Part 18

_Travelling in Portugal._—The roads are usually very good, and open carriages with one or two horses can be hired in any town at an extremely reasonable price, four or five milreis a day being ample for a carriage and two horses, which for the price will cover some five-and-twenty miles or more according to circumstances. In railway travelling it must be borne in mind that the trains on Portuguese railways for the most part run primarily to convey goods and merchandise, and that passengers must be content to wait whilst the goods are being loaded or discharged. The trains, except an express on the main line, are very slow. The carriages are, however, usually comfortable. The absence of vociferation in Portugal, which in a general way is a boon, is somewhat a drawback in railway travelling, as the names of the stations are not called out, and as they are often painted inconspicuously, and are not visible from the carriage windows, it is necessary for strangers to be on the alert in order not to pass their station. The best way is to provide oneself with a railway guide and count the stations as they are passed. There is, however, usually a wait at the stations long enough for inquiries to be made, as things are rarely done in a hurry in Portugal.

THE END

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London

ERRATUM

Page 44. From line 2 read as follows: ‘whilst fighting valiantly by the side of the Master of Avis at the ever-memorable battle of Aljubarrota, that gave the regal crown of Portugal to the illegitimate scion of the House of Burgundy.’

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Made the correction mentioned in the ERRATUM. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors. 3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.