CHAPTER XII.

VEXATIOUS POLICE-LISBON-TAXATION-MILITARY SERVICE-CARRIAGES-THE

QUEEN-KING CONSORT.

THE Custom-house and police of Lisbon cause you more trouble at your landing than you meet at any other port perhaps in Europe. Every portmanteau or package is searched, and your passport rigidly scrutinized. You lose a great deal of time and all your patience before you have undergone the two ordeals. As in barbarous countries, stranger and enemy are synonymous. I don't know whether the underlings of the police office delayed the visée of my passport in hopes of a douceur, or whether from the mere consciousness of the pain they were inflicting; but it was hours before I could obtain their sanction to remain in Lisbon. It is true there was some irregularity in the passport I had obtained from the Governor of Madeira, but an irregularity of trifling import, and patent on the face of it. However, I bore the insolence of office in eloquent silence: the only eloquence of which I was capable, as I did not know even the objurgatory part of the language, which is always soonest learned.

I was disappointed in Lisbon, and most agreeably. Lord Byron and my other authorities had given me an unfavorable impression of the place. The first had written of the inhabitants as "dingy denizens," and of palaces and huts as equally filthy. Since his time, then,

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BUILDINGS IN LISBON.

fortunate changes needs must have taken place. I found streets and people clean. The higher classes of the Portuguese take very good care of their persons, and as for the lowest, they are pretty much the same the world over.

Lisbon, like Rome, stands on seven hills, upon the top of the highest of which the Castle of St. George is situated, the most prominent object to the eye from the Tagus. Many of the streets are well paved, and the Alemeria, a very precipitous street, is occupied with the massive palaces of the Portuguese nobility, with an occasional pendant garden.

Though full of churches, Lisbon boasts of no eminent cathedral. Its aqueduct, however, would have done credit to Roman architects in Rome's best days. Its principal arches cross the valley to the north-east of the city, and discharge the cool, sparkling, delicious element into a rocky edifice, called Mother of Waters, whence the whole city is supplied. The source is seven leagues distant, and there are other edifices and public works not unworthy of attentive regard. There is the Church of San Roque, coarse and common in its exterior, but containing within its walls some of the best mosaic in the world, fashioned and finished at a cost of a million or more of money. Then there are the English and Portuguese cemeteries, as attractive to the living as the empty mansions of the dead can ever be. The Black Horse Square is one of the finest in Europe: one side abuts on the Tagus, to which you descend by a massive flight of steps; on the opposite side is the entrance, the gateway of which, formed of brilliant marble, will, when completed, be a specimen of gorgeous architecture. The Custom-house and other buildings of stone and marble complete the square, while an equestrian statue of Dom Joseph, no indifferent

BEGGARS.

piece of art, embellishes the center.

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Then there is the

Praza of Dom Pedro, a nice promenade, and the Public Gardens, a better lounge for Sunday evenings, where the Queen's band performs.

I saw no beggars in the streets, and should have come, like travelers generally, to some hasty and unadvised conclusion therefrom but for the explanation of a friend, who informed me that Government prohibited beggary, i. e., incarcerated all who were caught soliciting alms. This is a fortunate arrangement for the sojourners within the gates; but I doubt if the alternative between starvation and a prison is considered much of a boon by the pauper population, whose name is legion here as well as in the Continental cities generally. I know no language better adapted than the Portuguese to mendicancy. The melancholy and lugubrious sounds of the terminating ao break upon the ear like a dying groan; and this accompanied by the whine and loathsome appearance of a professional pauper is irresistible. Self-defence, more powerful than charity, compels you to give. For it is your own relief you seek. The income tax here has gone far beyond the audacity of Sir Robert Peel. His principle has been carried out, as the logicians would say, ad absurdum. The poor laborer, who by dint of unintermitted exertion, gains his dollar or his half per diem, is obliged to pay 10 per cent. of the amount to the Treasury; and with this fact before me, I was a little surprised that Government had suppressed beggary, for it might have come in for its tithe there also!

Every able-bodied young man in Portugal is liable to service in the army, from eighteen to twenty-four years of age; and all who can not pay for a substitute, are obliged to become soldiers at ten cents per day, all things included. Many maim themselves to escape en

listment; and more desert, and fly the country. What with monopolies, taxes, and compulsory military service, the condition of the lower classes here is not most enviable.

And yet they do not seem unhappy; and doubtless are more contented with their lot than others with a better. It is not, indeed, the little or the much that constitutes happiness, but the disposition with which either is received. This unquestionably has struck others as well, and I claim no merit for the discovery.

Lisbon is not a "fast" place-nor "progressive." The people stand by the landmarks which their fathers have set up, and are slow at imitation, unless with the higher classes, who ape French manners. This adherence to ancient usages I noticed in many things; in more than in carriages for hire, the fashion of which, as well perhaps as the very vehicles themselves, has come down through generations. They are so high in the air that you can not get into them without ladders, or your driver's assistance. They have two wheels and two horses. The driver straddles the nigh horse, and whips the off one, whose back is covered with something probably intended for a saddle, with a projection into the air from the pummel, like a miniature steeple. Sometimes mules are used. The "Patriarch's" carriage is drawn by four of these animals, with bells round their necks; and clattering and ringing through the streets, it makes quite a sensation. Why the Patriarch prefers mules I did not learn-perhaps in imitation of the founder of his religion, who rode into Jerusalem mounted in that way; and certainly, whatever heretics. may say otherwise against the high dignitaries of the Holy Church, they can not refuse them the praise of humility.

Mules, if not so handsome, are more serviceable

WANT OF FEMALE BEAUTY.

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than horses; at least in Portugal. It is astonishing how much they will carry and endure. I often met them coming into the city with a whole domestic establishment on their backs-furniture, kitchen-utensils, beds-one mule moving a whole family, women and children surmounting the load. They ride upon them, eat upon them, sleep upon them—indeed make of them ambulatory residences; and the poor animals get for all their endurance stripes, for all their exhausting exertions starvation. But this is so every where. Where we hear no complaints we imagine no sufferings; or if we do, heed them not.

The less said of the Portuguese ladies the betterphysically and morally. Of course, I speak generally, making all due exceptional allowance. Black eyes and blacker hair is mostly their physical beauty. I attended a ball at the Duchess of Palmella's, where all the ton of Lisbon were assembled; and among the native Portuguese there was not one really beautiful girl. Two English young ladies and one American relieved the scene from monotonous ugliness. They stood out, like stars, and dispelled the darkness. There were, however, many fine-looking men present; and, indeed, you find no handsomer gentlemen than the Portuguese, or of more agreeable manners and conversation. It were well if they intermarried with women of other nations, and transmitted their own good looks to other generations.

I attended the opera one night, rather to see than hear-for the company, a French one, was indifferent. I saw the queen there (since dead), Donna Maria da Gloria, who was thought well qualified to reign till she had ascended the throne. Her father's popularity was her capital, which she soon exhausted. She had one fault more unpopular with her countrymen than want