LIST OF ROUTES. The names of many places are necessarily repeated in several Routes; but to facilitate reference, they are printed in Italics only in those Routes under which they are fully ROUTE described, ROUTE 22 Thomar to Batalha. PAGE PAGE 100 14 Lisbon to Cascaes and the Mouth of the Tagus 73 37 Porto to Barcellos and Vianna. 155 38 Braga to Monção and Melgaço - 157 39 Porto to Amarante, by Penafiel 158 40 Zamora in Leon to Miranda do 15 Lisbon to Odivellas and Alhandra 74 16 Lisbon to Porto Douro 41 Miranda to Bragança, Chaves, 161 17 Lisbon to Leiria, by Caldas, 18 Lisbon to Leiria, by Sacavem and Molianos 76 and Braga. 78 19 Lisbon to Leiria, by Villa Nova and Candieiros. 79 20 Lisbon to Santarem, Thomar, and Abrantes 21 Santarem to Alcobaça, Batalha, and Leiria. 79 162 42 Bragança to Torre de Moncorvo 167 43 Bragança to Mirandella, Villa Real, and the Port Wine 44 Chaves to Villa Real 168 172 172 173 173 [Portugal.] b PRELIMINARY REMARKS. § 1. General Requisites.-§ 2. General Geography.—§ 3. Ways of reaching Portugal.-§ 4. Portuguese Money.-§ 5. Methods of Travelling.—§ 6. Distances. —§ 7. Inns.—§ 8. Food.-§ 9. Divisions of Portugal.-§ 10. History of Portugal. § 11. The Sebastianists.-§ 12. Works on Portugal.-§ 13. Skeleton Tours.-§ 14. Language.-§ 15. The Military Orders.-§ 16. Books.-§ 17. Conclusion. § 1.-GENERAL REQUISITES. IN taking up THE HANDBOOK FOR PORTUGAL the tourist must remember that he is about to read a description of a country less known to Englishmen than any other in Europe. There are fewer means of acquiring a knowledge of its local history and topography than are to be found with respect to any other kingdom; local guides, except for one or two of the largest cities, are almost unknown; large topographical works are extremely rare, and scarcely to be procured out of the country; the tours of English travellers are for the most part so inaccurate as to be worse than nothing; and a Portuguese seems at present unable to comprehend the idea of travelling for pleasure through his country. Roads, as we shall see, scarcely exist; inns remain in the primitive barbarity which was their characteristic when there were convents to shelter the tourist; the labour of a journey, especially through the wilder parts, is scarcely to be conceived but by those who have experienced it; and any one who has, will easily comprehend how it is that the same word travel signifies both a toil and a journey. There are three main requisites to a Portuguese tour; and if the traveller is wanting in any of them, most assuredly he had better bend his steps elsewhere: good health, good temper, and the right time of year. The first is essential for those who have to pass the extremes of heat and cold in one day, to live on such fare as broa and vinho-verde (maize-bread and the ordinary wine of the country), and to lie at night on the boards of an inn, to the tender mercies of which you would hesitate in England to consign a favourite dog. Good temper, which the handbooks for all European countries make so great a requisite, is ten times more essential here than elsewhere; not only because a Portuguese will not be hurried, and will do your work in his own way and at his own time, but because, though the easiest of all people to be led, he is the worst to be driven; and when in a passion sometimes becomes dangerous. The annoyances of passports are not very great, except on the frontier, and sometimes in the case of the pig-headed Administrador of some little Concelho. It happened to the writer, for example, to be detained for some time in a wild part of Beira, because the London visé of his passport was As it is very not entirely in the writing of the Portuguese ambassador. probable that the functionaries who will apply for your passport have never seen a Foreign-office document, and nearly certain that they will not b 2 understand a word of English, you will have in the first place to explain what it is, then to translate what it says, and lastly to convince the inquirer that a man may desire to travel in Portugal for his pleasure. If all this be done civilly, the Administrador will probably close the transaction by inviting you to partake of a bottle of wine with him; if done uncivilly, or if refused, the chances are that you may be detained in the venda till instructions can be procured from some superior authority. The muleteer is also pretty sure to prove a fair trial of his master's temper-hurrying you on when you want to take your time, finding impossibilities in proceeding when you have determined to go further, &c. "The right time," says an experienced observer, "in which to go, is April, before the spring showers are ended, and while the clouds give their shadows to the valleys, or their graceful drapery to the hills; or, while settling darkly upon the mountains, they leave the imagination in full play, to fancy an`unlimited grandeur in the Gerez, or the Outeiro Maior. If these objects be seen in the summer, under a burning sun, instead of in the spring, then many wanderers will find that their expectations of delight have been raised in vain : yet to those who can endure any personal inconvenience arising from the causes already referred to, and whose love of the beautiful nothing can extinguish, there is more than enough to speak to their eyes and their understanding in accents which language is powerless to convey." § 2.-GENERAL GEOGRAPHY. The extreme length of Portugal, from Chaviães in the north to the Cabo de S. Maria in the south, is about 356 miles its extreme breadth, from Campo Maior in the east to the Cabo da Roca in the west, is about 153. It may serve to show how imperfectly it has been surveyed, when we find that the square leagues which it contains are reckoned by Soulier de Sauve at 5125, and by Adriano da Costa at 2950; that is, one geographer makes it nearly twice as large as another. The most probable computation is that of Balbi, adopted by Perestrello da Camara, which fixes its square leagues at 3150. It follows that the best maps of the country are extremely inaccurate. Perhaps the least bad is that published by the Useful Knowledge Society; certainly the worst is Wyld's Chorographical Map, 1846. The former forms a passable travelling companion (though even here the tourist must be prepared for such a blunder as the total omission of the Berlengas Isles): the latter so mis-spells names, so misplaces situations, and is so utterly incorrect in its boundary-lines, that he who trusts in it will be most sorely disappointed. A comparison of these two will convince every one how uncertain is Portuguese geography. Most honourable exceptions, however, must be made of the Baron de Forrester's magnificent map of the Douro (Weale) from original surveys; and of the smaller map, attached to the Prize Essay: the former is one of the finest maps ever published. There is also a beautiful chart of Alemtejo and Algarve, by Bonnet. Portugal, far different in this respect from Spain, comprises but one people within its limits. Far from being a heterogeneous collection of different populations obeying the same government, it is as truly and essentially one as any single Spanish province-Andalusia, for example, which does not fall far short of the same size. The great difference consists |