ege dealing with inherited dignity of ancient fame.

This Cintra is a town on a hill and in a hole, a kind of half-funnel
opening on a long plain which is dotted by small villages and farms. If
the donkey-boys were extirpated it might be fine on a fine day.

Returning to the station, I ensconced myself in a carriage out of the
way of the cutting wind, and talked fluent bad French with a kindly old
Portuguese who looked like a Quaker. Two others came in and entered into
a lively conversation in which Charing Cross and London Bridge occurred
at intervals. It took an hour and a quarter to do the fifteen mites
between Cintra and Lisbon. I was told it was considered by no means a
very slow train. Travelling in Portugal may do something to reconcile
one to the trains in the south-east of England.

The last place I visited in Lisbon was the market. Outside, the glare of
the hot sun was nearly blinding. Just in that neighbourhood all the main
buildings are purely white, even the shadows make one's eyes ache. In
the open spaces of the squares even brilliantly-clad women seemed black
against white. Inside, in a half-shade under glass, a dense crowd moved
and chattered and stirred to and fro. The women wore all the colours of
flowers and fruit, but chiefly orange. And on the stone floor great flat
baskets of oranges, each with a leaf of green attached to it, shone like
pure gold. Then there were red apples, and red handkerchiefs twisted
over dark hair. Milder looking in tint was the pale Japanese apple with
an artistic refinement of paler colour. The crowd, the good humour, the
noise, even the odour, which was not so offensive as in our English
Covent Garden, made a striking and brilliant impression. Returning to
the hotel, I was met by a scarlet procession of priests and acolytes who
bore the Host. The passers-by mostly bared their heads. Perhaps but a
little while ago every one might have been worldly wise to follow their
example, for the Inquisition lasted till 1808 in Spain.

In the afternoon of that day I went on board the _Dunottar Castle_, and
in the evening sailed for Madeira.

A week's odd moments of study and enforced intercourse with waiters and
male chambermaids, whose French was even more primitive than my own,
had taught me a little Portuguese, that curious, unbeautiful sounding
tongue, and I found it useful even on board the steamer. At anyrate I
was able to interpret for a Funchal lawyer who sat by me at table,