Through Portugal by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

Author:Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume [Hume, Martin A. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465654168
Google: BV2SViK1wdIC
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2020-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

THE BRIDGE AT THOMAR.

The hostelry was humble enough, but a chatty, shrewd-looking, old lady provided an excellent luncheon for me in an upper room, and became charmingly friendly when I praised her wine, of which she was very proud, and with reason, grown, as she told me, in the vineyard at the back of the house, and as good a wine of its sort as I care to drink. She was equally pleased with the approval of her quince marmalade, and pressed no end of home-made confections upon her passing guest, whilst she kept repeating that “os senhores ingleses que veem sempre alabão muito o nosso vinho;” for the approval of Englishmen in this country is always taken as fixing the final seal of excellence upon anything.

Outside in the main street of the town complete quiet reigned in the fierce sunshine of midday. Against the indigo sky the immense castle on its peak showed clear, as nothing is ever seen in our mist-laden atmosphere. A man passes, bearing a great boat-shaped basket piled with big black grapes, the bloom upon them still undisturbed; four cronies in black nightcaps and with long staves in their hands gossip in the parallelogram of black shadow thrown athwart the road by the church tower; and, by-and-by, three lithe damsels with bright yellow head-kerchiefs flowing as they walk, swing by joyously; then comes, painfully hobbling beneath a heavy burden of yellow gourds, a barefooted old woman, and anon a man riding à la gineta, a pacing nag with brass-embossed harness, and great box stirrups. Then silence again for another half-hour, and this is life at Ourem.

Still through a land of pine and heather with beautiful little valleys full of vines, figs, and olives, we drove for two hours more, and, just as the black shadows began to lengthen, we drove into the town of Leiria, the Calippo of the Romans, and for long the stronghold whence the Moors harried the advancing Christians to the north. It is a lovely place on the banks of the Liz, set in the midst of pine-clad hills, and the centre of a great agricultural district. Here, again, the two abrupt eminences that loom over the town are crowned respectively by the enormous mediæval stronghold and the religious house that for ever seems to keep it company—the sword and the cross, twin instruments of soldier and priest, to keep the people in subjection, both alike happily now superseded, in Portugal at least, by more enlightened means.

IN THE MAIN STREET OF OUREM.

I started soon after my arrival at the inn, where there was no particular temptation to remain, to scale the hill from which the castle frowned down upon the town. The townspeople seemed to care nothing for the vast ruin that to me was the one attraction of the place. No one cared to guide me up the steep. It was easy, they said, to find the way by following the path, and the castle ruins were open to all.

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