Page images
PDF
EPUB

hawkers, starting to their different beats in the city. These hawkers are, for the most part, women, though there are also boys and men; and one is instantly struck by their dissimilarity to the ordinary Portuguese. Their regular and rather impassive features, in many cases strikingly handsome, belong to another race. The story runs that they are indeed descended from Phoenician immigrants, whose trading instincts brought them to these shores. Although these fisherfolk have now begun to intermarry with the Portuguese, they do not do so to any great degree, and their racial characteristics have been preserved to a remarkable extent: they live in a special quarter of their own. With their large flat baskets poised on their heads, they pace by with grave stateliness, or speed past with swift yet unhurrying steps. They are of all ages: elderly matrons; young married women, often carrying a baby in addition to the fishbasket, and apparently not at all inconvenienced by the extra burden; slim girls, half-way through their 'teens; and little sisters of six and seven, dressed exactly like their elders. All go noiselessly along on bare feet, unless they wear the curious black wooden shoes, or coloured stuff slippers, both alike heelless, which they keep on their feet by some extraordinary knack, up and down the steepest hills or on the slippery quays.

Their costume is distinctive: a pleated stuff skirt over many petticoats, which swing briskly away from their ankles, but

are tightly girded round the hips with a woollen shawl; a print bodice, occasionally bright pink or blue, but more often of a subdued tint, for the fisherwoman restricts the dominant note of colour to the head-kerchief, which covers her hair under the little black felt hat, or cloth pad, that supports the heavy basket. The head-kerchief comes down over the nape and shoulders, and its brilliant hues show up to advantage in the hot sunshine, which yet prevents the crude colours from looking garish. The variety is great bright apple - green, mustard-yellow, bordered with crimson roses, cobalt - blue, scarlet, magenta, orange, are but a few of the tints that set off those somewhat impassive features. Although their reputed origin might lead one to expect to find a Semitic cast of countenance most frequent amongst them, one more often remarks the low broad brow and straight nose that would seem to hint of Greek ancestry. As they talk to one another, the flashing eyes and teeth, and the glitter of the large gold rings which dangle from their ears, make them look animated enough; but when their gaze falls with cold curiosity, almost with contempt, on the interested bystander, he is reminded of George Borrow's description of the gipsy's eye, the peculiarity of which, he says, consists chiefly in strange, staring expression, which, to be understood, must be seen-"the gipsy glance, if that can be called a glance which is a strange stare, like nothing else in this world."

One cannot but feel that whom centuries of contact with another race have left curiously uninfluenced and selfcontained.

one is in the presence of an alien people, untamed and apart like the gipsies, and

VII.

A MORNING RAMBLE.

Of all months in the year, July and August are the least agreeable in Portugal. Then the sun beats down vertically from a cloudless sky from seven in the morning till five in the afternoon, The distant hills seem to quiver in the heat, the cicadas whirr incessantly, the dust lies thick upon the roads and upon the hedges and bushes, and one longs in vain for a cool, grey, showery day to refresh exhausted nature. But even at this uncongenial season there are at least two hours in the day during which one can thoroughly enjoy a stroll. At five o'clock in the morning there is as yet no hint of the exhausting heat to follow ; a delicious glow of palest amber irradiates the countryside; the the early breeze is just keen enough to make a light wrap desirable, and is fragrant with the aromatic smoke from many wood fires. For the whole township is astir; indeed, work has begun an hour or more ago in the fields and gardens: the great bronze-skinned ox plods monotonously round, to work the long sweep of the nora (or well), whose huge wheel with its satellite buckets pours out the water, to be directed by the labourers, with the aid of spade and foot, into countless

little channels amongst the vegetables and crops.

his

There is a tinkle of bells; the milkman is going rounds; his flock of brown goats trot soberly ahead, stopping outside hotels and private houses. Whilst one goat is milked into the jug or can brought out by the servant, the rest lie down and rest, or wander about, nibbling such dusty herbage as they can find at the side of the road. times the milk is supplied by a cow, whose calf, an indispensable adjunct of the party, stands by the mother to be licked and caressed whilst the milking is in process.

Some

A

Now a strange procession approaches, half-hidden in a cloud of dust. A tall man, wrapped in the peasants' brown cloak of undyed wool, guides, with a long bamboo-rod, a little group of dimly seen objects, which trip in front of him with mincing, curtseying movements. closer inspection reveals the fact that he is driving in a flock of turkeys, and he stops now and then outside a house to utter his call, in a sort of piping chant: "Quem quer casal perú?"-"Who wants a couple of turkeys?" it being the housekeeper's custom to buy her turkeys alive and fatten them for the table.

As one goes along, the various "cries" remind one of the descriptions of Cheapside in olden days, when the 'prentices invited the attention of the passers-by with their cry of "What d'ye lack?"

Here also most of the vendors preface their calls with "Who wants-" "Who wants a basket of strawberries?" "Who wants figs? -who wants to breakfast?" "Who wants China oranges?" One woman goes into simu

lated raptures

"Oh! the beautiful greenpeas!"

While the fisher women, perhaps because they have tramped far and their loads are heavy, simply shout, in rather hoarse voices, the name of the fish they are selling: "Pes-cada!" 66 Sardinha fresca!" and so on. These various "calls" re-echo from all sides, far and near.

Presently the gardeners set to work, watering before the day's heat comes on; and the women come out with their large earthenware pitchers bilhas - to draw water at the public fountain: by some marvel of balance they carry the bilha full, on its side, upon a cloth pad on the top of their heads. Why the bilha never rolls off remains a puzzle to

Already, at

the uninitiated. six o'clock, trim maids are bringing out their small charges to play about whilst it is still cool; and on the beach the bathing-folk have set up their little encampment of square white tents, ready for the early bathers. As one passes the road to the beach one meets a lively group from the orphanage at the top of the hill out for an hour's bathing and romping before the day's work begins. They are girls, though their cropped dark heads give them the air of boys in their sisters' clothes, and a very prim uniform it is

dark cotton frocks, pink and white checked pinafores, and boots of untanned leather.

The butcher rattles by in his cart, which exactly resembles our smaller district mail-carts, except that it is painted blue; and the baker's boy is seen climbing the hill with his great creel of oddly shaped loaves and rolls strapped on his back. One suddenly realises that it is seven o'clock, that the morning freshness is over and the heat has begun, and that a twohours' ramble has left one with a keen appetite for the excellent coffee and freshly picked green figs which by this time await one in one's own cool dining-room.

VIII.

COUNTRY INNS.

Among travellers on the Continent Spanish inns have long possessed a poor reputa

tion for comfort and cleanliness; and it is one of the disadvantages of the appar

ently close connection between Spain and Portugal that the inns of the latter country are generally classed and condemned with those of the former.

We are not now discussing the hotels in Lisbon or Oporto, which are run more or less on the lines of the larger establishments with which one is familiar in England, France, or Switzerland; but we hold a brief for the modest inn of the country town, or large village, which in many ways deserves to rank high among those of its sort in any European country.

Imagine that we have arrived, after a hot and dusty journey, at one of these country towns, and have been rattled over the uneven streets in one of the little pair-horse victorias that constitute the "growlers" of the country. If we expect a picturesque inn, with creeperhung porch, deep eaves, and lattice windows, we are doomed to disappointment at the outset. We probably draw up at a long barrack-like building, with rows of green-shuttered windows, and pink-plastered walls, rather faded, and peeling off in places.

One side of the inn gives right upon the high road; on the other there will be a garden, sometimes a large one, more often just a small enclosure.

As we go indoors, we are first struck by the extreme bareness and cleanliness of the house. It is summer, and the stairs and all rooms are uncarpeted. The walls are white or faintly colour - washed, the

passages carpeted with a strip of matting. In the bedrooms, such horrors as a four-post bedstead, with musty hangings and stifling feather-bed, are unknown. A neat iron bedstead-two, in a double room is provided with a firm wellstuffed mattress, and spotlessly clean if coarse linen.

Furniture and washing apparatus are of the simplest description, but adequate and in good condition. The head chambermaid is a motherly old body, in carpet slippers and an easy gown, who shuffles along the corridors, and appears with a beaming smile when anything is required.

It is true that the bed is rather hard, and the small, square pillow and narrow bolster, stuffed with rustling maize-straw,

are not very

congenial to English heads; but one has the satisfaction of knowing that the mattress is freshly stuffed with clean wool or straw once, if not twice, in the year.

[ocr errors]

The morning tub is not a certainty: if there is a tina, as old Anna calls the bath, it is usually reserved for the use of the men of the party, who are carefully instructed, before they venture to the bathroom, as to the idiosyncrasies and limitations of the water supply. Sanitary engineering is not the strong point of the provincial architect; consequently cisterns are apt to run dry and pipes to strike work with unexpected frequency. Still, it has been our good fortune to stay at one inn where a bath was allotted to the ladies also:

it was a vast zino sponge-bath, and was trundled hoopwise into the bedroom by a small thin woman, who balanced on her head a capacious can of water, and, with the skill of a conjuror, made the bath subside and let down the can to the floor simultaneously.

The large dining-room is in charge of two or three Portuguese men-servants, who take a personal interest in our appetites, and in confidential tones recommend the most tasty dishes.

Strong, aromatic coffee, omelette, fish, and good country bread and butter are the usual dishes served at a first breakfast; and we find tablecloth, crockery, and plate perfectly clean and well kept.

The Portuguese cook possesses a genius for flavouring, and this does not mean that every dish reeks of garlic, but that all the ingredients are so deftly mingled and proportioned, that the simplest dishes are beyond description fragrant and appetising. Vegetable soups and stews, beefsteak, savoury rice, fruit compótes, form the ordinary menus of the more substantial meals; and even when one stops at one of these inns for a lunch en passant, it is wonderful to find in how short a time

such a meal is ready: the steak tender, the rice and vegetables thoroughly cooked, the coffee always well-made.

The charges are very moderate and the service is efficient and pleasantly rendered. Comfortable sitting-rooms, with papers and periodicals to amuse the visitors, are not to be expected, and in several directions there is room for improvement; but the era of reform has already begun, due chiefly to the excellent arrangements in connection with The Booth Steamship Company's series of well-planned tours, by means of which hitherto unvisited corners of Portugal are being made accessible to visitors from England

elsewhere.

or

In any case, the already existing virtues of the Portugese country inns form a sound and encouraging foundation upon which to base plans for further expansion,—and it is to be hoped that, in importing some degree of British comfort and domestic science, it will be the care of those who inspire these necessary reforms to preserve as much as possible of the simplicity, naïveté, and unostentatious efficiency which have hitherto characterised these homely guest-houses.

« PreviousContinue »