Part 1

# Through Portugal ### By Hume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)

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THROUGH PORTUGAL

[Illustration: FROM A WINDOW, OPORTO.]

THROUGH PORTUGAL

BY MARTIN HUME

WITH 32 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY A. S. FORREST AND 8 REPRODUCTIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS

“_Oh Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What heaven hath done for this delicious land; What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree, What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand._”

BYRON.

NEW YORK M^cCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY 1907

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh

_This record of a pleasure journey through Europe’s “Garden by the Sea” is dedicated by gracious permission to His Majesty The King of Portugal_

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CONTENTS

## CHAPTER I

PAGE

OPORTO 1

## CHAPTER II

BRAGA AND BOM JESUS 34

## CHAPTER III

CITANIA AND GUIMARÃES 54

## CHAPTER IV

BUSSACO 90

## CHAPTER V

COIMBRA, THOMAR, AND LEIRIA 122

## CHAPTER VI

BATALHA AND ALCOBAÇA 169

## CHAPTER VII

CINTRA 199

## CHAPTER VIII

LISBON 229

## CHAPTER IX

SETUBAL, TROYA, AND EVORA 264

## CHAPTER X

HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN PORTUGAL 308

ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

FROM A WINDOW IN OPORTO _Frontispiece_

EVENING: OPPOSITE OPORTO _To face page_ 8

FROM THE RIBEIRA, OPORTO _To face page_ 16

A SHOP IN OLD OPORTO _To face page_ 28

THE AFTER-GLOW AT BRAGA _To face page_ 40

ON THE TERRACE, BOM JESUS _To face page_ 50

ON THE HOLY STAIR, BOM JESUS _To face page_ 52

ON THE WAY TO MARKET, TAIPAS _To face page_ 58

FROM THE BATTLEMENT, BUSSACO _To face page_ 96

THE HOTEL FROM THE WOODS, BUSSACO _To face page_ 102

IN THE GARDENS, BUSSACO _To face page_ 106

THE PORTA DA SULLA, BUSSACO _To face page_ 108

“BUSSACO’S IRON RIDGE” _To face page_ 112

THE BATTLE MONUMENT, BUSSACO _To face page_ 116

ENTRANCE TO THE CLOISTER, BUSSACO _To face page_ 120

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

A STREET IN COIMBRA _To face page_ 128

SANTA CLARA, COIMBRA _To face page_ 136

A COUNTRY RAILWAY STATION _To face page_ 142

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

SOME BEAUTIES OF THOMAR _To face page_ 146

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

THE BRIDGE AT THOMAR _To face page_ 158

IN THE MAIN STREET OF OUREM _To face page_ 160

THE CASTLE, LEIRIA _To face page_ 164

ON THE ALAMEDA, LEIRIA _To face page_ 166

THE ENCARNAÇÃO, LEIRIA _To face page_ 168

ON THE PRAÇA AT ALCOBAÇA _To face page_ 188

UNDER THE ACACIAS, ALCOBAÇA _To face page_ 192

THE OLD PALACE, CINTRA _To face page_ 204

ON THE QUAY, LISBON _To face page_ 234

LISBON, FROM THE NORTH _To face page_ 306

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

MANUELINE ARCHITECTURE AT THE HOTEL, BUSSACO _To face page_ 94

ON THE VIA SACRA, BUSSACO _To face page_ 104

THE CHOIR AND CHAPTER HOUSE, THOMAR _To face page_ 148

THE CLOISTERS, BATALHA _To face page_ 180

THE UNFINISHED CHAPELS, BATALHA _To face page_ 182

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

THE SOUTH DOOR AT BELEM _To face page_ 238

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

INTRODUCTION

Portugal had been familiar to me from my earliest youth, for my road to and from Spain had often lain that way, and circumstances had made me conversant with the language and history of the country; and yet this

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

one short voyage in search of change and health. It happened in this way. As oft befalls men who in this striving world have to wring their brains for drachmas, the completion of a particularly arduous book had left me temporarily a nervous wreck, sleepless and despairing. The first and most obvious need dictated to me by those who settle such matters, was to forget for a time that pens, ink, and paper existed, and to seek relaxation in a clime where printers cease from troubling and reviewers are at rest. But where? Spain certainly would offer me no such a haven: France was too near home, Germany I disliked, Switzerland was trite and overrun, the novelty of Italy I had long before exhausted, and Greece was too far away. A sea voyage was a desideratum, but it must not be too long, and as the autumn was already verging towards winter the south alone was available.

Then in the midst of my perplexity the happy thought suggested itself that, often as I had passed through Portugal, I had never seen the country. Why not try Portugal? I had some prejudices to overcome, prejudices, indeed, which up to that time had prevented me from seeking a deeper knowledge of the land and people than could be gained by an incurious glance on the way through. For I had been brought up in the stiff Castilian tradition that Portugal was altogether an inferior country, and the Portuguese uncouth boors who in their separation from their Spanish kinsmen had left to the latter all the virtues whilst they themselves had retained all the vices of the race. But, withal, I chose Portugal, and have made this book my apologia as a self-prescribed penance for my former injustice towards the most beautiful country and the most unspoilt and courteous peasantry in Southern Europe. Portugal and the Portuguese, indeed, have fairly conquered me, and the voyage, of which some of the incidents are here set forth, was for me a continual and unadulterated delight from beginning to end, bringing to me refreshment and renewed vigour of soul, mind, and body, opening to my eyes, though they had seen much of the world, prospects of beauty unsurpassed in my experience, and revealing objects of antiquarian and artistic interest unsuspected by most of those to whom the attractions of the regular round of European travel have grown flat and familiar.

It is impossible, of course, to pass on to others the full measure of enjoyment felt by an appreciative traveller in a happy trip through an unhackneyed pleasure-ground; but it has occurred to me that some record of my impressions on the way may lead other Englishmen to seek for themselves a repetition of the pleasure and benefit which I experienced in the course of a short holiday trip through Portugal from north to south. I am not pretending to write a guidebook: those that exist are doubtless sufficient for all purposes, although I have intentionally refrained from consulting any of them, in order that my impressions might not be biassed, even unconsciously, by the opinions of others; nor do I claim to speak of Portugal with the fulness of knowledge exhibited by Mr. Oswald Crawford in his books on the country where he resided so long. My object is rather to treat the subject from the point of view of the intelligent visitor in search of sunshine, health, or relaxation; to suggest from my own experience routes of travel and points of attraction likely to appeal to such a reader as I have in my mind, and to warn him frankly of the inevitable small inconveniences which he must be prepared to tolerate cheerfully if he would enjoy to the full a holiday spent in a country not as yet overrun by tourists who insist upon carrying England with them wherever they go. If he will consent to “play the game,” and not expect the impossible in such a country, I can promise my traveller a voyage full of colour, interest, and novelty in this “garden by the side of the sea,” where pines and palms grow side by side, and the stern north and softer south blend their gifts in lavish luxuriance beneath the happy conjunction of almost perpetual sunshine and moist Atlantic breezes.

MARTIN HUME.

THROUGH PORTUGAL

I OPORTO

I stood in the centre of a daring bridge, spanning with one bold arch of nigh six hundred feet a winding rocky gorge. Far, far below me ran a chocolate-coloured river crowded with quaint craft, some with high-raised sheltered poops and crescent-peaked prows, some low and long astern with bows like gondolas and bright red lateen sails, upon which the fierce sun blazed sanguinely. On the right side thickly, and on the left more sparsely, climbing up the stony sides of the gorge, were piled hundreds of houses, pink, pale-blue, buff, and white, all with glowing red-tiled roofs, and each set amidst a riot of verdure which trailed and waved upon every nook and angle uncovered by buildings. Trellised vines clustered and flowers flaunted in tiny back-yards and square-enclosed courts by the score, all on different levels, but all open to the down-gazing eyes of the spectator on the bridge high above them. Here and there a tall palm waved its plumes as in unquiet slumber, but everywhere else was the impression of ardent, throbbing, exuberant life, such as all organic creation feels under the spur of stinging sunshine and the salt twang of the sea-breeze. The river gorge winds and turns so tortuously that the view forward and backward is not extensive, but as far as the eye reaches on each side of the umber stream the hills of houses and far-spread terraced vineyards beyond rise precipitously, with just a quayside at foot on the banks of the stream, thronged now with folk who swarm, gather, and separate like gaudy ants, and apparently no bigger, as seen from the coign of vantage on the bridge. To my left, as I stand looking towards the west, there crowns the summit of the ridge close by a vast white monastery against a green background; a monastery now, alas! like all others in this Catholic land, profanated and turned to purposes of war instead of peace, but, withal, there still rears its modest rood aloft upon the crest one poor little round chapel where the sainted image of Pilar of the Ridge stolidly receives the devotion of the faithful. To the right, the height is crowned by a vast square episcopal palace, and near it, over all, is the glittering golden cross that shines upon the city from the summit of the square cathedral towers. This is Oporto, The Port _par excellence_, which gives its name to Portugal, seen from the double-decked iron bridge of Dom Luis over the Douro.

For days I had been striving in vain to get into touch with the psychic principle of this strange city. I had mixed with the motley multitudes that lounge and labour upon the quays, I had lingered in the gilded churches where worshippers were ominously few, and stood for hours observant in chaffering marketplaces and amidst the crowds of sauntering citizens in the inevitable Praça de Dom Pedro; but till the revelatory moment came to me in one enlightening flash upon the Bridge of Dom Luis, I had always been alone in a foreign throng whose composite inner soul I could not read. But now all was changed. Thenceforward I saw Oporto whole and not in disintegrated fragments as before; for I had learnt the secret of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and the heart of the city was bared to me, a stranger.

Every large, enduring community comes to attain a distinct character of its own, which the outlander can only know by long association or sympathetic insight, sometimes not at all. I had looked for a people exuberant and gay in outward seeming with an underlying spirit of bitter mockery, such as I had known in so many other Iberian cities; but somehow these Oporto people were quite different. Grave and quiet, with introspective eyes, even the children seemed to take their play soberly. Look at the slim slip of a boy who gravely walks at the head of this team of enormous fawn-coloured oxen, toilsomely dragging their ponderous load up a hill so steep as almost to need a ladder to ascend. The urchin cannot be more than ten or eleven, and in any other country would alternately skip and idle, or at least allow his attention to wander with every fresh object that struck his fancy. Here he stalks along for hours at a time, without lingering or straying, always calm and patient, whilst his soiled and hardened bare feet plod on, heedless both of the white mire and sharp stones of the way. Over his shoulder he carries a long lithe wand, double as tall as himself, with which he directs the course of the great wide-horned bullocks. A mere turn of the wand is sufficient to indicate the way, and with low bowed heads beneath the heavy yoke the dull beasts plod slowly onward as long-suffering as their guide. The whole equipage might belong to the times when the world itself was young, so idyllic is it in form. The wain is narrow and high-set upon two wheels, like an ancient chariot, with boards or high rods to form its sides; the wheels are built up ponderously of solid wood, the two thick spokes that connect the heavy tire with the hub filling up most of the circle, and the axle, a heavy log of wood, itself turns with the wheels. In this part of Portugal there stands erect upon the neck of the team an adornment which is usually the pride of the owner’s heart, and the one superfluous article of luxury he possesses. It is a thick board of hardwood, about eighteen inches high and some five feet broad, intricately and beautifully carved in fretted open-work arabesques. The patterns are traditional, handed down from time immemorial, and usually consist of involved geometrical and curvilinear designs; sometimes, but not often, with a cross introduced in the centre, and with a row of little bristle brushes as an extra adornment along the top. A glance at this elaborate piece of ox furniture will show that its decoration is of Moorish origin, and the _canga_ itself may be the survival of the high ox yoke still seen in some oriental countries. To complete the quaint picture of the universal ox team, for this part of Portugal is not a country of horses or mules, the dress of the small teamster must be described. The boy’s breeches usually do not reach below the knee, the rest of the legs and feet being bare; a jacket of brown homespun is slung upon one shoulder, except at night or during the cold winter days of December and January, when it is worn, and the shirt, open at the neck and breast, leaves much of the upper part of the body exposed. The headgear is peculiar. It is nearly always a knitted stocking bag cap, something like an old-fashioned nightcap, with a tassel at the end of the bag which hangs down the back or upon the shoulder of the wearer, its colour being sometimes green and red, but more frequently black.

The boy, like his similarly garbed elders, takes life very seriously, but neither he nor they seem sad or depressed. There is here none of the squalid misery or whining mendicancy that are so distressing to strangers in Spain and Southern Italy, for the Portuguese of the north is a sturdy, self-respecting peasant, who works hard and lives frugally upon his three testoons (1_s._ 3_d._) per day; and so long as he can earn his dried stockfish, his beans, bread, and grapes, with a little red wine to drink, he scorns to beg for the indulgence of his idleness.

These are the people, and their social betters of the same race, whom a sudden flash of sympathy brought closer to me, as in the pellucid golden sunlight all Oporto was spread before and beneath me, palpitating with life. The absence of vociferation and vehemence in the people did not mean sulkiness or stupidity, but was the result of the intense earnestness with which their daily life was faced; their unregarding aloofness towards strangers was not rudeness, but the highest courtesy which bade them avoid obtrusive curiosity; and soon I learnt to know that their cold exterior barely concealed a disinterested desire to extend in fullest measure aid and sympathy to those who needed them. In all my wanderings I have never met, except perhaps in Norway, a peasantry so full of willingness to show courtesy to strangers without thought of gain to themselves as these people of north Portugal, almost pure Celts as they are, with the Celtic innate kindliness of heart and ready sympathy, though, of course, with the Celtic shortcomings of jealousy, inconstancy, and distrust.

I know few more characteristic thoroughfares than the road by the river-side at Oporto, called the Ribeira, which is the centre of maritime activity of the port. The path runs beneath what was the ancient river-wall, now pierced or burrowed out to form caverns of shops, where wine and food, cordage and clothing are sold to sailor men. Many of the open doors have vine trellises before them, in the shade of which quaintly garbed groups forgather, and a constant tide of men and women flows along the path, eddying into and out of the cavernous recesses in the ancient wall. Colour, flaring and fierce in the sun, flaunts everywhere; for the multi-tinted rags of the south festoon and flutter from every door and window and deck the persons of all the womankind. Swinging along, with peculiar and ungainly gait, go the women with prodigious burdens upon their heads. Everything, from babies to bales of merchandise, is borne upon the female head in Portugal; and these women of the north wear a peculiar headgear adapted to this custom. It is a round, soft, pork-pie hat of black cloth or velveteen, fitting well upon the top of the head, the upper rim being adorned with a sort of standing silk fringe. Such a hat, especially when surmounted by a knot, suffers no damage from a burden placed upon it; but the constant carrying of tremendous weights upon the head of females, even of little girls, quite spoils the figures of the women, thrusting the hips and pelvis forward inordinately, and rendering the movements in walking most ungraceful. The women and girls almost invariably go barefooted, whilst the men, except the fishermen, usually are shod; and the females of a family share to the full the work and hardships which are the common lot.

[Illustration: EVENING OPPOSITE OPORTO.]

Along the shore of the busy Ribeira lie ships unloading, small craft they usually are, for the bar of the Douro is a terrible one, and the big ships now enter the harbour of Leixões, a league away. In a constant stream the men and women pass across the planks from ship to shore, carrying the cargo upon their heads or shoulders in peculiar boat-shaped baskets, which are the inseparable companion of the Oporto workers. Here is a smart schooner hailing from the Cornish port of Fowey, from which stockfish from Newfoundland is being landed on the heads of women, flat salt slabs as hard and dry as wood, but good nutritious food for all that; and farther along, with their prows to the shore, rest a dozen un-ladened wine and fruit boats from up the Douro, and flat-bottomed passenger skiffs into which women and men with baskets and bundles, representing their week’s supplies purchased in Oporto, are crowding to be carried back to their homes in the rich vineyard villages miles up the river. One by one the quaint craft hoist their crimson sails, and struggle out from the tangle of the bank, until the breeze catches them, and in a shimmer of red gold from the setting sun they hustle through the brown tide until a projecting corner hides them from view. It is a scene never to be forgotten.

The centre of the Ribeira is the Praça called after it, where a sloping square facing the water opens out. The scene is picturesque in the extreme. The space is thronged by men, either sleeping in their baskets or carrying them filled with fish or merchandise upon their heads: a motley, water-side crowd, men of all nations, pass to and fro, or gossip under the vine trellis before the wine shop overlooking the square, and as the observer casts his eyes upwards he sees the gaily coloured houses piled apparently on the top of one another, until at the top of all, as if overhead, is the glaring white palace of the bishop, and the glittering cathedral cross, standing out hard and clear against a sky of fathomless indigo.

This busy river-side way of the Ribeira is, so to speak, a street of two storeys. Below is the walk I have described, with the cavernous shops in the face of the old river-wall, and on the top of the wall is another path reached by occasional flights of steps, and also bordered by the squalid medley of dark shops in which strange savoury-odoured victuals are washed down by strong red wine, and quiet brown men and women, and grave-eyed swarthy babies are inextricably mixed up with brown merchandise in the gloom beyond the glaring sunlight. Unexpected steep alleys, arched and mysterious, lead to the thoroughfares higher up the precipitous slope, and the next storey, a parallel narrow street, the Rua do Robelleiro, narrow, dark, and ancient, is almost as picturesque as the Ribeira itself.

A slab let into the river-wall by the beach commemorates one of the most terrible days in Oporto’s history. The English army had been chased to its ships at Corunna, and the Spanish levies scattered: the Peninsula seemed to be at the mercy of the French legions, which, under Napoleon’s greatest marshals, held the richest provinces of Spain in the name of King Joseph Bonaparte. But 9000 English troops remained in Lisbon, and with Portugal in the hands of his enemies Napoleon knew that he would never be master of Spain. So the word went forth that Soult was to march down with a great army from Galicia, and sweep the English out of Portugal. It seemed easy, and authorities even in England believed that Portugal was untenable and should be evacuated. All but one man, Arthur Wellesley, whose victory at Vimeiro in the previous year had been wasted by the inept old women who were his superior officers. With 20,000 men, said Wellesley, he would hold Portugal against 100,000 French, the marshals notwithstanding; and the great Englishman had his way. Beresford was sent out to reorganise the scattered Portuguese fighting men, and Arthur Wellesley sailed from England with his little army to face Soult in Portugal. Before he arrived in Lisbon the French had swept down from Galicia, and on the 27th March 1809, Soult summoned Oporto to surrender. The warlike Bishop of Oporto was heading the hastily organised defence; his forces were undisciplined and badly armed, but their hearts were stout, and behind their poor earthworks the citizens of Oporto and their bishop bade defiance to Soult and his invading army.

On the 29th March at dawn the devoted city was stormed by Napoleon’s veterans, who swept all before them. There was no quarter, no mercy, and the steep streets of the city were turned to blood-smeared shambles. Down to the river bank flocked the affrighted people, falling as they ran under the rain of bullets that pursued them. Over the river from the Ribeira was a bridge of boats, and upon this the crowd of panic-stricken fugitives poured. The weight sank it, and thousands were drowned in the Douro, or struggled ashore only to be despatched by the French, whilst many of those who had been in arms deliberately drowned themselves rather than surrender. Eighteen thousand Portuguese perished on that awful day, without counting the drowned who were never recovered; whilst of the whole Portuguese host only two hundred live prisoners were taken.