ham; and
embarked in the ark of Noah; so that it can neither see me, nor hear
me, nor draw the blood from my body! I also conjure Thee, O Lord, by
those three blessed crosses--by those three blessed chalices--by
those three blessed clergymen--by those three consecrated hosts, that
Thou give me that sweet company which Thou gavest the Virgin Maria,
from the gates of Bethlehem even unto the portals of Jerusalem, that
I may go and come with peace and joy with Jesus Christ, Son of the
Virgin Maria, the prolific, yet nevertheless the eternal Virgin Maria
our Lady.'

The woman of the house and her daughter had similar bags tied to their
necks, containing charms, which they said prevented the witches having
power to harm them. The belief in witchcraft is very prevalent amongst
the peasantry of the Alemtejo, and I believe of other provinces of
Portugal. This is one of the relics of the monkish system, the aim of
which in all countries where it has existed, or does exist, seems to be
to besot the minds of the people that they may be the more easily
plundered and misled. The monks of the Greek and Syriac Churches
likewise deal in this kind of ware, which they know to be poison, but
which, as it brings them a price and fosters delusion by which they are
maintained in luxury and idleness, they would rather vend than the
wholesome drug.

The Sunday morning was fine, and the plain before the church of the
Convent of San Francisco was thronged with people going to mass or
returning. After having performed my morning devotions and breakfasted,
I went down to the kitchen. The fine girl Geronima was seated by the
fire. I asked if she had heard mass; she replied, 'No,' and that she did
not intend to hear it. Upon my inquiring her motive for absenting
herself, she replied that, since the friars had been expelled from their
churches and convents, she had ceased to attend mass or to confess
herself, for that the Government priests had no spiritual power, and
consequently she never troubled them. She said the friars were holy men
and charitable; for that every morning those of the convent over the way
had fed forty poor persons with the remains of their meals of the
preceding day, but that now these people were allowed to starve. I
replied that the friars who had lived upon the dainties of the land could
well afford to bestow a few bones on the poor, and that their doing so
was not the effect of