Évora

“ ESTREMOZ, a town of Portugal, in the district of Evora, formerly included in the province of Alemtejo; 104 m. by rail E. of Lisbon, on the Casa Branca-Evora-Elvas railway. Pop. (1900) 7920. Estremoz is built at the base of a hill crowned by a large dismantled citadel; its fortifications, which in the 17th century accommodated 20,000 troops and rendered the town one of the principal defences of the frontier, are now obsolete. There are marble quarries in the neighbourhood, and the Estremoz bilhas, red earthenware jars, are used throughout Portugal as water-holders and exported to Spain. ”

“ About a fortnight after my return from Evora, having made the necessary preparations, I set out on my journey for Badajoz, from which town I intended to take the diligence to Madrid. Badajoz lies about a hundred miles distant from Lisbon, and is the principal frontier town of Spain in the direction of the Alemtejo. To reach this place, it was necessary to re-travel the road as far as Monte Moro, which I had already passed in my excursion to Evora ”

“ CHAPTER III Shopkeeper at Evora—Spanish Contrabandistas—Lion and Unicorn—The Fountain—Trust in the Almighty—Distribution of Tracts—Library at Evora—Manuscript—The Bible as a Guide—The Infamous Mary—The Man of Palmella—The Charm—The Monkish System—Sunday—Volney—An Auto-Da-Fé—Men from Spain—Reading of a Tract—New Arrival—The Herb Rosemary.
Evora is a small city, walled, but not regularly fortified, and could not sustain a siege of a day. ”

“ Monte Moro is the head of a range of hills crossing this part of the Alemtejo, and from hence they fork towards the east and south-east, in the former of which directions lies the direct road to Elvas, Badajoz, and Madrid, and in the latter the road to Evora. A beautiful mountain, covered to the top with cork trees, is the third in the chain which skirts the way in the direction of Evora. ”

“ It was dark night before we reached Evora, and having taken leave of my friends, who kindly requested me to consider their house my home, I and my servant went to the Largo de San Francisco, in which the muleteer informed me was the best hostelry of the town. We rode into the kitchen, at the extreme end of which was the stable, as is customary in Portugal. The house was kept by an aged gypsy-like female and her daughter, a fine blooming girl about eighteen years of age. ”

“ For myself, I confess I am not a person of extraordinary resolution, but the dangers of the night daunt me no more than those of midday. The man in question was a farmer from Evora, and a person of considerable wealth.
I found the inn at Vendas Novas thronged with people, and had some difficulty in obtaining accommodation and refreshment. It was occupied by the family of a certain Fidalgo, from Estremoz; he was on the way to Lisbon, conveying a large sum of money, as was said—probably the rents of his estates. ”

“ On the afternoon of the 6th of December I set out for Evora, accompanied by my servant. I had been informed that the tide would serve for the regular passage-boats, or felouks, as they are called, at about four o’clock; but on reaching the side of the Tagus opposite to Aldea Gallega, between which place and Lisbon the boats ply, I found that the tide would not permit them to start before eight o’clock. Had I waited for them I should have probably landed at Aldea Gallega about midnight, and I felt little inclination to make my entrée in the Alemtejo at that hour ”

“ Alemtejo (a ̇-lān ̇-tā′zhō; 'beyond the Tagus') , the largest province of Portugal, and the most southern except Algarve; area, 9219 sq. miles; pop. 478,584. The capital is Evora. It has about 30 miles of coast, but no good harbour and no navigable river. Large areas are devoted to pasturage, and the cultivated portions are comparatively limited, though in the east there are fertile valleys where grain, fruits, &c., are cultivated. There are valuable cork forests in this portion also. Excellent horses are reared. Copper and iron mines are worked ”

“ About half a mile from the southern wall is a stone fountain, where the muleteers and other people approaching the town are accustomed to water their cattle. I sat down by it, and there I remained about two hours, entering into discourse with every one who halted at the fountain; and I will here observe that during the time of my sojourn at Evora I repeated my visit every day, and remained there about the same time, and by following this plan I believe that I spoke to near two hundred of the children of Portugal upon matters connected with their eternal welfare. ”

“ The interior corresponds with the exterior, offering nothing which can gratify curiosity, if we except the kitchens, which are indeed magnificent, and so large that food enough might be cooked in them, at one time, to serve as a repast for all the inhabitants of the Alemtejo.
I passed the night with great comfort in a clean bed, remote from all those noises so rife in a Portuguese inn, and the next morning at six we again set out on our journey, which we hoped to terminate before sunset, as Evora is but ten leagues from Vendas Novas. ”

“ The principal productions are wheat, wine, olive-oil, cork, wool, and fruit. Of the forty million dollars’ worth of agricultural products, twelve are in wine, ten in grain, and seven in wool. More than two-thirds of the exports are to England.
“The population of Portugal is about four millions. It has few large towns, only two having over fifty thousand inhabitants. Lisbon has two hundred and seventy-five thousand, and Oporto about ninety thousand. Coimbra,—which has the only university in the country,—Elvas, Evora, Braga, and Setubal, are important towns. The kingdom has six provinces ”

“ V. Guimarães, A Ordem de Christo, p. 155.
[9] A. Hapt, Die Baukunst, etc., in Portugal, vol. ii. p. 36.
[10] These may perhaps be by the so-called Master of São Bento, to whom are attributed a 'Visitation'—in which Chastity, Poverty, and Humility follow the Virgin—and a 'Presentation,' both now in Lisbon. Some paintings in São Francisco Evora seem to be by the same hand.
[11] Misericordia=the corporation that owns and manages all the hospitals, asylums, and other charitable institutions in the town. There is one in almost every town in the country. ”

“ In the whole of Portugal there is no place of worse reputation, and the inn is nicknamed Estalagem de Ladrões, or the hostelry of thieves; for it is there that the banditti of the wilderness, which extends around it on every side for leagues, are in the habit of coming and spending the money, the fruits of their criminal daring; there they dance and sing, eat fricasseed rabbits and olives, and drink the muddy but strong wine of the Alemtejo. An enormous fire, fed by the trunk of a cork-tree, was blazing in a niche on the left hand on entering the spacious kitchen. ”

“ It is the steep right bank of the Douro which has provided Oporto with its most curious and conservative quarters. There is here little scope for change. The narrow streets descend so sheerly that they have become in places mere flights of stone steps, and the coal smoke of Oporto gives them a coat of blackness. It is the most northern in look of all southern cities. If you were to transport a part of the City or some town of the North of England to the radiant sunshine and crushing heat of Portugal, you might have a like effect. ”

“ E. of Lisbon, once a strong place, and the seat of an archbishop; it abounds in Roman antiquities.
Evremond, Saint, a lively and witty Frenchman; got into trouble in France from the unbridled indulgence of his wit, and fled to England, where he became a great favourite at the court of Charles II., and enjoyed himself to the top of his bent; his letters are written in a most graceful style (1613-1703) .
Evreux (14) , capital of the dep. of Eure, on the Iton, 67 m. NW. of Paris; is an elegant town; has a fine 11th-century cathedral, an episcopal palace with an old clock tower ”

“ We lay there but a very short time, when we proceeded on our way to Oporto, where we arrived just before nightfall, and marched, into the town with bugles playing and all the colours we had left flying; for they were tattered and torn with shot. The inhabitants of the town gave us a hearty cheer, and had pitchers of wine ready for us as we passed along and went into our old residence at the Convent of St. Lazarus, there to lie until further orders. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is too hot for these oracular little elvish beings in Portugal, one must not here expect their inspirations; but would to Heaven some revelation of this or any other nature had warned me off in time, from the blinding dust and excessive sultriness of Lisbon and its neighbourhood. How silly, when one is well and cool, to gad abroad, in the vain hope of making what is really best, better. Depend upon it, there is more vernal delight and joy in our green hills and copses, than in all these stunted olive fields and sun-burnt promontories. ”

“ A handsome, thriving city is Oporto, mounting in terraces up the slope of a steep hill. A fine quay runs the length of the town along the Douro, and here the active life of Oporto is mainly concentrated. Any stranger watching this stir of movement and color will be struck by the prominent position which women fill in the busy crowd. The men do not absorb all branches of labor. Besides the water-carriers, market-women and fruit-vendors there may be seen straight, stalwart lasses acting as portresses to convey loads to and from [Pg 481] the boats which are fastened to the river-wall. ”

“ If the mountains that divide it from the Ebro valley are once passed, there is no way of stopping the invader till he reaches the border of Asturias, Galicia, or New Castile. The whole plain forms the valley of the Upper Douro and its tributaries, the Adaja, Pisuerga, Esla, Tormes, and the rest. It narrows down towards Portugal, as the mountains of Galicia on the one side and Estremadura on the other throw out their spurs to north and south. Hence the Lower Douro valley, after the Portuguese frontier has been passed, is a defile rather than a plain. ”

“ The towns of Portugal have to thank their position on steep hills, strong sites chosen against attack of Moor or Christian, for having kept in some at least of their quarters a peculiar character of mediaeval charm. So steep are many of Oporto’s streets that a strike of tramcars—which in Portugal ascend streets truly perpendicular—leaves the citizens in a comical helplessness, infants without arms. Oporto covers several hills on the right bank of the Douro. ”

“ A few yards distant, through a little maze of mediæval streets, is the cathedral, the Sé, with a quiet little courtyard before it, from the parapet of which the red roofs and abundant verdure of the city spread downward in waves to the water-side. These north Portuguese cathedrals are marvellously alike; sharing the early beauties and 17later barbarities of their successive generations of masters. This of Oporto is a good specimen. The sturdy warrior kings who wrested Portugal, bit by bit, from Castilian and from Moor, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were true crusaders. ”

“ Among the counties of Gallicia was one called the 'comitatus Portucalensis,' because it contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or 'The Port.' This county of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand's death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous families in Portuguese history. ”

“ The duke d’Aveiro was descended from the younger branch of the family of Mascarenhas, which, though one of the most ancient houses in Portugal, was not one of the most noble, and he certainly had no claim to the distinguished rank he afterwards held, which he owed entirely to his uncle, brother Gaspard, a mere Portugueze gentleman; he himself being incapable of pushing his fortune, or aspiring to favour through his personal merit. ”

“ Challenges in improvised verses form one of the amusements of young men. Nor is the population devoid of physical beauty. The women of Aveiro, though often enfeebled by malaria, have the reputation of being the prettiest in all Portugal.
The cultivation of the vine and the making of port wine constitute the principal branch of industry of the country. The chief vine-growing district, ordinarily known as Paiz do Vinho, lies to the north of the Douro, between the Serra de Marão and the Tua, and is exposed to the full force of the rays of the summer sun. ”

“ Oviedo—that little city between the mountains and the sea, so far off the beaten track—was the cradle of the monarchy, the residence and burial-place of its patriot kings. For all men of Spanish blood it is holy ground. In Zamora we have the typical city of the heroic age of Spain, the era of half-fabulous heroes, whose personalities are made known to us only by folklore and ballads.
Segovia and Avila are towns of the Reconquest, wardens, one might say, against the redoubtable Moor. ”

“ Two cities in Portugal dominate the whole country—Lisbon and Oporto. They are the power houses from which emanates the movement carrying life and activity into the provinces. Both of them are seaports, but Lisbon is the seat of government, and possesses the superior advantage of offering navigation one of the finest natural havens of the world, an important bourne of the great Ocean in touch with the seas of the north and the Mediterranean. ”