we naturally seek sheltered situations. These
people as naturally select an airy site, above the parching heat and
poisoned air of the valleys. In founding colonies in tropical
countries we English, and the Dutch, have constantly blundered, acting
as if still at home; and choosing low and pestilential spots,
establish only hospitals and graveyards where we meant to build towns;
while the Spaniards and Portuguese, from the instinct of habit, select
the most salubrious situations within their reach. Moreover, high
points are safer from attack, and stronger to resist an enemy; and the
Christians of the peninsula were taught by seven centuries of conflict
with the Moors, that the safety of a man's house is the first point,
its convenience the second. Now, we islanders have long been but a
half military people. Content with incuring the guilt of war abroad,
we have carefully abstained from bringing it home to our own doors."

"But we never wage any but just wars," said Lady Mabel.

"We, at least," said L'Isle, "always find some plausible grounds on
which to justify our wars--to ourselves."

They were now on the outskirts of the undulating plain, on which a
rich soil overlying the granite rocks extends from Evora southward to
the city of Beja. The signs of cultivation and population multiplied
as they went on. The fields became larger and more frequent; detached
farm houses were seen on either hand, and they fell in on the road
with many peasants riding large and spirited asses, or driving oxen
all light bays with enormous horns, and so sleek and well grown, that
the commissary gazed on them with admiring eye and watering mouth, and
pronounced them equally fit for the yoke or the shambles.

It was a relief to find themselves once more in a cultivated country,
and Lady Mabel gazed round, admiring the prospect. "There is," she
observed, "one drawback to the landscape. At home, one of the most
enlivening features in our rural scenes, are the white sheep scattered
on the hills, but here they are almost black."

"But the goats you see are generally white," answered L'Isle. "It is,
too, the more picturesque animal, and well supplies what is wanting in
the sheep."

Evora was at hand. L'Isle launched out into an erudite discourse on
the aqueduct of Sertorius, which, stretching its long line of arches
from the neighboring hills, was converging with their road to the
city. As they entered it he was giving Lady Mabel all the pros