The Bible in Spain | Page 7

that I must form of the Portuguese in
general, should I judge of their character and opinions from what I saw
and heard in a city so much subjected to foreign intercourse.
My first excursion was to Cintra. If there be any place in the world
entitled to the appellation of an enchanted region, it is surely Cintra;
Tivoli is a beautiful and picturesque place, but it quickly fades from the
mind of those who have seen the Portuguese Paradise. When speaking
of Cintra, it must not for a moment be supposed that nothing more is
meant than the little town or city; by Cintra must be understood the
entire region, town, palace, quintas, forests, crags, Moorish ruin, which
suddenly burst on the view on rounding the side of a bleak, savage, and
sterile-looking mountain. Nothing is more sullen and uninviting than
the south- western aspect of the stony wall which, on the side of Lisbon,
seems to shield Cintra from the eye of the world, but the other side is a
mingled scene of fairy beauty, artificial elegance, savage grandeur,
domes, turrets, enormous trees, flowers and waterfalls, such as is met
with nowhere else beneath the sun. Oh! there are strange and wonderful
objects at Cintra, and strange and wonderful recollections attached to
them. The ruin on that lofty peak, and which covers part of the side of
that precipitous steep, was once the principal stronghold of the
Lusitanian Moors, and thither, long after they had disappeared, at a
particular moon of every year, were wont to repair wild santons of
Maugrabie, to pray at the tomb of a famous Sidi, who slumbers
amongst the rocks. That grey palace witnessed the assemblage of the
last cortes held by the boy king Sebastian, ere he departed on his
romantic expedition against the Moors, who so well avenged their
insulted faith and country at Alcazarquibir, and in that low shady quinta,
embowered amongst those tall alcornoques, once dwelt John de Castro,
the strange old viceroy of Goa, who pawned the hairs of his dead son's
beard to raise money to repair the ruined wall of a fortress threatened
by the heathen of Ind; those crumbling stones which stand before the
portal, deeply graven, not with "runes," but things equally dark,
Sanscrit rhymes from the Vedas, were brought by him from Goa, the
most brilliant scene of his glory, before Portugal had become a base
kingdom; and down that dingle, on an abrupt rocky promontory, stand

the ruined halls of the English Millionaire, who there nursed the
wayward fancies of a mind as wild, rich, and variegated as the scenes
around. Yes, wonderful are the objects which meet the eye at Cintra,
and wonderful are the recollections attached to them.
The town of Cintra contains about eight hundred inhabitants. The
morning subsequent to my arrival, as I was about to ascend the
mountain for the purpose of examining the Moorish ruins, I observed a
person advancing towards me whom I judged by his dress to be an
ecclesiastic; he was in fact one of the three priests of the place. I
instantly accosted him, and had no reason to regret doing so; I found
him affable and communicative.
After praising the beauty of the surrounding scenery, I made some
inquiry as to the state of education amongst the people under his care.
He answered, that he was sorry to say that they were in a state of great
ignorance, very few of the common people being able either to read or
write; that with respect to schools, there was but one in the place, where
four or five children were taught the alphabet, but that even this was at
present closed; he informed me, however, that there was a school at
Colhares, about a league distant. Amongst other things, he said that
nothing more surprised him than to see Englishmen, the most learned
and intelligent people in the world, visiting a place like Cintra, where
there was no literature, science, nor anything of utility (coisa que
presta). I suspect that there was some covert satire in the last speech of
the worthy priest; I was, however, Jesuit enough to appear to receive it
as a high compliment, and, taking off my hat, departed with an infinity
of bows.
That same day I visited Colhares, a romantic village on the side of the
mountain of Cintra, to the north-west. Seeing some peasants collected
round a smithy, I inquired about the school, whereupon one of the men
instantly conducted me thither. I went upstairs into a small apartment,
where I found the master with about a dozen pupils standing in a row; I
saw but one stool in the room, and to that, after having embraced me,
he conducted me with great civility. After some