiil than ever. As we look down through the water, the eflFect on the sandy bed is as if it was overlaid with a golden network of large open meshes. This is the reflection of the slightly-curled water, the
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THE LIMA, 69
edges of tlie little waves sparkling and dancing in the snn^ and so on the light clean sand beneath. In some places the effect of the sim on the surface of the water is that of myriads of diamonds dancing. Almost all the way down, on both banks, except with such intervals as make an agreeable variety, by letting US in to peeps at the fields, the river is luxu- riantly edged, but not hedged, with brushwood; and the branches, not only of the olives and tall oaks, already spoken of, but of this underwood, reach far over upon the stream in many places, and there, on the hthe twigs, the nightingales swing and sing. I saw some of them perched in this manner, while they sang against each other ^' with so merry a note.^' They were not so shy of being seen as nightingales usually are in England, where, though they seem to like a populous neighbourhood, they shun the eye of man or woman. Of the scores of these birds that I have heard at Richmond on Thames, at Woolwich, and other frequented places, I have seldom espied one, though, like Chaucer's Lady of the Flower and the Leaf, and many a time,
" I waited aboat busily On every side, if I 'that bird ' might see."
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70 \ VIANA.
I suppose they are here unmolested by bird*snarers^ aad too happy to be suspicious.
Withiu a league of Yiana the tide comes up^ aud the river widens ; we heard no more nightingales. On the left of the river^ near Yiana^ is a hill^ with its backbone bristled up with pines^ a striking isolated object.
We were almost sorry to arrive at Yiana, so plea- sant had been the passage down the Lima. Our
horses were ahready at the pier. J and I mounted
ours, and the gentlemen walked by us to the house
of Mr.N , of Oporto, who had, with his ever-ready
gentlemanly kindness, (the air of doing himself a favour whea he was bestowing one) commanded us to make that house our hotel.
Mat 29ih.
The hospitality of Mr. N ^s representative here,
and the excessive heat of the day, caused us to be later in starting than we had intended. We had ordered our mule-man to be ready at 3 p.m. The surly fellow mounted the baggage mule and started oflF without us, at the hour. At five, we set out, first riding round the town, accompanied by some Portu- guese friends of our English friend Mr. N , look-
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yiANA. 71
ing 3,t the GtuldhaU^ a bald-fronted stone house, another civic building, (of which I forget the name and use ; but it had a handsomely sculptured stone front,) the churches, convents, the queer long swt of aigzag bridge, fee, and the castle, — a strongly-barred, dismal prison on the sea-side.
We then pursued our way, and our ftigitive baggage and arriero, passing two hamlets, Arioso and Gare90, where reside the women and children by whom the lands in the neighbourhood are almost exclusively cultivated ; the men, for the most part, emigrating to Lisbon for more remunerative work. These women all look old, and their young fellow-labourers have the appearance of imps rather than children. The constant exposure and exertion seem to deform their features as much as they darken their skins. Our way from Yiana, at first, was along a fair sandy road; on the left, a plain of corn-fields to the sea-side; on the right, grey hills with rough ridges. The villages are mostly on the side of these rocks. The latter part of our journey was over soft sands, then through a village; and then we came to an extensive pine- wood, on the nearest outskirt of which we found our arriero waiting. He had halted, afraid, as he
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72 VIANA-
confessed^ of going through the wood alone^ lest he should be robbed. His cowardice satisfied us of one things that he was not a rogue as well as a sot ; for nothing would have been easier for him, had he been so inclined, than to have arranged a robbery with some of his pot-companions at any lone venda, and so to have eased the mule of her load in this very wood, or some other convenient spot, without any witness that would " peach/^ He might even have done worse, without much risk of proof against him. A posse of rufiBians, supposing him to have been in intelligence with such persons, might in this wood, or in any other of the many lone woods and wilds that we trar versed, have robbed the whole party of everything valuable about them, for we had no arms with us. This mode of plunder by connivance of the muleteer does not often occur ; for most of the arrieros are as trustworthy as Arab guides. I can, however, cite two instances in which personal friends of ours seem to have been betrayed by their guides. Our compa- nion, Mr. H , can furnish the particulars of one
of these adventures.
Let us ask him. — ^Mr. H y what o^ clock is it ?
— " Why do you ask me ? You are always asking
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MR. H 'S ADVENTURE. 73
me what o'clock it is, and you know I have no watch !" — "And how come you to have no watch V^ — "You know as well as I do/' — "But I should like to hear the very particulars from yourself. I have not yet heard them from your own mouth/' — "Well, then, it is a short story; unless I make it a long one to revenge myself on your impertinence. I was lately at Vizeu. A young gentleman, also from Oporto, was with me. We were about to return home by Lamego and the Alto Douro. At Vizeu, where we were both strangers, we hired, from a man whom we knew nothing about and who knew nothing about us, two mules to ride, and an arriero to walk- all three very bad. The arriero was an old fellow, and very slow, but not slower than his mules, so he had no fear of being left behind. We had a terrible pull to Castro d' Aire. Whenever a village came in sight, we asked, ^ Is that Castro d' Aire ? ' — ' No, Sir,' was still the answer. At last we approached a considerable cluster of houses on the edge of a ravine. ' Is that Castro d' Aire ? ' we eagerly inquired of a passing countryman. ^Abr' olho^ (Open your eyes), he answered with a grin. Uncivil churl I thought we ; but the name of the place was Abr' olhos. The
VOL. I. E
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74 MR. H
man then pointed out to us a confused mass of build- ings on the other side of the ravine. That was Castro d' Aire, a very picturesque object at this distance; a wretched place on nearer acquaintance. Wedescended to the edge of the gully, crossed the bridge over the rushing Paiva, and painfuUy climbed the steep to Castro d' Aire, whose walls and steeples looked as if a touch might hurl them down the precipice. In this place we passed a miserable night. The filthy hovel called an inn was full of mule-drivers and vagabonds.'^ — " Never mind ; go on." — " But some of them minded ttSy and would not let us go on." — ''Ay, come to that." — ''All in good time, ma^am ; hurry no man^s cattle; the mules are slow. At day-break we left Castro d^ Aire, in a thick fog which soon turned to drizzling rain. When we had proceeded about a league we overtook a blind beggar mounted on a donkey, with an old man on foot, who acted as his guide, and we all jogged on together. Presently my mule threw a shoe; this occasioned some delay; we stopped at every hut or hamlet we came to, inquiring for a farrier, but without success. We had just gained the top of a particularly steep and broken piece of road, and my mule, &om which I had got off,
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MR. H . 75
was already limping, when I was joined by a pedes- trian in the common dress of a farm-servant. He offered to lead the disabled animal. We declined his services, but h^ continued to walk and talk with me. I was now in the rear of the party. Shortly after, I was overtaken by a horseman, well mounted and armed, attended by an arriero, whom he was upbraid- ing for having let him sleep too long. ' Pray what o^ clock is it, Sir ?^ said he to me, with a grave salute. I took out my watch, and answered eight o^clock. He thanked me and hurried on. By and by, on turning a comer of the road, I was surprised to meet the said horseman coming back alone, and faster than he had left me. When within ten paces of me, he levelled his carbine, and commanded me to stop on pain of death. I suppose I looked rebellious, for the peasant at my side suddenly pinioned my arms behind, and told me not to make an ass of myself! In a minute or two all my party was brought back, beggar on donkey and all, by others of the gang who had burst out upon them from the brushwood. The horseman now dismounted, and telling us that he was a soap-guard, an officer employed by the contractors for the soap monopoly, and that he had received E 2
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76 MR. H .
information that we were engaged in smuggling soap from Spain, declared that we must accompany him to the commissary of the nearest village. They then led us a good way off the main-road, the captain always keeping his carhine ready, within rather a ticklish distance of myself. Finally, after crossing several fields and inclosures, they came to a small wood of oak-pollards. ' This will do,^ cried the head thief. In a moment our vaUses were taken off the mules and thoroughly rifled, each thief helping himself. We, too, were carefully searched, and eased not only of the contents of our pockets, but of our very coats and waistcoats. The rascall, however, seemed grievously disappointed at the amount of their booty, for they only got thirty or forty crowns in money ; and they reproachfully assured us, that if they had known we were worth so little, they would not have taken so much trouble! — "But your watch,
Mr. H ?" — " Yes, they got our two watches and
chains ; that was the worst of it/^ — " And was that all that happened?'' — '^Not quite : they tied us by twos, back to back, and bound each couple to a tree. We must have looked rather ridiculous. The robbers then left us, promising to send some one to release
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MR H • 77
US in two hours, and threatening us with all sorts of deaths if we dared to attempt to get loose sooner. In about half an hour, however, our muleteer, who no doubt was in the plot, and had been loosely tied, easily got free, and gave us liberty. The blind man we found in the next field, the thieves having eon- tented themselves with turning him round three or four times so as to make him lose all idea of the points of the compass, and there he was, shouting with all his might. Mules and donkey also were left quietly grazing, our polite knights of the road having merely cut the girths of the saddles. We got to Lamego about four in the afternoon/'
But let us get out of this dark pillared wildemess of wood first, " questa selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte/' We had silently plodded among its sands
for half an hour, when J , in a tone that was not
like her own merry voice, said, ^' Gloomy enough !'' and those two words were all that were uttered while we followed our guide through its pathless and seem- ingly endless intricacies. Bats were flitting over our heads, and the sea-murmurs were heard ; but though there was no moon, cheerful stars were glistening, that appeared the brighter as we looked up at them
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78 GAMINHA.
througli those solemn black pines. In hali an hour more we got clear of the wood, and we reached Caminha soon after nine o'clock. We fonnd the inn a very poor one, and luckily, we had a letter of intro- duction from Senhor M , of Ponte de Lima, which
we did not scruple to send to its address, as soon as we had glanced at the wretched accommodations.
Senhor C was at the Governor's, with his family,
but immediately came away on receiving the letter, and escorted us at once to his own house, whither he was quickly followed, not only by his wife and chil- dren, but by the Governor, and three ladies and two gentlemen besides. It was quite a little party, assembled in ten minutes. We had tea, and were then entertained with music, — guitar and piano. One of the nieces of the Grovemor sang modinhas very pleasingly. Dancing was proposed, but I pleaded our fatigue as an excuse ; and before midnight we were kindly suffered to retire to rest. Our mat- tresses were hard, but everything was clean and comfortable ; and had they been stuffed with down, we could not have been more grateful for them.
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CAMINHA. 79
Mat SOtb. Caminha stands at the mouth of the Minho^ and is therefore the most northern of the Portuguese towns situated near the sea. Few objects of interest detain the traveller here; and fi9w words will serve for them — crumbling batteries, a pretty fountain, narrow streets, neatly paved and flagged on each aide; and, in the centre of the little town, the handsome Igreja Matriz, ^^Mother-church,*' one of the finest coUegiate churches of the province, and built, or rather commenced, by command of King Emanuel, when he passed through Caminha on a pilgrim^s progress to the shrine of Compostella. The first stone was laid in 1488 ; but the building was not finally completed, with the outward adjuncts of towers, &c., till almost sixty years later, towards the close of the reign of John III., EmanuePs son and successor.
Mat 3Ist.
We have sent our horses and servants to Valen^a, and engaged a large boat, with two boatmen, to take us up the river. So here we are, at 10 p.m., within arrow-shot of Spain and Portugal, and yet in neither ; we are in the centre of the Minho, rowing up to
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80 THE RIVER MINHO.
Valen^a with the tide. The Minho is a fine broad stream to the sea all the way &om Yalenfa^ and £ar higher up. It is at present^ that is^ to us^ who have now oiir eyes on it, of a dull, Kght sea-green colour. There are several villages on or near its banks on both sides. The landscape is chiefly composed of slopes and taller hills, darkly green with pines, or gray with rocks, or brownish-red with short-heath. Near the river, here and there, are livelier patches of cultivated grounds, and pasture fields. We met a few boats from Valenga, bringing down hams and Indian com. They were sailing against the tide, but the wind was in their favour. We passed other boats that were poling up : these were laden with salt for Valenya. At Villa Nova de Cerveira we landed, and as our condessa, or provender-basket, had been, by a blunder, sufiered to take its usual place on mule-back with the rest of our luggage this morning, we bought bread for ourselves and the rowers, and also a Canada of wine (two quarts), which cost about fourpence. Villa Nova de Cerveira is a veiy little place, but has its ramparts, bastions, and battlements. There is a smaU elegant chapel on the ramparts. In the diminutive town is a handsome
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BANKS OF THE MINHO. 81
church. On the Spanish side of the river is, of conrse, a rival battery ; a little higher np is a round mill-like watch-tower, called the Tower of the Rat, and opposite to it is, of course, another Portuguese battery. On the bald hills of Galicia, as well as on the Portuguese side, are numerous steep roads and tortuous paths distinctly visible. Both sides are hungry-looking, and scarcely interesting, except as boundaries between two nations that detest each other with the vigorous evergreen hatred of near relations at feud.
About two miles below Valen^a, the boatmen — good-natured fellows, but rogues, who preferred their own convenience to ours — ^were about to land us, saying, " This is our port/^ A pretty trudge we shoidd
have had to the town ! Mr. declined landing
there, and they pulled on. The morning had been exceedingly sultry; the wind had died away, and the sky became overcast; thunder began to mutter, and large drops of rain gave notice of a storm. Pre- sently, "it did not rain, but it poured; ^^ floods of large rain, intermixed with hail, came hurthng viciously down, and drenched us in a few minutes. The effect on the water was as if it had been suddenly covered E 3
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82 A STORM.
roughly with Kve snow, so long as this '' sharp rain of arrowy sleef lasted. The blackened sky, and pinewoods and mountains, looked like a drawing in Indian ink. The terror and helplessness of the
boatmen were so ludicrous, that even J , who is
not very courageous, could not refrain from laughing at them, though the thunder now echoing among the hills was awfril. At every flash of lightning our watermen cowered down like men marked for doom, and at every ratthng peal they loudly invoked St. Jerome, and rushed from one end of the boat to the other ; luckily it was a large boat, or they must have upset it. In an interval, when there was a little breeze, and a lull of the storm, they put up a sail to expedite their escape. At the first clap of thunder that followed, they lowered the sail in all precipitation, and left it, all wet as it was, flapping
on J 's head and mine, tiQ our gentlemen
removed it. The boatmen then rowed away to the nearest bank, and took shelter under some trees;
but when Mr. told them that that was much
more dangerous than keeping out, away they hur- ried, and we were again in the full stream. They then rowed as if for their lives, and soon put us
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VALENCA. 83
ashore at the foot of Valeiwfa, the first view of which was very bold and grand — a pyramid of buildings on a hill. Tuy is similarly situated nearly opposite. After an ngly, though sharp walk up the hill, slip- pery with rain^ we passed under the gloomy archways of the fort to the small town, where we put up at the inn " O Galego/^ It was a goodish provincial Portuguese inn; would be a wretched pothouse in a more civiUzed region. After receiving the visits of two or three gentlemen, to whom we had for- warded letters, and walking round the ramparts and through the poor town, we dined, and retired early to rest.
In the morning, aU the party except myself strolled again over the ramparts and town. I went into the nearest church, invited by the open door, and I suppose the morning service was already over, for I perceived no living creature within. But there a little girl, about ten years old, lay dead on her open bier, crowned with flowers, and dressed in sUk, trimmed with tinsel and ribbons. She was covered from head to foot with a white transparent veil, a bride for the worm.
Valen9a is said to be the third strong place of
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84 VIRIATUSw
Portugal ; Elvas and Almeida being the other two. It is in bad order^ but might, no doubt, stand a good siege if well repaired and manned by a more resolute garrison and governor than those that surrendered it to Napier, when, as a Portuguese gentleman told me, they had men enough to beat him back ^^ with no- thing but stones,'^ and mijght have laughed him to scorn with their formidable twelve-pounders, brass guns, mortars, &c., if all this warlike gear had been in serviceable condition and well served. On this very site, nearly two thousand years ago, a Portuguese warrior shepherd, (a bandit, the Roman historians caQ him,) after having in many fields foiled the Legions, and conquered peace, erected a strong place of refuge, as if suspicious of the treachery to which he at last fell a victim. No shred of the shepherd^s mantle, if he wore one, descended to Don MigueFs Governor of Valen9a when he surrendered to Napier's handful of seamen arid marines. The cowardice, however, of the garrison and the chief was probably rather political than physical. They knew their cause was gone.
Don L of Tuy, to whom we last night sent
our letter of introduction, called at 11 a.m., and
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Tuy. 85
accompanied us in the ferry-boat to Tuy. The heat was excessive. Foux Portuguese Volunteers, whose regiment was on duty at Valen5a, crossed the ferry with us, and the moment they landed on Spanish ground^ began to abuse the Spaniards as the lowest of the human race, and they continued their vituperation as long as we let them walk behind
us. This must have been pleasant to Don L ,
our companion, on his own ground. He took no notice whatever of their insulting language. We stopped that they might pass, and one of the men, who saw how disgusted we were, said, civilly enough
to Mr. , " Oh, you don^t know these Gallegos ;
ask them how they treated us formerly, when we were outnumbered by the Miguel traitors, and forced to retreat into GaKcia.^^ — " But true soldiers," replied
Mr. L , " keep their tongues, as well as swords,
in the scabbard, in time of peace." The man smiled, and all four raised their hands to their caps, and walked off.
Don L conducted us to his house, a good and
pleasant one, where an elderly good-humoured lady, and two handsome young ladies (one a visitor from Vigo, and the other a sister of Don L ) received
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86 TUY.
us. J was almost immediately asked to play on
the piano^ which she did. Several airs were then played with much taste and remarkable dignity of carriage by one of the young Spaniards; for^ let the CastiUans sneer as they wiU, there is as true Spanish blood (and blue bloody too) in Oalicia as in either of the Castiles. Sweetmeats and wine were offered us, and then we were guided up the hill to various points of view, some of them very fine, the Spanish and Portuguese mountains uniting in a natural and noble harmony, which the two nations seem determined never to imitate. At the very top of the town, the cathedral, with its rich gateway and cloisters, and its dark elaborately sculptured stalls, is worthy of much longer examination than we had time to give to so venerable an edifice. There is a magnificent pro- spect of mountains, fertile vales, and river, from the robing-room of the bishop. The Tuy prison for men is, of course, strongly barred with iron; but that for women, right opposite, had the casements secured with wooden bars only.
On our return to Valen<;a, the Brigadier-General commanding there, to whose attention we had been recommended by letter, sent an Aide-de-camp to
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FROM VALENCA TO MONCAO. 87
explain that he had been absient on our arrival^ and had only just come back^ and that he wonld come to tts presently. But we sent him word that we were about to depart. I only mention the circumstance, otherwise of no interest whatever^ as another instance of the invariable respect paid by Portuguese gentle- men to letters of introduction.
At 5 P.M. we started for Mon9ao. The ride all the way beautiful ; the road, comparatively speaking, not bad. The borders of the river are richly wooded, and cidtivated. The hills are also finely wooded; and, when I use this phrase, I do not mean with the pine only, but with trees of more cheerful character, oaks, chesnuts, walnuts, &c. &c. Sometimes we rode under ramadas of vines, which are of the most delicate verdure at this season. The vine is trained on upright poles, or on stone-shafts, at each side of the road, and on cross poles at top, and thus forms these charming highway arbours. Exquisite views of the river by the setting sunlight. Tuy looked out boldly and clearly in the full light as we left Valen9a, while the hills at the back of Tuy were abeady shrouded in the deepest and richest blue. At San Mamede, a village about equidistant from
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88 FROM VALENCA TO MONCAO.
Valenfa and Mon9ao^ is a bridge across a deep little woody glen over the Rio da Gadanha^ a stream that joins the Minho just below. Near this bridge, which is called Fonte do Manco (the Cripple^s Bridge), is a saw-mill; and a little further on is a qidnta, with a most imposing breadth of gateway of carved stone ; but the honse to which it invites attention has no claim to notice. This incongruity reminded me of the story of an English, squire, who, having constructed as pompous a gateway to a paltry paddock and insigni- ficant mansion, caused his chosen motto to be in- scribed on the gate thus : 61 VANITAS ; on which a sarcastic visitor observed, that the squire^s omnia seemed very small, and his vanitas veiy great. But some of such gateways in Portugal are of hoar anti- quity, and though they may now be ^^ passages that lead to nothing,^^ like Gray's in the ^' Long Story,'^ the arms thereon sculptured have often a proud and melancholy interest. They tell of men and things that were, when Portugal was a nation, and when Fidalgos were statesmen and heroes.
Half a mile onward we passed the bluflF square tower, caQed the Castle of Lapella, said to be one of the many forts built in the reign of King Diniz, the
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MONCAO. 89
poet-king^ whose songs of the 13th century have but just been printed for the first time firom a manuscript in the Vatican. On the Galician side of the Minho, a little beyond O Castello de Lapella, is the sullen* looking fortress of Salvatierra.
By eight o'clock we reached Mon9ao^ whither Mr.
L had preceded us, and where, finding the inn
uninviting, he accepted for us the proflFered hospi- tality of a gentleman to whom we had a letter, and who made our party, servants and quadrupeds ex- cepted, as comfortable as he cotdd on so short a notice. We ladies, having got tea, were glad to go to rest before ten.
Mon^ao, according to some antiquaries, who have access, I suspect, to archives in the moon, (for, " Ci6 che si perde qui, 1^ si raguna,'' says Ariosto,) is so ancient that its first name was Obobriga, from King Brigus, its original founder, one thousand nine hundred years before the birth of our Saviour. So we may peculiarly apply to this place the observa- tion more largely applied by Camoens : —
— de hum Brigo, Sefoif ja teve o nome derivado —
" It derives its name firom one Brigus, if such a one
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90 MONCAO.
ever lived/' Its second founders were the Greeks, who named it Orozion, whence, as it is pretended, it was afterwards called Mons Sanctus, and abbre- viated to Monfao. After it had been again disman- tled and deserted, it was refonnded by Alfonso III., not exactly on the same site as before, but where it now stands, close to the Minho. His son King Diniz walled it round, and built the castle. The arms of the town are, on a field argent, a woman on the walls, holding two loaves, and the motto is Deu la deu, '' God gave her,'' in memory of the courage and discretion of a noble lady, Deu-la-deu (or Theo- dosia) Martinez, who, after the Castilians had for some time invested the town, and cut off all supplies, baked some bread, and threw the loaves from the wall, calling out to the Spaniards, "There, if you want food, speak, for we have plenty, and will spare you some." The besiegers, when they saw fresh bread, gave up the siege. They had hoped to starve the garrison out, and had nearly done so; but woman's wile saved the place ;
For those leaguers " little knew What that wily sex could do."
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MONCAO. 91
June Ist.
We were up at half-past four, but could not get our servants to be ready till seven. At breakfast, our host, who had travelled much both in North and South America, (and who was sixteen years in Brazil, chiefly in Pemambuco, which, he says, con- tains the finest scenery he ever saw,) dispraised the Spaniards in no qualified terms. Thus it is wher- ever we go ; and the Spaniards are not one whit less uncharitable to the Portuguese. Pitiable is the dis- cord between two people who worship the same God, follow the same superstitions, have nearly the same language and manners and customs, and a soil which Nature seems to have intended for one vast brotherhood.
On another subject, the vagaries of our acquaint- ance and countryman. Major P , of which we
had heard something at Valen9a, our obliging host was more entertaining than on that of his antipathy to his neighbours. The Major, being engaged in the wine-trade, was here for some days, looking at the vintage -produce in every direction; for the English formerly used to procure wines from this vicinity. They were then, it is said, better than
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92 HOW TO GET ROBBED.
now; the vines at present cultivated yield more grapes, but of inferior quality. The Major, after his field-inspection of the vines, started oflF for Valen9a one afternoon, on foot, with no servant; but he was accompanied by two or three men, hired as guards, and a mule that carried his luggage. .
When he had proceeded some way, the thought struck him that he might ''kill two birds with one stone ;^^ and as he was at no great distance firom Valen9a, and had time to spare, he might just as well cross the river, and look about him on Galician ground. A boat, with its owner, was unluckily near, and perhaps the sight of it was ''father to the thought.^' He hailed it, made an agreement with the man to take him across and back again, and left his sumpter-mule in charge of his trusty guards. By the time he got across, it was dusk; so, after jumping ashore, and seeing nothing, he jumped back into the boat, and was soon once more on Por- tuguese ground. But where were his attendants, and where was his mule ? Gone ! He hoped they had, at the worst, but mistaken his directions and gone on before him, leaving him to follow in the boat. No such thing. They had divided his lug-
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THE MAJOR. 93.
gage among them^ and let the mule loose to find its own way back to Mon9ao. About eleven o^clock at night he presented himself at the gate of Valen9a. He gave no intelligible account of himself, though questioned in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Latin. His excitement probably made him forget the little that he knew of any of these languages, or at least that he knew as he heard them pronounced here. He only contrived to betray the fact that he had crossed over into Spain, and on examination of his passport it was perceived that it had not been countersigned with any permission to cross. This was irregular; and there seemed some mystery about the dust-covered man. There unluckily happened to be a guerilla, at this time, prowling about the neigh- bourhood of Mon9ao. The garrison soldiers would have it that this was no English Major, but one of that band of robbers — ^perhaps its chief, for he was "a fine-looking man." They proposed to kill him, whe- ther in jest or earnest it is difficult to say ; but a mob was by this time collected, and the shout was raised that the leader of the Mon^ao guerilla was taken, and "Kill him, kill him!" was the cry. The Governor op- portunely arrived, and lodged him in prison, to save his
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94 THE BEBJOEIRA.
life^ for which he sent the CroTemor a challenge to a duello with pistols or swords. No notice was taken of the challenge ; and the next day^ after a respect- able natiye of Yalenfa had identified the Major as the rightful possessor of the passport^ the good- natured Commandant sent him away with a guards who were ordered to see him safe to Viana, where there is an English vice-consul. But the Major^ having no fancy for their protection^ got rid of them at Caminha, and finally found his way back to Oporto.
Before we mounted^ we looked into a churchy and walked through the square of Mon9ao^ which is graced by two grand old oaks and a modem fountain. We had a green and agreeable^ though hot^ ride to the magnificent mansion of Berjoeira^ the seat of the
family of P de M . It was begun about forty
years ago ; and, according to the design, should be a square building of 1 80 feet breadth to each of the four fronts ; but only half of the plan has been completed. The house contains grand suites of apartments, with ill-painted ceilings and panels, &c. In. one of the saloons are family portraits, in all the ugliness of stiffly-daubed caricatures. The paintings in the
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CRAZED GUIDE. 95
house, of every description, are wretched specimens of art. The pleasure-grounds are very handsome and well kept; cool alleys, vine-roofed parterres of flowers, fountains, terraces with shrubs, gravelled walks, bowers paved with blue pantiles of many pat- terns, are among the ornaments of these gardens. The house, perhaps, stands in the centre of the pro- prietor's grounds ; for it commands no view of import- ance, and not a single glimpse of running water. The surrounding country is, however, rich and woody ; and the remote mountains are a good back-ground in every part of this district. By the way, or rather, out of the way, we took a boy to guide us as far as the Berjoeira ; and we had also a volunteer conduc- tor— a tall, thin madman, of middle age, ghastly and fierce in aspect, but harmless. Poor fellow ! he seemed to have an instinctive hostiUty to doga^ which, no doubt, often worry him. He went out of his path to give them battle wherever he heard their bark, and threw stones at them vahantly where- ever he saw them.
We had a fine wild, sylvan ride to Arcos; but how hot ! and what roads ! '^if roads they should be called, that roads are ^one.'' To the village of Eio
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96 TO ARCOS.
Bom^ the way was not only so intricate that we went astray several times^ but it was as rude and bad as possible. The Portuguese roads are often mere watercourses, formed by the torrents in the rainy season, and torrents are rough paviours. The ride from Rio Bom, too, over the mountain Estremo, was rather arduous : up hill and down dale, and along the mountain sides, with their half-paved furrows and pits of roads, but with glorious green views all round us, high and low, of the pine-clad Serras, d^ Estrica, d^ Anta, and, more distant, those of Bolhoza to the west, and da Panheda to the east, shutting in luxu- riant valleys of com and wine. Huge stones (one or two giants reminded me of the bowderstone in Bor- rodale ; and many of our prospects to-day were of Cumbrian feature) lay on the Jiills on our way, and there was one hill that was an entire cone of granite, flattened at top, and supporting great square stones, like a castle- wall and tower. We wanted Professor Sedgwick here. We stopped at the foot of the Estremo, at a village called Cho9as, (pronounced Shossas,) to refresh ourselves and quadrupeds at a venda, and to replace a shoe that one of the horses had lost. We dined on bread and meat that we had
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OUR MULEMAN AGAIN. 97
brought with xis, and some superior wine of Mon^ao of which we found three or four flasks in our condessa, into which they must have been smuggled by our host; for we did not know they were there. We chanced^ however, to be so scantily supplied with meat that there was none for the servants, so their fare was sardinhas and plenty of bread and wine. The horses and mule also had the latter, sopas, bread soaked in wine, for neither barley, nor Indian com, nor rye-straw was to be had in this miserable place. Our churl of an arriero broke out into one of his fire-- quent fits of rage ; but this time he was so impudent '. — 9is if we were answerable for the village of Cho^as
not containing diet to suit his palate — ^that Mr.
was compelled to rate him harshly. He had latterly taken to riding our baggage-mule, which he had never suffered our own man to mount, except once,
when she was in a vicious humour. Mr. now
insisted that he should not mount again, and rode at him when he attempted it. The mutineer found it would not do; we were as much frightened as amused by the squabble ; but the mule settled the matter, for she began kicking, and set all our horses prancing. The man now turned his eloquence on
VOL. I. F
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98 CULTIVATION OF THE LAND.
the mocha, and did not flatter her j bnt her eye^ and a certain revolution of one ear^ told him that he was
safer on foot. Mr. , who knows the country,
and the ways of its people, declares, that in all his experience he never had to deal with so discontented, ill-tempered, and ill-conditioned a raQer, as this or- rieroy who, I am sorry to add, is not a native of Ga- licia, as most of his calling in this land are, but a Por- tuguese. As a set-off against this man's misconduct,
Mr. says that the very best, the most obliging,
and the tinniest arriero he ever employed was a Por- tuguese who accompanied him all the way from Oporto to Coimbra, the Bataiha, Alcoba^a, &c. &c.j to Lisbon.
Every hill on our route in this fatiguing ride, wher- ever culture is possible,is as carefdlly tilled as the vales; the land is partitioned off into small fields which are fringed with rows of dwarf oaks vine-dasped; there are terraces under terraces of these tree-bordered fields, and, instead of a wall of stones to support the side of each terrace, there is often a casing of green sod that looks as weU as the trimmest hedge, and adds much to the cheerfiil verdure of the scene. Between Cho9as and Arcos are the villages of Pogido
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ARCOS. 99
and Gandara de Porzello. It took us seven hours and a Lalf^ including halts^ to perform this day's journey^ though the distance from Monfao to Arcos^ in a direct line^ is less than twenty miles.
Arcos stands pleasantly in the Yal do Yez^ on the riyer Yez, that runs shallow and brawling near it^ and disembogues into the Lima a few miles to the south.
From a plateau on which stand two churches and a large house thrown back between them^ are fine views of nver^ valley^ and surrounding mountains. I believe there is nothing of man's work very remark- able at Arcos^ where, on account of the heat, we remained till 3 p.m.
June 2nd.
The inn-keeper, a civil man, warned us that it would take us at least seven hours, probably more, to accomplish our journey to Braga, and he advised us to defer our departure for twelve hours. He re- presented the difficulty of travelling at night on such bad roads, and the danger of being waylaid by rob- b^s. But we did not put much faith in these argu- ments for delay. Besides, if we wished to start at three in the morning, there would be no possibility, p2
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100 BANKS OF THE VEZ.
we believed, of getting our intractable arrierh to be ready before six or seven. So off we set. There is a beautiful prospect of river, church and town, and fields and mountains, from the bridge of Arcos, a very beautifrd view indeed ; and the ride all the way to Barca de Bico, the ferry across the Cavado, within a league and a half of Braga, which was as far as the daylight served us, is magnificently rich. The first part was delightful along the margin of the Vez, with abundant verdure on every side, and lofty steeps wooded to the very smnmit, and the green much enlivened by the yellow-flowering broom, which grows to imcommon height, and blossoms in great luxuriance among the woods here at this season. This country must, I suppose, be exceedingly lovely in autumn, when the leaves are turned and the grapes are ripe, as there are many evergreen trees also. We did not find the road so bad either as our landlord had reported, except in two or three places, and those not so very bad as many that we had passed. For the first two leagues the road was easy enough, and we could hardly have thought it other- wise, or thought about it at all, through such a suc- cession of charming landscapes. The Vez, which
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PONTE DA BARCA. 101
had been our lively travelling companion into Arcos, did not desert us till it reached Ponte da Barca^ where it glides into the Lima. There is at this place a pretty quinta, called Pa90 Vedro (Old Palace). We fancied it might have been, centuries gone by, the site of Maria Lopes da Costa's residence. This woman, who died at the age of 110, and whose tra- ditional fame is aUve yet in Ponte; da Barca, was twice married. Her- children and grand-children were no less than 120 in number, of whom 80 were living around her at the time of her decease. King Emanuel, on his return from Compostella, nearly 340 years since, slept in her house, and was liberal in do- nations to her progeny. The Da Costas, for the matronymic is not extinct, are still as proud of the Great King's kindness as of their many times great- grandmother's longevity.
Our route now lay by Queimada, Portella, and Pico de Regalados. The stiflF dusty steep near the latter place commands from its summit a wide pros- pect of the plain and city of Braga. Nosso Senhor do Monte, and the monastery of Sansfins, are two of the striking objects that present themselves in this extensive panorama.
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102 STILL HARPING ON OUR MULE.
Our evil genius on this pleasant ramble^ the arrierOy figures in to-day's adventures. He is always drinking^ and always in a rage. It is quite ludicrous to observe how Grenho (curly-head), our great stout GWician, is afraid of him. He is most respectftd to him, and as watchfol of his movements as he might be if he were an unchained tiger. As he was not permitted to ride, he now repeated a trick which he has played us several times; he so arranged, or rather disarranged, our baggage, that the mule became uneasy and nearly kicked it off. This gave him an excuse for stopping, and he lingered till we
were out of sight; but Mr. suspecting his
intention from the insolent humour he saw him in, suddenly rode back, and seeing him just about to take his seat on our carpet-bags, forbade him to mount. The man yielded, but not without loud and
vehement complaints. Mr. now told him that
as he was such a selfish and obstreperous churl, and as he had from the commencement of our acquaint- ance behaved as ill as possible, he should thenceforth always go on foot, adding that he would "break his head^^ if he saw him make another attempt to mount that mule while she was in our service. Mr.
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PICX) DE REGALADOS. 103
then fell back and rode behind the arriero, who sulkily led the Unule^ while we ladies rode on with
Mr. H . AU this was very absurd; but no
words can explain the plague this muleman gave us^ and Grenho's terror of him always increased our difficulty^ though it made us laugh. The man did
not like Mr. 's riding behind him. He suddenly
roared out that the mule pulled his arm off^ and le)
go the bridle. Mr. desired Grenho to lead her,
or to ride her if he chose. But he was muito obri- gado a mta senhoria, — ^much obligedi and casting a queer Ipok of awe at the muleteer, declared that he very much preferred riding to walking, though he had been coAtinually complaining to us that the man would not let him ride. The mutineer dropped astern, and we were in hopes we should see no more of him tiU we got to Braga. A chance wayfarer whom we met, and who heard part of the altercation, took us into favour and joined us, going back, out 6f his way, to show us ours over the Pico de Rega- lados, and carefully leading J ^'s horse when- ever we came to '^ a bad place." He advised us to remain at Pico for the night, proposing to accom- pany us to Braga early in the morning. He was
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104 THE WRANGLER.
very ciyil^ and probably equaUy honesty but he had a cunning look that was not prepossessing. Pico^ too^ did not appear to be an eligible quarter for a night's billet ; so we gave the stranger half a pinto (which does not mean half t^pint, but half a new crown^ — that is^ we gave him a coin of value little more than a shillings) and pushed on. Grenho^ after many a lingering^ but not longing look behind^ to ascertain if the arriero were fairly out of sights got upon the mule^ to his great content and ours ; but^ lo I just as we had congratulated ourselves on havings as we imagined, surely left our marplot far behind, the very man appeared at a moment when Grenho had halted to recover a fish-pannier that had dropped. The man must have skulked after us^ keeping us in view the whole way. Grenho was about to jump off,
but Mr. L , picking up the pannier for him, told
him to remain where he was. We went on, and the man followed at some distance. Presently he rushed
up, and, adopting Mr. ^'s expression, assured
the Galician that he would '^ break his head'' if he did not dismount. Grenho was meekly going to comply, but was prevented by Mr. , who pro- mised the muleteer that if he gave us any more of his
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BARCO DE VICO. 105
impudence^ there should be but one broken head of the party, and that should be his own. The bully muttered and growled, but made no further attempt to interfere till we got to Barco de Vico, the ferry across the Cavado, at half-past eight. Here we were detained till ten for the boat, which was waiting on the other side for some cars and their oxen. The muleman now swaggered, and seemed to enjoy Grenho^s distress, when the baggage, being ill- mounted, again became disbalanced. He refused to help him, though Grenho humbly entreated his assist- ance, confessing his own want of genius to settle such important affairs. At last the fellow did lend him a hand.
The boat did at last arrive too, and was of such commodious breadth and form that we all rode on to it without dismounting. The distance from the ferry to Braga may be five miles ; we made it at least twelve, wandering about the country through woods and villages, raising the barkings of all the dogs in the district, and disturbing the slumbers of the in- habitants at several houses by thumping at their doors, till some one or other now and then sum- moned courage to answer; for no doubt they took f3
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106 BRAG A.
US for a band of mounted brigands. But the infor- mation tbus obtained was so confused^ that we could
make nothing of it for a long time. Mr. had
at first taken the lead^ and in the right direction^ as it happened; but the arriero called out that he knew the way perfectly well; that we were on the wrong tracks and must take what he termed the lower road. Of course we complied^ and so got into a labyrinth ; and then no one was so anxious and so timid as our besotted guide^ till, by finding our way back to the spot firom which he had called us, we were at length fairly out of the scrape. During all this time the woods and lanes were very dark; for though there was starlight, there was no moon. We were cheered and delighted, however, by the nightin- gales; some of which, though very near us, did not cease singing for the tramp of our horses' hoofs. We entered Braga an hour after midnight, rattled up the people of the inn, got supper, and were in bed by half-past two.
Braga, June. 3rd. .
The Cathedral was the first object we visited. We
attended service ; and if to some of us the mass was
i|,s a dead letter, none of our party could be in-
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CATHEDRAL. 107
sensible to the solemn eloquence of the organ. After
service^ (at which our Oporto firiend, Senhor P
one of the canons here^ assisted^) the sacristan showed us all the rare treasures : firsts in the sacristy^ seve- ral antique pieces of church plate^ and the robes^ ancient and modern^ of the archbishops. Among the silver things was an elaborately-worked image of the Virgin and Child, a great curiosity because it was carried at the battle of Aljubarota by Don Lourenzo^ primate and rebuilder of the cathedral, to inspirit the Portuguese soldiers. The mummy, which was afterwards exhibited to us in the chapel of N0S80 Senhor do Livramento, (Our Lord of the Deli- verance), is the corpse of this gallant churchman- martial, who was wounded in that successful struggle for the independence of Portugal. We were assured that it was no mummy, that it had not been em- balmed, but had been left to dry naturally, and had not corrupted — a marvel attributed to the odour of his sanctity. At the Batalha^ one of our fellow-tra- vellers has seen a corse m equal preservation, shown as that of one of the sons of the victor at Alju- barota John I. That also is said not to hav6 been embalmed, and its preservation is the more
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108 CATHEDRAL,
remarkable in that damp and neglected edifice.) We saw the chalice nsed by the first Archbishop of Braga^ Saint G^rald^ 1113. We also saw this digni-> tary's pontifical dress^ and a curiously rich and heavy vestment worn by some of the primates after the discovery of the south-east passage to India, where it w^ wrought. There was another chalice, fianci-* ftdly worked in the form of a Gothic church-tower with little bells, and inscribed with the date 1509» Several paintings and prints of religious subjects and portraits were in the sacristy, but none of much value. We are always eagerly looking out for worthy specimens of pictorial art, and almost always dis« appointed. From the sacristy we went to see the '^ Altar of the Sacrament,^' where is a highly curious and ancient wood-carving of The Church Triumphant; an allegorical piece of many figures, all cut, and well cut, in one massive piece of timber. In the Capetta Mor, the Great Chapel, we saw the stone tombs of the Conde Don Henrique and his wife Theresa, the parents of Alfonso Henriques first king of Portugal. Near the main entrance to the S^e is a bronze monument to an Infante, who died at Braga, a son of John I. We next visited the gorgeous
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BRAGA. 109
choir^ with its rich old warnscots and stalls of dark wood carved ; the wainscotting is partly gilded. We here examined also the double organ^ so much admired for its power of sound. We likewise saw the ritual and breviary, black-letter on veUum, from which the Mus- Arabic liturgy was performed as . at Toledo. Our kind friend the canon conducted us over every part of the cathedral. Thence, accompanied
by Major B , an officer on the staff here, we
visited several other churches and public buildings. We then went to the Carvalheiras, the oak-trees, where are several grand old oaks, some of the trunks above sixteen feet in circumference ; and here, front- ing and flanking one side of the chapel of St. Sebas- tian, are twelve of the tall, round, huge milestones which the Romans placed on their five roads that led from Braga to Astorga, &c. These twelve were first removed to the great square, the Campo de Sant Anna, by one of the Archbishops, and subsequently by another, for yet greater security, to this more retired part of the city. I shall have something more to say respecting them presently.
After our return to the inn, Os doua Amigoa, the two Friends, several persons called, — ^for we had more
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110 BRAGA.
letters of reoommendation than enough ; and some gentlemen rather awkwardly met in our room^ whom political antipathies usually kept out of each other's company. Our firiend the canon brought his brother, a colonel in command of a regiment stationed here^ who was most obliging. Among other good offices, he civilised our arriero for us by some menace which I did not clearly comprehend. The man, who knew
Colonel P , was frightened and humbled^ and
begged the Colonel to say nothing to his master, so we hoped to have no more trouble with him.
June 4th. • At hatf-past 8 a.m. we paid another visit to the Cathedral, and afterwards revisited the Carvalheiras, the oaks, and the Roman milestones, the handsome Church of the Hospital, the Church of the Franciscan Nunnery of the RemedioSy and that of the UrsuUne Nunnery. The gentlemen returned the call of Mr.
G , who was not at home, or probably was at his
sesta, as it was during the heat of the day that they called, so we missed the view of some paintings by old masters, to which he had promised us access in several private houses.
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NOSSO SENHOR DO MONTE. Ill
At half-past 4 f.m.^ we set off for Nosso Senhar do
Monte, accompanied by Colonel P , his brother
the prebendary^ Major B , and the Adjutant of
Colonel P ^'s regiment^ and Major P of the
cavahy. We were a clattering troop^ for Portuguese cavaliers are rather fond of keeping their horses in a
fidget. J , on her white horse^ which followed
the example of the others, was not half sure that she liked all liiat prancing, but she soon became reconciled to it, and then enjoyed it, till the party being mis- directed up the left side of the Mount, a very steep ascent, some of the gentlemen persuaded her to alight and walk with them to the top. There we met a gaudy procession, which was picturesque enough, with its silken flags, its tinsel-decked images, in tinsel state equipage, carried aloft on poles on men's shoulders. These were preceded by a band of drummers who belaboured their parchment lustily, and followed by a train of holiday officials and gazers. From Braga to the foot of this very remarkable eminence is about> or above, two miles. We rode over a roughly-paved causeway the greater part of the way ; the country on each side rich and green. When we reached the foot of the mount we should have rode up a stone
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112 N. S. DO MONTE.
causeway^ shaded on each side by a line of cork-trees^ then proceeded up a zig-zag road^ walled in^ and also flanked by fine oaks^ the meeting branches of which form a most agreeable roof, allaying the glare not only of the sun but of the newly whitewashed waUs, for whitewashed they always are the week before Whitsuntide, the week of the great festival. We should have dismounted at the gateway superscribed Jerusalem Renewed ; there the acclivity is very steep, and we ought to have pursued the zig-zagged angularly walled road, which is furnished at intervals with flights of steps of polished stone, and pinnacled oratories right and left all the way up, containing figures sculptured and painted, as large as life, repre- senting the divine tragedy. The Last Supper of Our Lord, His Sufierings and Crucifixion. At the side of each oratory is a fountain received by a stone basin j there are shaven edges of box along the walls. Then there are allegorical figures of the five semes ; and figures of saints. Then, on a pedestal fixed on a huge round stone, a statue oi St. Longinus on horseback, spear in hand. This is said to be a good sculpture, but is just now disfigured with whitewash. It used to be gilded. Above this, and near the top
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N. a DO MONTE, 113
of the richly-wooded mount, is the elegant Church o{ N0S8O Senhor do Monte, which we entered with difficulty, for great was the press of devotees^ In the sacristy is a large and much-admired crucifix in ivory, the figure and cross skilfully carved. Above this church, on the flat head of the mountain, is an area inclosing several chapels, gilded within and furnished with statuary in the taste of the oratories below. The site of the church and of these chapels is very fine. Huge mossy stones and rocks Ue scattered about, among the glades of the woods, or detached; and the wide prospect of plains and forests, and fertile fields and swelling hills, and pointed peaks, is as admirable as man may wish to look on.
I have only attempted to convey a general notion of the sort of place, and I have not been very parti- cular in my enumeration, nor in my description of the various objects of devotional art with which it superabounds. For the most part there is more intensity of purpose manifest than skill in execution. The mere virttioso wovid turn away from most of the details as Ubels on architecture, painting, or sculpture. But look at those crowds of pilgrims. They are no critics. Look in the faces of any twenty of them
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114 N. S. DO MONTE.
who are assembled about aay one of these chapels. Surely Faith has led them hither^ though FoUy may here have usurped some of her functions. You may see that they have hearts^ and that the spirit of the place hsiA found them.
This mountain, or rather the whole range, was anciently called A ParteUa de Espinho, '^the thorny passage.^' The name, aUusive probably to the then state of the Serra, a wilderness of thicket and bramble, does not violently or inaptly give way to that of Calvary, which the summit and the church of this ^' Monte do Bom Jesus " now bear. Argote, in 1774, gives an int^esting account of the pomp of this sanctuary as it was in his time. Bancs, the historian, two centuries earlier, mentions it as a simple Ermida, the little chapel of St. Magdalen, with a ceU adjoining. The priest who occasionally officiated there received as his due from the parish- ioners three early ripe figs and a gourd of water. The chapel was named after Mary Magdalen, and the parish was then called Christina. There are two ways of considering such exhibitions of religious enthusiasm as are seen here. For my part, I am unwilling to take part with the scoffers.
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TEA.DBINK WITH NUNS. 115
We walked to the foot of the mountaixL by the way already described as that by which yisitors usually make their approach. We then rode back to Braga^ and dismounted at a niumery, at which
the Lady Abbess^ through Colonel P and the
Conego, had invited us to drink tea. It was the Ccmvento dos Remedios, the Franciscan^ not the Ursuline^ which is also a noted nunnery here. The Abbess^ a stout elderly person of cheerful aspect^ two old sisters^ and three or four young nuns ; one of them pretty^ another witty^ and aU merry^ gaily bade us welcome. We sate in the parlour^ barred out from the nuns by a double fence^ two gratings of iron about two yards apart^ the inner one stronger and more closely grated than the outer^ but both open enough to admit us to an easy view of the nuns^ figures and features^ as they sate in semicircle opposite to us^ as blithe and talkative as caged par- rots^ each range of bars being at least eight feet square.
They gave us good tea, excellent sweetmeats, and flowers. The latter they divided amongst us, not without some arch allusion to " the language of flowers,'^ which they seemed very well to understand.
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116 LANGUAGE OF FLOWEBS.
To J and me they presented the first bouquets^
and the choicest. To Mr. and Mr. H ,
who were strangers also^ they gave flowers which^ I bdieve^ had no meaning but that of an offering of
common courtesy. To Major P and the Canon,
both of whom bandied irony with them, they gave flowers intended to turn them into ridicule, which produced a good deal of laughter, and animated the merry warfare of words. The bouquets were passed by a young nun through the rundle, or little rotatory wicket at one comer ; but never, when for a gentle- man, without being first offered to the inspection of the Abbess, who always assented to their delivery without examining them. One of the young vestals went out, and returned with a bunch of flowers, which, after being thus held up to the Lady Abbess, for formes sake, were handed by this pretty religieuse to the Coneffo. Every blossom of which it was com- posed was a satire on him: so he gaily revenged himself by pretending to have found a billet-doux concealed within it. He affected to put it hastily in his pocket, and acted his part very weU: but the Abbess was nothing discomposed by all this innocent raillery. The Abbess told me that she and her sister
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QUINTA DE VISCAINHOS. 117
had been imprisoned by Don Miguel^ for two years or more, as suspected malhadasy or persons tainted with liberalism. What a churl must Don Miguel have been ! As if a nunnery was not of itself prison enough.
By the bye, this prince, during the siege of Oporto, resided, for a short time, in the Arch- bishop^s Palace at Braga, and of course visited N. S. do Monte. The Canon assured me that on that . occasion the road, the walls, the trees on each side, were loaded with men, women, and chil- dren, who hailed him with transports of loyalty, those who were on the ground kneeling as he
After taking our leave of those affable nims, we went to see the Quinta de Yiscainhos, which was tastefully laid out, and inclosed by walls with ram- part walks, and turrets with eye-holes, commanding
agreeable views. Mr. saw this quinta nearly
twenty years ago, and again in 1886. It was on his first visit in. better order than it has been since the war of the brothers. The owner, as he was informed in ,1836, had expended so much money in enter- tainments while Don Miguel was at Braga, that he
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118 SUPPRESSION OF MONAST£BI£S.
afterwards retired to Iiis country seat to economise^ having let this qxiinta with the mansion to which it is attached.
We returned to the inn, with the companions of
our ride. Colonel P had ordered the band of
his regiment to be in attendance. They played in the square under the windows of our apartments till past ten, when they were dismissed, and our friends left us to rest, as we were to rise early. They had tried to tempt us to stay at Braga over the next night, with the promise of a ball, but we were unable to afford the time, and anxious to be among the mountains of Ger^z.
Until Don Miguelwas deposed, 1833, there were several monasteries in full enjoyment of gross reve- nues and privileges at Braga. These of course, sharing the fate of all monastic institutions in the realm, were suppressed by the laiumphant Liberals. All such of the dignitaries of the Cathedral too as had been conspicuous Migoehtes were ejected, on a small stipend scarcely sufficient to buy them bread; and that stipend was not paid: so that the lordly churchmen and monks, who had luxuriated on the cream of the land, were reduced to extreme diistress.
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DESTITUTE MONKS. 119
and in many cases were destitute of all means of existence but such as their friends^ or the casual bounty of strangers, might supply. Our friend the Canon, though a Constitutionalist, said to me, on this subject, that it was a cruel reform, huma reforma barbara; not that he disapproved of a searching correction of ecclesiastical abuses, nor even of the suppression of monasteries ; but he thought that the parties expelled were entitled to a moderate life-in- terest in the rents of their sequestered estates, or to such annuities out of the produce of the sale of church lands as would enable them to live in decent comfort, whatever their political offences might have been. This concession would have been a return of good for evil to those haughty priests and friars in their humiliation, and would have been in harmony both with the professions of liberalism and the law of Cliristianity. It is true, however, that as to the extreme pimishment of death, and the wretched infliction of imprisonment, the Constitutionalists showed much more lenity than the MigueKtes, and even as to the sequestration of private property, whereof the latter were savagely grasping.
That the Cathedral is a very antique temple there
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120 BBA6A CATHEDRAL.
can be no doubt, and that the site may have been that of some very ancient Pagan fane is possible, though I will not refer the foundation quite so far back as Osuis, as some writers have done as confi- dently as if they had recovered the books of Thaut, the lost key of the Egyptian Mysteries. That a portion of the present edifice may be at least coeval with the monarchy seems probable, and would be certain if we were sure that the remains of Count Henry, father of the first King of Portugal, were there deposited immediately after his decease, which occurred on the 1st of May, 1112 or 1114 (the year is disputed). Some chroniclers assert that he died at Astorga, however; and it is just possible that he may have been buried there or elsewhere, and trans- lated hither subsequently. The Capella Mor, in which, as I have mentioned, are his tomb and his wife^s, is no portion of the original structure, for it was rebuilt in 1530 in the reign of John III., and the original building itself had been in great part, some win have it entirely, renewed by the Primate Don Laurence towards the- close of the 14th century. It would not, I believe, be easy to assign to their true dates all the architectural varieties of the
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PRIMATES*— RELICS, 121
cathedral. The towers and the two sides of the main entrance seem the most ancient.
There are ecclesiastical historians who gravely assert that St. James the Apostle preached in this city in the year of our Lord 36, From that time up to 1 755 they count 115 prelates, of whom twenty-two were canonized, namely, St. Peter de Rates, their first bishop; Basil, Ovid, Policarp, Fabius, Felix, Narcissus, Solomon, Leoncius, Patemus, Profoturus, Albert, Martin de Dume, Tobias, Peter Julian, Fruc- tuosus, Quiricus, Leodecisius, Felix Secundus, Vic- tor Martyr, Geraldus, and Godwin, (O beato Don Godinho).
The cathedral contains, as we are told, the bodies of St. Pedro de Rates, of St. Gerald, St. Martin de Dume, St. Ovid, St. James, (St. Jago interciso Martyr, the Martyr cut asunder), and also that of Don — ^not saint, for he was not canonized — ^Louren90, of good memory, (the mummy mentioned). Besides these and many other relics, there are, or were, a thorn of the crown of our Saviour, milk of his holy mother ! an arm of St. Luke the Evangelist, &c., all in reli- quaries of silver or gold. The real treasures of this cathedral were among the richest in all Spain. They
VOL. I. G
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122 CATHEDRAL PLATE.— REVENUES.
consisted of lai^ vessels^ &c., of gold and silver plate^ of most costly furniture^ and of pontifical robes and ornaments^ of which the intrinsic precionsness was exceeded by the valne of the workmanship, and all in prodigious quantity. We saw many of these things ; bnt no doubt the French war, and the civil war, and the incessant changes and commotions since, have considerably reduced the tangible wealth of this see. Church plate, even so recently as last year, was appropriated by ministerial authority to the service of the State. Church revenues had long before been looked after by the hungry treasury. Our liberal canon told me, however, that, though his income and privileges had been much cut down, he had still a fair allowance of both. The rental of the archbishop used to amount to above 100,000 crowns. Ten crowns are a moidore ; a moidore is about twenty- five shillings English. This was about 10,000/. a year; a great income in Portugal such a sum would be now : very great and princely it was in former times. Almost every part of Portugal abounds with interest for the antiquary ; but Braga, " Bracara Augusta,^^ and the surrounding district especially invite his research, and wiU reward it in spite of
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ROMAN REMAINS. 123
the wear and tear of ages^ and the rougher hand of modem demolition.
A Roman aqueduct^ temple^ and amphitheatre^ noted by TJrcuUu as existing at Braga when he was preparing his work^ had disappeared before his work was published. The amphitheatre was destroyed, or rather the remains of it were removed, that the cleared space might gratify an Abbade's wish to enlarge his garden. The temple was taken down to make room for a cemetery, and during this operation several coins of Titus, &c. were found; also a beautiful miniature statue of Bacchus astride on his wine- butt, and other sculptures. On the taking down, yet more recently, of an ancient tower behind the S^, several coins of Nero were discovered ; one of gold, weighing 23i carats, and in beautifiil preservation. In the street still csHeARua de Janus stood formerly a temple of Janus, and in one of the adjacent gar- dens a figure of the two-&ced god was not long ago disinterred.
The general ignorance of the Portuguese people, says an enlightened countryman of their own, the heedlessness of the magistrates, and the apathy of the government (Pombal^s administration excepted), have gradually caused the disappearance of many
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124 ROMAN REMAINS.
monuments cotemporaneous with the Roman sway in Lusitania. Up to the year 1837 the elegant temple of Diana at Evora^ of which seven pillars are yet standing, had served during nearly a century as shambles : it was then only purified of its abomi- nation on the urgent remonstrance of some persons, whose offended tastes might have been disregarded as fastidiousness, but that luckily they were persons of influence with the cdmara^ or town-council.
The Portuguese gentleman thus complaining had true reasons to reproach the local authorities for their neglect, or worse than neglect, of the vestiges of antiquity. He even gives several, and some ludi- crous, examples of their proceedings, worthy of the Juiz da Beira, Gil Vicente^s honest, but not wise. Justice Shallow ; and worthy, too, of our own civic ^' Worships " in many a town-corporate and many a venerable episcopal city of Old England ; to say no- thing of our railway directors, highwaymen by act of Parliament, who sweep all before them, old things and new things, — an old manse or a new glebe-house, aye, and even a hospital or a church : they have but to nod, and " temple and tower go to the ground."
I believe, however, that it often happens in Catholic countries, when local authorities are accused of in-
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ROMAN REMAINS. 125
sensibility to the beauty or historical interest of ancient architecture^ and of gross ignorance in deal- ing with it, that the destruction or contempt of such monuments, especially of devotional structures, may be less certainly imputed to those causes than to a mistaken feeling of religious zeal. What reverence for art ever staid the hand of an iconoclast when the fit was on him ? The destruction of idols and of buildings dedicated to pagan worship is with the sincere bigot but an act of faith. The use of a Boman temple as a hire, or as a butchery, is but another and more convenient protestation against paganism. Even the disregard of successive genera- tions of Portuguese of aU classes, with now and then an individual exception, to other and not religious objects of Boman construction, such as aqueducts and amphitheatres, is little to be wondered at. For aqueducts that had fallen into disuse, for amphi- theatres that were useless, for colossal milestones and tabular inscriptions, they had no respect. Whatever was unserviceable where it stood, they never hesi- tated, when within easy reach, to appropriate to any needful purpose ; and the lords of the soil, monastic or lay, for the most part, took no heed of, or acqui- esced in and even encouraged, the practice. Bridges
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126 LATIN LANGUAGE.
and roads they retained whenever it suited them, just as they retained walls, and watch-towers, and houses of the Moors, not from any sympathy with the makers, but from the commodiousness of the things made. History tells us of Roman legions that, in Portugal, forgot their patriotism, and would have made the banks of the Lima their home ; but it does not tell us that the Lusitanians ever loved their conquerors. It does tell us how long and suc- cessfully they resisted them. It relates the defeats of Manilius and Piso, of Metellus and Pompey, when the Lusitanians were led by Viriatus, a man of Carthaginian race, but Lusitanian birth, and by Ser- torius, a proscribed Roman. The Romans, with these great and other less important interruptions, were masters of Lusitania nearly seven centuries. Before their expulsion by the northern hordes, their language must have taken deep root; for the ad- mixtures of all the barbarous tongues of successive conquerors — ^the Alani and Suevi, Vandals and Visi- goths— seem to have made little or no impression; and even the Arabic, during the long dominion of the Saracens and Moors, was but sparingly received in the Lusitanian vocabulary, which, to the eye, and perhaps even to the ear, is to this day more than
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PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE. 127
semi-Koman^ though it may not exactly justify the hyperbole of the Portuguese poet, where he explains why his countr jnnen were favourites of Venus : —
^ Venus, the friend of Lusians, for the stamp They bear to her loyed Romans of old time, For damitless hearts, for lustre of arms displayed In Tingis, /or likeir apeechf so like to Rome'tf That, vfken com^paredf U deems wUh alight (Moy The Latin UmgueV
**, Venus bella, Affei9oada k gente Lusitana, Por quantas qualidades via nella Da antigua tam amada sua Romana, Nos fortes cora9oens, na grande estrella, Que mostraram na terra Tingitana; £ na lingua, na qual, quando imagina, Com pouca corrup9ao crS que he a Latina."
It would not have been diflScult for the poet to have strengthened his case by expressing himself in this very passage in as perfectly idiomatic Portuguese, yet in phrase still more Latin. But the old Portu- guese was very different from the refined language of Camoens, and from the somewhat less polished tongue written in the days of Vasco da Oama. The mixed population of Lusitania, descended from Asiatic, and Greek, and African settlers, probably spoke a lan- guage barbarously compounded of many idioms, till the sway of the Carthaginians in this country was
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128 THE ROMANS.
superseded by the Boman^ 216 years before Christ. The Romans during their long occupation here esta- blished their language more permanently than their power. The former speech^ whatever it was, gradually died out, saving some remnants of that phraseology which continued in use only among the agrarian slaves (native prisoners of war), whom, with their offspring, the victors employed in tillage, excluding them firom the towns. But it was the current tongue of the legions and officials, not that of Plautus or Terence, which thus prevailed : and this vulgar tongue, with inevitable modifications that made it still less pure, was that which finally resolved itself into the old Portuguese, and probably became more and more corrupt, and was only at last, and by very slow degrees, reformed, and, I believe it may be said, re- Latinized. Several of the earliest scraps of song that are left us are of the thirteenth century, and though we may suppose them to have been cast in the best diction of the time, — ^for cavaliers, and even a king, are the authors, — they have, I know, somewhat puzzled the erudite academicians of Lisbon.
But whatever may have been the influence of the language of the Bomans, their civilisation was a rough file. The masters of the world, everywhere more feared
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THE NORTHMEN.— THE MOORS. 129
than loved, never won the affections of this people. To them the monuments left by the Romans were so many memorials of the drudgery to which they, the natives, had been compelled in erecting them under the eye and guidance of their task-masters, with the assistance of the Roman soldiery in some cases. The Suevi, with a noble pride, ruthless as they were to life, preserved those great works as evidence of their own glory in having overmatched the great people by whose skill and wiU and power they had been raised. The Vandals were not only exterminators of men, but destroyers of the works of men. The Saracens and the Moors troubled themselves little about Roman remains, and directed their rage against Christian temples on the same principle as the Christians denounced Pantheism ; and the Pro- phet's people naturally made the mistake of supposing the CathoUc images to be idols. They were, how- ever, great and graceful builders, as well as de- stroyers; and they were more tolerant than their enemies, for to these, when subdued and living peaceably under their rule, they did not interdict the free exercise of their religion. The Portuguese hatred of foreign domination, and of the memory of domination, has perhaps done more since their con-
g3
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130 ROMAN MILESTONES.
version to Christianity towards the demolition of Roman antiquities than all the hammers of the Northmen ever did, and the steadier hostility of time.
Borne, but Christian Apostolic Rome, did at last conquer the hearts of the Portuguese; and the suc- cessors of St. Peter did at last, not suddenly or abso- lutely, but by wary perseverance, establish a sway that might have excited the jealousy of St. James, when, centuries after his decollation by Herod, he accepted the " Captain-Generalship of all the Spains,'' fixed his head-quarters at Compostella, and now and then careered in air, in knightly armour, over the lovely and Moslem-ridden valleys of the Minho and the Lima.
Yet when it is remembered that above thirteen centuries have past since the termination of the sway of pagan Rome in Portugal, the devastation of her monuments is less extraordinary than the actual existence of so many. Of these remains, the lapi- dary inscriptions are next, if not eqaal, in value to the ancient coins — and surely of at least equal value when they happen to have been left undisturbed, as many are in Gerfez and elsewhere, on the spots where they were originally placed ; because the subsidiary light which they furnish to the patient investigator
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LAPIDARY INSCRIPTIONS. 131
of history is illustrative, so far as it goes, of some intelligible fact. The temple, the aqueduct, the military station, the tumulus, the road, when not illustrated by genuine graven records, often but provoke conjectures which they cannot satisfy. It is true that even lapidary inscriptions are liable, though in a less degree, to the same objection. Time does its work on them as on everything, and the officious hand of man, even where it would not disfigure but restore, has not un&equently vitiated the sense and authenticity of the memorial. It is obvious how easily this process may be effected, by the slip of the renewer^s graver in awkward fingers, or the misdirection given to it by his honest igno- rance. Scrupulous antiquaries well know what im- portant variations of meaning may be effected by a single letter more or less, or by one substituted for another. To bungling renovators, and to others who, it is said, have altered letters less in ignorance than firaud, to help a theory or gratify a prejudice, may be partly charged the disrepute of the lapidary inscriptions of the Spanish peninsula. I say partly, because careless transcribers of lithographic records, and they who have published them on trust, have been still more in fault for that discredit. Learned
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132 ARGOTE.
men^ such as Eckhel for example^ could make notlimg of their gallimatia^ and no wonder ; and therefore^ having no access to the originals^ they condemned them as valueless. Ai^ote^ the voluminous and not unlearned Portuguese author of the Antiquities and Ecclesiastical History of Braga^ was a notable victun to the inaccuracy of transcribers. His works^ full of mind and purpose^ are of little authority, chiefly be- cause he neglected to verify the exactness of inform- ation^ some of which at least he might personally have tested. In his '^ Antiquidades do Convento Bracarens^/' printed 1738, he says: — ^''I went to Braga sixteen years ago for change of air. I resided there three years, but I saw little of the province Entre Douro e Minho, having then no idea of ever employing myself in the composition of memoirs of the Braga district. Illness deterred me from any close examination even of the antiquities that exist in Braga, as well as in every part of that neighbour- hood.'* When, therefore, he was about to commence his labours, he procured from the Government an order to the local authorities to supply him with such particulars as were within their reach. Hereupon, he received communications fix)m many persons, of various degrees of intelligence, without combination
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MILLIARY COLUMNS. 133
and without plan. From these notices^ isolated and often incongruous^ and from such crude matter as he could extract firom books^ he compiled his facts and drew his inferences. Now, it is weU known that, for the right perusal and due comprehension of lapidary inscriptions, various preparatory knowledge must have been acquired, not only in the art of deciphering contractions, but also in the history both civil and political of the countries referred to. Besides which, the author who has not the oppor- tunity of ocular inspection, or who, like Argote, neglects it, and who confides in casual informants, or in books, has to contend with the carelessness of copjdsts, the mistakes inevitable from successive quotations, the charlatanism of many who are called ^'Utiquarians, and the concision of theories founded on error, but, though at variance with each other and with truth, sanctioned to credulity by the course of time.
It is remarkable that of the twelve milliary inscrip- tions at the CarvalheirdSy at Braga, scarcely one was copied with perfect fidelity for Argote *. Few of my
* The only accurate correspondent he seems to have had, in rela- idon to Roman antiquities, was the erudite and pains-taking Don L. Alvares de Figueiredo, coadjutor of the primate Don Roderick de Moura Telles, and afterwards Bishop of Uranopolis.
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134 THE LEARNED AT FAULT.
readers will care to inquire into such grim mysteries of antique stenography. I will not therefore insert those inscriptions here^ though I have them all at hand as they were copied by a friend of mine ten or twelve years ago^ and as he verified them not only by comparison with Captain Diogo Kopke's copies^ but more recently in the venerable presence of the originals. Nine out of the twelve are more or less imperfect ; some are almost illegible^ and one has but a single letter remaining. Of the three perfect ones, however, there is one which I wiU venture to select, because it has been variously read and com* mented upon, not only by Argote, and Morales, and Father Henao, but by Gruter, and his commentator, Holtenius; by Joseph Scaliger, and Orsatus; by Pagi, and many other very learned writers, — and all from inaccurate copies! These accredited writers have raised a controversy for their own embarrassment and that of others, with respect to the interpretation of letters which do not exist, nor can ever have ex- isted, in the inscriptions of which they treat; so that they have utterly puzzled and disgraced the tes- timony of a monument which, if literally transcribed, might have thrown some Ught on the obscure chro- nology of the emperor C. J. V. Maximinus, — an
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MILESTONE PUZZLE. 135
epoch that has much exercised the ingenuity of the ablest chronologers. Here is the inscription as it stands : —
IMP CAESAR C IVLIVS VERVS MAXIMINVS P F AVG GERMANIC MAX DACIC MAX SARMATIC MAX PONT MAX TRIB POTESTATIS V IMP VII P P CONS PRO COS ET C IVLIVS VERVS MAX NOBILISSIMVS CAESAR GERMANIC MAX DACIC MAX SARMATIC MAX PRINCEPS IVVENTVTIS FILIVS D N IMP C IVLI VERI MAXIMINI P F AVG VIAS ET PONTES TEMPORE VETVSTATIS CONLAPSOS RESTITVERVNT CVRANTE Q DECIO LEG AVGG PRPR A BRAC AVG M PI
Imperator Cassar Caiua Julius Verua Maximinua, Pius, Felix, Augustus, Oermanicus Mcudmus, Dacicus Maximus, Sarmaticus Maximus, PanUfex Maximus, Tri- bumticB Potestatis QiUnqudea, Imperator Septies, PaJUr Patrias, Consul, Proconsul, et Caiua Julius Verus Maad- fnus, Nobilissimus Gcesar, Oermanicus Maximus, Dacicus Maximus, Sarmaiicus Maximus, Princeps Juventutis, FUius Domini Nostri Imperatoris Caii Julii Veri Maxi- mini Pii Felicis, Augusti, Vias et Pontes, tempore vetus- taiis conlapsos, restUuerunt; earante Quinio Decio Legato Atigustorum, Proprcetor, A Bracara Augusta MiUe Passuum,
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136 QUERY TO CHRONOLOGERS.
Thus read^ the only essential difficnlty that the inscription presents lies in the words " Trib. Potcs- tatis V/' This little numeral adverb quinquies is the nut that is so hard to crack. It may be known to the reader^ that the predse date and duration of the reign of the first Maximin^ the gigantic Thradan wrestler, — a man whose elevation to imperial power was more wonderfdl than Napoleon^s, — is variously given by the early historians of the Empire. But all modem writers on the subject, whether historians, chronologists, medallists, or antiquaries, of whatever class, and however disagreeing on other points of this reign, concur in assigning rather more than three years only to its duration, adopting the ac- count of Eutropius. Then how comes this " Trib. Pot. V?^' With a woman^s logic, by guess, I should have concluded that the qualifying unit had been accidentally left out by the engraver, and that the V should have been IV. But such an easy solution seems inapplicable to the doubt ; for though we find a distinguished antiquarian, Jacob, so skilled in coins, boldly aflSrming that not a monument is extant which makes mention of Maximin's fifth year of tribunitian power, this stone is not the sole
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MAXIMIN»S REIGN. 137
witness to the contrary. At Bertiandos is a mile- stone, brought thither from Ponte de lima, which bears an inscription almost identical with this at Braga. It was communicated to Argote by the same Bishop of Uranopolis mentioned in a preceding note, and to whose honour it may be added, that if all Argote^s correspondents had been as faithfiil transcribers as he was, the publications of Argote would be entitled to far higher estimation than they have obtained. Near Yalmaseda, in Biscay, is an- other inscription ; whether on a milliary column or not, does not appear in Father Henao^s ungramma- tical copy, where the dative case rules a verb. It was a communicated copy, which, he says, in his " Antiquities of Biscay,^* he compared with the ori- ginal, and found correct ; adding, however, that he was less carefiil than he ought to have been in his examination! In this we have "Trib. V/' The omitted, perhaps obliterated, letters can be no other than potestati, or an equivalent abbreviation. As there are in France, as weU as in Spain and Portu- gal, many similar inscriptions setting forth the style of one or other of the later emperors (some of which inscriptions were hardly cut before the flattered em- peror was murdered), it is possible and probable that
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138 DIOGO KOPKE.
there may be other unnoted memorials attributing the fifth year of tribunitian power to Maximin.
How, then, is this little obstinate stump, which has tripped up so many grave chronologists, to be removed from their path ? Captain Kopke, who took great pains to clear it away, was at last fain to console his own doubts with an hypothesis not very satisfactory, as given by him in a letter to the gentleman with whom he had previously discussed the difficulty. He says : —
" I take the liberty of sending you proof-sheets of an eitract,^^ — ^for which see Revista Litteraria, Porto, Jan. 1839, — "from my dissertation on the ^TRIB POT V * of Maximin. I think you will excuse the unceremonious form in which jour foster-son so early appears before you.
" Since we last parted, the dissertation has grown into a good-sized octavo volume. I have annexed — rather, prefixed — ^to it, an essay on the tribunitian power of the emperors, gleaned principally from Eckhel; and I have inserted in the body of the work the whole of the observations and objections of Eckhel, Tillemont, and Muratori.
" I will venture to point out to you the idea on which I have settled down^^ — (as to the fifth year of Maximin^s tribunitian power).
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DIOGO KOPKE. 139
" The prolongatioii of Maximin^s reigu is impeded by the commencement of the third Gtordian^s, the number of whose yean of empire^ and the data of which (the termination at least), appear to be suffi- ciently well fixed by the historians. Now, I make one reign independent of the other ; for I think I am authorised to state, that Grordian, as soon as he assumed the purple, began to count the years of his reign, not Jrom that day, but from the day in which Pupienua and BaUnmcs aggregated him to themselves as CmsaVf — ^he considering it a sort of usurpation on their part, the not admitting him to the honours of Augustus. This way of counting clears up the cause why the medals of the Trib. Pot. I of the third Gor- dian are so rare, if in fact any exist; and also explains the largesses (Uberalitas), hitherto unexplained, which are stamped on the reverse of many of the Trib. Pot. 11^' (of this Gordian). '' These donations were distributed on occasion of his real accession to the throne, on which very day he began to count Trib. Pot. n. Maximin^s reign may thus be prolonged rather longer; his reign in the provinces ^^ to the beginning of the fifth year.
Captain Kopke, a gentleman, a soldier, and a scho-
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140 DIOGO KOPKE.
lar, died^ in the prime of life^ a few years after the date of the above letter. He had been educated in England^ but had lived long enough in Portugal after his return home to lose somewhat of his facility in writing English. I am not acquainted with the volume alluded to in the foregoing extract, nor do I believe it has been published. But I have taken whatever suited my purpose from his paper in the '' Bevista Litteraria/^ which is probably a fragment of that work; and whatever is valuable in these observations may be found there. If accurate chro- nology were not the very pole-star of history, the question might appear too trivial for notice. It is, after all, but a dot in the world^s doings, and may have put scientific industry to more pains than it is worth ; and I, as an unlearned writer, crave grace of my unlearned readers for having troubled them therewith. I will only further remind the anti- quary, that the Roman monuments in this district, and the country on which it neighbours, have been by no means worked out.
** So now I twitch my mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new.**
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