money, plate, jewels, and valuables of all kinds, from the suppressed convents of the Jesuits, which Pombal had quietly intended to appropriate for himself; they were sent back to India by Dona Maria I. There was a general cry for the trial and execution of the degraded minister; but, out of respect to the memory of her father, the queen contented herself with banishing him to a distance of 20 leagues from the court. Followed by the execration of all Portugal, he retired to the place whence he derived his title, and died there in 1782. That his talents as a politician have been very much overrated there can be no doubt; that it would not be easy to overrate his total want of principle is equally certain. It is far clearer that he was a bad than that he was a great man, His remains were preserved by the monks when the church of S. Francisco, where they had been buried, was accidentally burnt, and now lie unburied in a little chapel in the town.

The Igreja Matriz is a modern building; on the opposite side of the square in which it stands is an inscription setting forth that, in that house, Charles, King of Spain (i. e. the Pretender to that monarchy, whose support by the English gave rise to the war of succession), slept on Aug. 31, 1704. The castle stands well on an eminence, and is an interesting ruin. The traveller should make a point of seeing the remains of the church of the Templars, a very good specimen of Romanesque. Of the horrid atrocities committed by the French in this place, Colonel Landmann, an eye-witness, has left a faithful account:

"The author had passed a week at Pombal, about 2 years before its destruction, in the house of a gentleman at that place, and was treated with great kindness: the family consisted of a gentleman, his wife, one son, two daughters, and three young ladies, his nieces, all well educated and very amiable. Every evening during the said week, little parties assembled either at this house or at that of some

of the friends, and to these he, the author, went as one of the family. The harmony of these meetings and the pleasantness of society were such as to baffle ordinary descriptions. The common people, too, appeared in much better circumstances than in other parts of the kingdom. In 1811, on revisiting Pombal, after the torch and sword had done their worst, the author went to the house where he had experienced so much civility, anxious to learn the fate of the family. On reaching the door, it appeared that the fire had been less active there than in other quarters: after knocking several times, a feeble voice from. an upper window inquired the business of the stranger; on looking up he saw the well-known countenance of the mistress of the house, but she was deeply worn by grief. The lady instantly descended, and, bursting into a flood of tears, remained speechless several minutes : at length, with a loud scream, she exclaimed, 'Oh! the French have destroyed them all;' and related the following heart-rending account: On the retreat of the French army from near Lisbon, my family, excepting my three nieces, thought it most prudent not to quit the house, as the enemy had always held out to us that every house which the inhabitants abandoned should be plundered. Under this delusion, we ventured to remain here, in hopes of saving our little property: we saw them enter the town, and all went on tolerably well, until the last of them were about to depart. Oh! then, what scenes of bloodshed and murders of every kind! They came in and asked for my unfortunate husband; he no sooner appeared than several soldiers demanded money, plate, jewels, &c., with their guns pointed at his breast, and threatening to shoot him on the spot if he did not satisfy them: my unhappy son was at this time in the upper part of the house, and came down to defend his sisters, thinking that insult had been offered them; as he entered the room the ruffians stabbed him through the heart: in an instant afterwards my poor husband

was shot, and this noise brought my daughters from a concealed place. Oh God, how can I declare their fate? Yet why should I cover the truth? They no sooner appeared than the soldiers rushed upon them; one, thank God! escaped into the yard, and, by seeking her death in the well, was saved from meeting the same treatment with her unhappy sister, who was detained in this room with myself, and there, before my face, suffered on this very spot,' pointing to the floor, 'every infamy which delicacy forbids me to mention; and then received the death-blow from the very men who, had they been human beings, ought to have looked upon her at least with compassion; but no, they seemed to rejoice in their guilt, and stripped both of us of every article of our clothes; the house was then plundered, the furniture destroyed and set on fire.'

"The wretched lady, at this period of her narration, seemed to be almost deprived of her senses; but, after recovering, told the author that one of her nieces at the approach of the enemy quitted the house, and she had only just been informed that a body answering the description of her person had been found dead and floating in an adjacent lake; of the two others, one had died on board a vessel in Mondego Bay, either through want or from some other cause; and the third, after suffering during several days under a dreadful state of mental derangement, had expired without once recovering her reason.

"From this house the author went in quest of some place where his horses could be put under cover during the ensuing night; and amongst other buildings he entered a church, which the enemy had evidently used as a stable: the floor had been taken up to serve as fuel, or to search for gold in the graves of the dead, and was strewed with skulls and other human bones; the decorations of the interior were totally destroyed; and, on observing some pieces of rope fastened to a high beam over the principal altar, he was informed that three of

the friars belonging to the adjoining convent had been hung in their sacerdotal vestments, by the enemy, to that beam. In short, every church, house, or other building, was reduced to a state of ruin; and the author, in rambling through the adjacent grounds, particularly near the ancient castle on the hill, in search of an advantageous spot whence he could employ his pencil, was forced by the stench of the half-buried bodies to hurry away." -Landmann, pp. 241-243. Hence as in Rte. 23 to 7 *COIMBRA and 18 *PORTO.

1 Aldea da Cruz. Here the traveller had better rest, there being a very decent Estalagem; hence the road goes straight to Leiria, and the muleteer will probably endeavour to persuade him that this is the best way to Batalha. Turning to the 1., and ascending so steep a hill that the mules can scarcely keep their footing, to

Ourem. 3000 inhab. This most desolate of all desolate places crowns a sharp peak of the Serra do Junto; there is no kind of Estalagem; the place seems utterly deserted, and, with its ruinous walls and commanding situation, gives the very idea of a medieval town. If the traveller should not have stopped at Aldea, a man who lives at the W. end of the church can supply him with bread and wine. The church itself is modern; but in the crypt there is a recumbent effigy on a high tomb to D. Affonso, Marquis of Valera and Count of Ourem, founder of the church. He

was grandson, says his epitaph, to D. João of glorious memory; and died August 29, 1460. The crypt itself is modernised. The castle, at the S. E. end of the town, is a magnificent ruin; the access to it is up a steep path through two barbicans, one seeming to hang over the other on account of the precipitousness of the hill; the entrance-tower of the castle itself is also perfect. The date of the ruin seems Middle-Pointed, and the view from the second barbican is superb, commanding the whole Serra do Junto, and the country as far as C. Peniche and Torres Vedras. There is also a very lovely prospect from a goat-path immediately to the N. of the church; the country is exquisitely

wooded and sprinkled with many villages: the valley of the Nabão is especially beautiful. Ourem is scarcely ever visited; the grass grows in the streets; many of the houses are untenanted; and you may walk from one end to the other without seeing an inhabitant.

N.B. Be sure to take a guide well acquainted with the way, as the country between here and Batalha is excessively intricate.

Over a desolate barren heath, and following the valley of the Lis, to 1 Redondo. Hence through a hilly country, covered with pine-woods,

to

1* BATALHA, as in Rte. 21.

ROUTE 23.

POMBAL TO COIMBRA AND PORTO.

Lisbon to Pombal. (See Rte. 21.) Shortly after leaving Pombal, we enter the province of Beira; we then pass through a tongue of Alemtejo, and presently afterwards enter Beira for the second time. The road is at first pretty, but soon becomes very bleak and tiresome.

31* Condeixa, the Conimbrica of the Romans, a pretty little town of 1200 inhab. The women of this place have no very good reputation, owing to the vicinity of the University. The road continues dull till we pass the little village of Sarnache. "Não vejo," as a Coimbra-man very truly writes, "no decurso de jornada senão charnecas incultas, pobres casaes dispersos, grandes edificios, uns arruinados, outros inteiramente por terra, que servem de guarida aos salteadores, o nos appresentão o quadro mais triste e medonho." At length, approaching the extremity of the table-land we have been traversing, we hear the muleteer's shout, Olha a torre da Universidade! and, as we descend the valley of the Mondego, winding through a lovely forest, a magnificent view is obtained of the city of Coimbra, as it rises steeply on the northern bank of the river, and crowns the conical hill on which it is crowded together. We rapidly pass the convent of Sta. Clara on the 1.; come down to the bridge, and, crossing it, take up our quarters at the very comfortable Estalagem on the opposite side and on the 1. hand; the Hospedaria de Lopez, one of the best inns in Portugal, perhaps the best. The windows of the sitting-rooms open into a kind of verandah which commands a view of the river (here about as broad as the Thames at Fulham), the bridge, the Quinta das Lagrimas on the further side, and the convent of Sta. Clara crowning the opposite hill. There are few more beautiful views than this, especially by moonlight.

3*COIMBRA, the see of a bishop, and one of the 17 administrações,

contains about 15,000 inhab., exclusive of the university. It thus reckons as the fourth city in the kingdom in population, but claims the third place in importance. Succeeding to the Conimbrica of the Romans, which, as was just said, was situated at Condeixa, it was liberated from the Moors in 872, reconquered by them in 982, and finally, in 1064, re-won by D. Fernando the Great, assisted by D. Rodrigo de Bivar, the celebrated Cid. There are still traces of this victory in the names of the Porta da Traição, by which the conquerors entered, and the Arco de Almedina, that is, of the "Gate of Blood," where the most desperate struggle took place. At the erection of Portugal into a kingdom, Coimbra became the capital of the monarchy, and continued so till the reign of D. João I. election of that prince by the celebrated Cortes held in this city, the nobility and deputies requested him to transfer the seat of government to Lisbon, for the sake of the advantages derivable from the Tagus.

After the

Three or four days may be passed here very agreeably; and the artist will find abundant employment. Begin by visiting the church of S. João de Almedina, a curious Romanesque building, founded by D. Fernando in gratitude for his victory. Next go to the cathedral. The Sé Velha-for a modern building is the actual cathedralstands at the summit of a street of steps, in a bold, abrupt position, soaring right up above the network of lanes and alleys that surround it. Restored and barbarised as it has been, enough remains to show its original structure. It is a cross church of tolerable size, with central tower and apsidal chapels at the E. of each transept, low, heavy, and gloomy

"Half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Moor."

The great characteristic of the aisles is their clerestory windows: the transepts project very little; and the whole is embattled. Portuguese writers assert that in this church D. Fernando armed the Cid with the sword with which he sent him forth to conquer